Don’t Allow Fear of Better Options Stop You From Making Tough Decisions

The freedom of choice enhances feelings of autonomy, freedom and promotes one’s sense of personal control. But increased choice may actually be detrimental to decision making. Sometimes we face too many attractive choices, we feel anxious about missing out on anything that looks exciting. Its perfectly normal to strive for a better option but when you are obsessed with everything, you are missing or will miss when you make a decision and you will constantly be in the state of indecision.
I was a victim of this at a particular point in my life. I remembered vividly when I was faced with too many choices to make. I was offered admission to study civil engineering in a polytechnic and another to enroll in interim joint matriculation board program popularly called IJMB. IJMB to many is risky because they believe you may end up not securing admission in to 200L in the university. Worse of all is that you can’t use IJMB result to secure job! My Dad was on the side that I should go to the polytechnic, reasons that since I have been at home for 4years without admission and I can also used my ND certificate to secure job. To cut it short, I was confused about the choice to make but I later decided to pursue my dream of going to the university to study chemical engineering through the IJMB even though it was hard decision for me.
A saying that ” learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder, perhaps the hardest”. Only then did I realize what that means. To me my choose was satisfactory rather than the optimal solution.
There are people who make better decision (Maximizer) but they are less satisfied with those decisions and there are people who make decision that seems to address most needs, settle for a good enough option, not necessarily the very the one with the best outcome (Satisfier).
A satisfier is less likely to experience regret even if a better option presents itself after decision has already been made. He also uses aspirations level when choosing different path or action.
My submission
We are always face with the challenges of making right decision. Fear of better option is the reason we can make a tough decision. But I employ us to enter a satisficing decision making strategy.
Most good decisions will involve these steps:
-Figure out your goal or goals.
-Evaluate the importance of each goal.
-Array the options.
-Evaluate how likely each of the option is to meet your goal.
-Pick the winning option.
Later use the consequences of your choice to modify your goals, the importance you assign them, and the way you evaluate future possibility.
In the many decision making processes you take, you can make “best” choice; be intuitive, don’t worry too much about getting the very best all the time, and evaluate each outcome on its own merits rather then against others. Thank you.