Decision making involves making up ones mind. It is an activity that happens every day, every time and at anywhere. Examples include, deciding on our career, deciding on the types of friends to have, the activities of a particular day etc.

Sometimes, decision making may need writing materials and/or storage materials which might be of remembrance anytime. This will help you to know when you are on the track or out of what you have decided. For one to make decisions, one must;

a) Be self confident.
b) Mentally mature.
c) Have little knowledge on what to decide on.

Inability to make right decisions exposes both young and old to different problems and challenges. To the young, it can lead life regrets and expensive mistakes that can never be reversed. Therefore one needs to be very careful when making decisions, in order to avoid mistakes and regrets.

REASONS FOR MAKING DECISIONS.
a) To help one accomplish one’s goal.
b) To determine one’s position or stand.
c) To guide the actions one takes so that one does not regret anything.

MAKING HOLD DECISION.
a) It is important for one to clarify his /her values i.e. understand and be sure of personal and family values as a basis for good decision.
b) Before making an important decision, it is necessary to have enough facts or information about all aspects of the issue in order to weigh the options and make an informed decision.
c) It is important to think critically and determine how to make the most effective use of one’s opinions and values so as to bring about a good result.

FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE DECISION MAKING.
a) Religion.
b) Society.
c) Government policy.
d) Environmental preferences.

CONSEQUENCES OF MAKING WRONG DECISIONS.
a) Regrets.
b) Inability to meet goals.
c) Loss of focus.
d) Being misled.

Note: Your decision is like a torch light that directs your movement at night. Thus, unless you decide on what to do, you will end up being diverted or other will decide it for you.

In terms of career opportunities, outstanding managers endeavour to improve themselves so as to be ready to face this fast changing world. They are aware of the significance of continued personal development.

Continued personal development helps in improving the knowledge that you have. This is mainly because continued personal development is an experience wherein you can achieve self-awareness as well as self-improvement.

If you want to engage in self development, you should be open to changes and challenges from people around you. You might as well ask yourself these questions, What is my comfort zone? Am I ready to let go of it for the sake of self-improvement? Am I willing to accept and learn new things as well as listen to fresh ideas from other people?

Then, ask the help of those around you, your employees or team members, to motivate and encourage you by asking challenging things and question your decisions in order to compel you into considering other perspectives. Do not forget to thank them for helping you out in your quest for self improvement.

To learn more is to gain more knowledge and skills. The skills and knowledge you have gained may be a big help to be successful in your line of work. Keep in mind that past experiences and knowledge are slowly becoming obsolete. For this reason, self development is needed for you to succeed and come out on top of your field.

The most valuable assets that you have are the knowledge you have acquired from your experiences as well as the action that results from it. By cultivating these assets, you can be on top. Improving your knowledge with the help of self improvement techniques can give you the success you desire to have in your life.

You earn more by learning more. Engaging in continued personal development could make you live your life with confidence. When you commit and dedicate yourself to continued personal development, you are continuously developing your knowledge, skills and abilities which could pave the way for your success. You should not be afraid of change, for change is the only constant thing in this world and only continued personal development can make you face these changes.

Failure can be experienced by both adults and children. No one is too young or too old to encounter failure. Sometimes children fail to measure up to the expectations of the parents, teachers or friends. Failure can kindle depression even in children if not checked.

Feelings of failure come when you have low grades in school, when you are rejected or condemned by loved ones, or when a particular goal could not be achieved and so on. When these happen, changes are noticed. You can’t find pleasure in the activities you once enjoyed. You feel your life has nothing important to contribute and is totally meaningless. You may often cry and sometimes you feel you were never born and you would rather well off dead. You read without understanding, you loose appetite, over eat or even running off some bottles, poor or excessive sleep, nightmare and ill health may be some of the results. All these are manifestations of chronic depression which may lead to serious mental disorder if not checked.

Why people fail…

A lot of people fail in life because they refused to accept the fact that failure is part of life. Failure is to strengthen and not to destroy. Accept the fact that disappointments are meant to come in one’s life and when it comes, just say I will get it over. Most people refused to share their problems even to their loved and trusted ones which may have the ability to counsel them on how to go about it, not knowing that problem shared, is half solved. Keeping it to you, is like a heavy load on the camel’s back.

If you have strong determination to succeed in life, failure will have no effect on you. “Falling does not mean you are a failure, rather you have not yet succeeded” failure should pose new challenges to you. Put in more effort for a better outcome; don’t accept to remain where you failed.
Failure sometimes makes you appreciate success when it eventually comes.

Any way out…

When failure comes, analyze the situation.

Examine the cause of failure and how discovered lapses could be corrected. I tell you life can become boring when you don’t have problems. You must learn how to cope with failure because they are bound to come. Most good things don’t come easy. Don’t bring everything to halt in your life simply because you have fallen in an area.

