How Do You Make the Right Decisions?

Posted On: 2016-06-29

Have you ever stopped to think about why you can have a run of really great months, maybe even years, when you achieve everything you set out to achieve, hit all your goals, get everything done and have such a great time ... and then you hit times when everything goes wrong?

You might be really roaring along with your business, the money is rolling in, your personal time is great and then, overnight everything goes to shit? You might not be doing anything different but suddenly everything that could go wrong does go wrong.

I think that this June is turning out to be one of those times for us. All through the year we've been doing well, work has been going out the door at a great rate, people have been telling us how well they've been doing with the products we've supplied and then, suddenly, early in June things just started to go wrong.

There has been a death in the family that took us away from the office and work for about five days. My father had a terrible accident that almost killed him and he looks like being in hospital for another month or more so there's more time lost as we travel to the next town to visit him and encourage him to keep going with his rehabilitation.

And then yesterday at 2am I'm at the hospital with my partner and we're looking at the possibility of him being flown off to the State capital for an operation that will put him out of action for as much as a week and I'll have to drive down and collect him once it's done and he can come home.

Right near the end of the month ... a busy time for us ... half of me was going to be out of action and not anywhere close for me to talk to.

Of course none of those things were in our plans for this month. We had planned on it being another good month. We had the work lined up, we knew where we had deadlines set and we knew what we had to do to achieve them. That was the way things were Tuesday afternoon but now our plans have all been shredded by circumstances beyond our control.

So how has your business been going? Have you been kicking ass and taking names? Have you at least been achieving your goals?

I certainly hope that you have been having a good run with your business and you've been taking advantage of those good times because they obviously don't last. Every one of us is going to encounter some problems soon or later and it's how you prepare for them ... and deal with them ... that may even govern whether your business survives or crashes and burns.

Unfortunately, some of the most important decisions we have to make about our businesses have to be made at the most difficult times. If you have got to make an important decision about your business, you would like to be able to make it without a lot of pressure and at least have time to think about your options ... but when you hit a month like June has been for us, life rarely gives you that time.

When things are going wrong you've often got to make important decisions right then and there. There's no "let me think about it" when an instant answer is needed. You've just got to make the best decision you can in the circumstances that you find yourself in.

Sometimes you can make decisions that will buy you some more time but they always come at a cost. Steve wasn't flown off to the State capital; instead he came home last night but the cost is more pain and in a couple of weeks he will have to go south for that operation. He knew what the costs would be but he felt that they were worth it in the circumstances.

Sometimes there is no way that you can buy yourself more time to make better decisions or get urgent work out the door. Sometimes the decisions have to be made right now ... right this very second ... and, if you make the wrong decision, your business is in trouble.

You might think that in that type of situation you can actually buy yourself more time by not making a decision but, when you decide not to decide, you've actually made a decision and it's usually the most costly alternative of all.

So if you're wondering what to do when you have to make a decision under pressure, when there is no time to think about it then Garry Vaynerchuck has the answer for you. In a recent Snapchat he told his fans that when they have to make a decision they make it, they don't dither, they just make the decision and then deal with whatever comes out of that decision.

Sound easy? Sound scary? Actually it sounds about right to me.