I love Aldi and do you know why? Because they’ve taken (most) of the decision making out of my food shop. If I want pasta, I just grab the pasta, if I want baked beans, I buy baked beans – for the most part there are only ever one or two options of each food item and this makes the amount of decisions I have to make so much less. I’m so used to this way of shopping now that I venture out to a big supermarket is actually, though slightly thrilling (!), actually a bit much! It involves far too many decisions. Making decisions can be exhausting.
So I wonder how you make decisions? Do you procrastinate in the hope the ‘right’ decisions become obvious? Do you ask all of your friends and family what they would do in the hope that someone else might make the decision for you? In the busy-ness of life it’s natural I think for us to find ways of making decisions less tiring.
Jack and I have started recently to name something we actually put into practice at the start of our marriage but we’ve just found a name for it! We find ourselves making value-based decisions. Let me explain – we’ve decided on the values we want to live by and things we want to say yes to – and that means that the actual decisions about whether we are going to do something in the moment are made much easier because we’ve already decided on our values.
Here’s a few examples – do I go to my friend’s mum’s funeral which involved taking time out of work for both of us so I could go and Jack could look after Simeon? Yes. Because we have a value of being present for our friends in moments of celebration and grief. The decision isn’t should I go but more how are we going to make that happen?
Another example – do we go to church this morning even though we’re really tired and grumpy? Yes. Why? Because we’ve already made a value that showing up and being part of our church community is something we want to do, so if we can go we do.
I wonder what decisions could you make easier by stepping back and thinking about your values?
If you want a space to think this through more purposefully – why not try a coaching session?
