Monday Morning Check In: Principled Decisions

In last week's Monday article, I shared my thoughts about making tough decisions. Today I wish to share some guidelines and principles for making those tough decisions. I offer three principles that I use to guide many of my decisions, and I find that when I rely on these principles, my decisions are a little bit easier to make. At least I can sleep at night with the knowledge that I have made the best decision that I could.

Remove money from the equation. I am often surprised that decisions become very easy to make once I eliminate money from the picture. I ask myself, if money were not involved here, what would I do? I am not sure why money can cloud our thinking, but I am certain that without money involved in the process, making a decision becomes clearer.

Look out for the lesser ones. There are many people out there who are not as fortunate as we are. There are some who do not have a voice or do not wield the power to encourage things to happen. These people are still valuable to the world and have worthwhile contributions to make. Sometimes others abuse their power or work to achieve their own agenda at the expense of others or the good of a group. In cases like this, I find it important to look out for those people who are unprotected or who need a champion of sorts.

Do the right thing. Often I find that if I say this little phrase that I will understand what I should be doing. I also find that when I tell someone, I know that you will do the right thing, I witness the person actually do the right thing. In the scheme of things, sometimes the right thing is also the hardest thing. Matthew 7:13 says: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." I have found this principle to be true, that the right decisions are sometimes the hardest ones to make. This difficulty does not in any way diminish the rightness of the decision.

There may be many other principles that we can rely on in our decision making. I welcome your ideas. I have had many a good night's sleep when I followed the above principles in my own decisions.

PS: I checked the calendar yesterday and discovered that it was the 26th Monday of 2013. We are halfway through the year. That discovery encouraged me to revisit my goals that I made last January. Better get cracking on what is left for the rest of the year.