Many successful people today attributed their success to hard work, endurance, determination and strong will to succeed. All these keep you going in spite of all hurdles. Don’t get destabilized or distracted by unfortunate circumstances. Prove yourself fit for challenges, therein lies your pride and strength. It doesn’t matter how long it takes you to achieve a goal, what matters are how well you achieve a goal. You are meant to soar like an eagle, so failure should not be the end of the road. See you at the top.

Your level of self-confidence will actually show in so many ways – it could be through your behavior, your body language as well as on the manner of speaking, and so on. Here are the steps on building your self-confidence:

Preparing Yourself

First and foremost, you should get yourself ready for your journey towards building self-confidence. You must know where you are heading to and think about where you should go. You should have the right direction and mindset, by committing yourself to starting it out right and to staying that way.

Setting Out

This is the stage where you should start your journey slowly and slowly, while moving towards achieving your goal. By doing the right things in a gradual manner, starting with small and easy wins, you should be able to put yourself on the right path to success, while starting to build self-confidence that comes with this.

Step up towards Success

At this stage, you should be able to feel confident about yourself. This is the moment where you start stretching yourself, in order to make your goals a bit higher while getting through the more tough challenges. This is where you need to increase your commitment and motivation, while extending the skills that you’ve proven for yourself.

For as long as you keep on moving forward, although not too much, you’ll soon find your self-confidence building rapidly. This is where you realize that you have finally earned your self-confidence, all because of the hard work that you put into it.

Lack of self confidence can be a result of low self esteem, self doubt or unrealistic expectations of yourself and not being able to accomplish them within the time period you have set for yourself. Lack of self confidence can be a problem. You cannot make others believe in you, if you do not believe in your own abilities.

Moreover you are limiting your own growth and success, since your thoughts and words have the power to shape and change your own destiny. People with low self confidence often find it difficult to meet new challenges. They have a pessimistic approach towards situations and thereby limit their own growth and success.

Some of the things one can do to gain self confidence are to firstly challenge your own negative thoughts. Remember things do not change, we change. Start off by changing the way you feel about things. Inculcate a positive attitude and thought process. Additionally break free from the patterns that limit how you feel and act, and do not indulge in self pity and feelings of worthlessness.

If you feel sad or angry about a situation, do not dwell in those feelings for long. Why let the negative experience continue to trouble you. Instead look at the situation as a learning experience. Also plan out your work and work out your plan. Remember actions bring results. Plan out your work and be prepared to face all the challenges and possible outcome with a positive attitude.

Don’t get confused between true impostors and those who are suffering from the impostor phenomenon. A good illustration might be two authors seen by the reading public as both successful. One is an impostor – the truth is he actually employed a ghost writer in coming up with his work. The other author, who is afflicted by the impostor phenomenon, actually wrote the book for which he is being acclaimed but inwardly, he believes that the book is actually mediocre and does not deserve the distinctive reviews it is getting. One author is a real fake while the other thinks he is a fake.

What’s the importance of knowing that there is such a thing as an “impostor phenomenon?” Well, because the psychologist who discovered it found out that it is not a rare occurrence, it could be that without realizing it, you are in fact suffering from the impostor phenomenon.

Here are possible signs that you could be in it:

1. You often shy away from challenges you know you can handle because of a persistent doubt on your ability to do so.

2. You received an award or citation and you felt guilty about it because you believed there were others in your group who deserved the award better than you.

3. You have a talent that others notice and are encouraging you to develop but you downplay the whole thing claiming that it is really “nothing.”

4. You are threatened even by constructive criticism because inwardly you recognize it as a validation of the fact that you are inept.

5. You think your accomplishments are merely the result of luck such as being in the right at the right time on your part.

6. When you have succeeded in doing something, you somehow entertain the thought that you might not be lucky the next time around.

The more situations you can identify with above, the more the possibility that you are suffering from the impostor phenomenon.

What to do about it? Well, there is really nothing much you can do about it. While psychologists have identified it as an actually existing psychological phenomenon, they have stopped short from considering it as a psychological disease that needed to be cured. In fact its occurrence has been observed with people normally considered as successful, e.g, CEOs, academicians with high educational attainment, accomplished artists, etc. ( I suppose there is no point feeling like an impostor if you are a “failure.”)

However, it can affect the way you enjoy your own life. Outwardly people see you as “successful” but inwardly you doubt that and so at a very subjective level you are subjecting yourself to unnecessary mental suffering.

Should you find yourself identifying with any of the above or similar situations, the best thing to do is to simply recognize it as a probable manifestation of the impostor phenomenon. As such, it has no real bearing with who you are and what you can do. Suspend your self doubt and believe that other peoples’ positive perception of you and your accomplishments are valid. Basically, that’s all you need to propel yourself to more accomplishments.

Point #1: Break free from the Time Management myth: You have to first change your mindset and point of view to understand and acknowledge the fact that Time cannot be managed. Time is time and is a constant. What you have to focus on, instead, is how to manage YOURSELF in time. Stephen Covey once said, “Time Management is a misnomer. The key is to manage yourself.” So from the here on, the focus will be on how YOU can take charge of your time.

Point #2: Tackle Overwhelm effectively: In this age you have too much information coming at you, and one keeps jumping from one topic to the other leading to overwhelm and waste of time. We always move in the direction we look. So if you want to change your direction, then just change where you look. And one keeps looking at different things throughout the day, and guess what they end up moving everywhere – and that means nowhere. So how do you tackle it? Let’s start with you – Don’t complain about too much information. The way you look at it determines how you would react to it. You CANNOT AVOID overwhelm, but you CAN MANAGE it. And this is how you do it:

1.You must form the habit of scheduling everything that needs to be done: You cannot just react to new information. Be a student and not a follower. Your day should have a pattern and everything that needs to be done should be given an appointment. If the newspaper wants you to read it, then you should give the newspaper a specific time to engage you. Your time is important, so everything that takes away your time should be scheduled.

2.Disconnect yourself regularly: Take regular time-offs from your daily grind. Find ways of relaxation and refresh yourself with new ideas and thoughts. Engage in your hobbies regularly. If you like fishing, schedule it every week. It’s said that the most creative ideas come to you when your mind is relaxed. So when once you are back at your work, you are keyed up and raring to go.

Point #3: Avoid the #1 killer of time – Distractions: It’s not social media, emails, etc that causes you distractions; it’s YOU. You are the one who let’s them distract you. You cannot do things when you feel like doing it; you have to schedule it. You have to build a boundary of protection around you. The best solution, what I have experienced, to tackle distractions is to get the most important things done before distraction comes looking for you. That means that most of the distractions start after people have started waking up and getting to work. Roughly after 1000 am things start to take on the colors of distraction. So the best thing to do is to schedule all your important activities early in the morning. By doing this, you ensure consistent productivity. It’s said that great poet Ernest Hemmingway used to finish off all his writing before 1000 am. After that, he used to enjoy life. Use that principle.

Point #4: Choose your environment: My experience shows that I can’t get everything done in front of my work-desk. I also don’t like to exercise in the house. I tend to do better outdoors, sucking in the fresh morning air. What environment you choose is entirely up to you. It helps to assign specific environments to specific activities.

To summarize, if you take a look at the above 4 points, you will see a common pattern – it’s about YOU. It starts with you and ends with you. You have the total power and control to manage yourself and boost your productivity. Try the above techniques for a week, and see how you adapt to it.

All the best and God Bless.

Second time around is always easier
The amazing thing about doing the same thing twice is that it is always easier on the second go. We know the pitfalls, know our shortcomings, have experience of failure and most times know how to avoid this. The real issue with the second time is the mind set. This is where all the hard work needs to be done. We must remove the element of defeat from our first battle and prepare ourselves to have the same passion as we had the first time. If we can raise ourselves above this then we would progress a lot faster and without doubt for success.

Speed of completion
Doing something for the second time is always faster to complete than the first time. In the first attempt everywhere is a new discovery. Even the feelings are new and have to be appreciated and dealt with. These all take time to process and hence the delay. In the second, third or fourth instance, our findings are analyzed with more wisdom. They are stored away easily because we know where they fit in our system and when and where we would need them. If we do not have this burden weighing upon us it is easier to work faster and efficiently for success. This is another way of finding hope and the spirit of passion the second time over.

Growth in confidence
Our nerves are better prepared to withstand a second attempt in life. They are geared for what to expect and prepared to deal with the eventualities. They rise up to challenges, question our pride and add more vigor to attain success. Although we may start slowly because we are recovering from failure, once we are in motion things become different. Our confidence grows with each moment and there is determination and focus not to lose this time around.

Different expectations
Although victory is still at the forefront of our minds, failure is also taken into consideration. The important thing about this is that we have a balanced perspective. Not only do we dream of the times of success but we encompass the reality of it. This reality is the room for failure and this keeps our feet on the ground and makes us thorough to deliver victory. There is nothing like a bit of disappointment to sharpen the mind and awake the spirit within. This is a time for true guts and these only get going when the odds are against us.

Quality of delivery
If before we aimed to give back 80% in quality this time we would aim for at least 90% or perfection, if that were possible. Our excuses are thrown out the door because we believe that it is our second or third time around and we should know better. This may even give us the impetus to aim for higher rewards than we had expected in the first attempt. We know we have experience, we know that we come better prepared than before and more importantly we want to be paid for this experience. Most times doing things the next time around offers better quality than in the first attempt.

The important thing to note here is that true victory is guaranteed with God and he determines how many tries we would have before success. Hard work can only get us so far but the true success for dreams and desires comes with faith. There is no time frame for this.