How Entrepreneurs Can Improve Their Decision Making

As an entrepreneur, you have to make difficult decisions on a daily basis.

Those decisions can make or break the future of your business – so, if you don’t have the right decision-making process, you’ll put your business at risk. But the decisions don’t just affect your business – they also affect your life in general. So, it’s important to get a good decision-making process down.

While you still won’t make the right decisions 100% of the time, you’ll increase the odds that you’ll make the right decision most of the time.

So today, we’ll give you some strategies to add to your decision-making process.

Assess Your Core Values

Most people make decisions on a whim, based on their feelings in the moment and some light research. But that’s definitely not the recipe for success.

What you should do instead is take a careful assessment of your core values. Then, ask yourself how a “Yes” or a “No” on a certain decision aligns with those core values.

Don’t have a list of values yet? Check out this giant list of values and pick out the 5-10 values that you most relate with.

So for example, if one of your core values is “freedom” and you’re faced with a decision to take on a client that will cause you to work double the amount of weekly hours, then perhaps the best decision would be to say “No.”

Do Your Research

This is especially important when it comes to making a buying decision, and having to choose between two or three good options.

You should research what past customers have said about each option, how the price aligns with your budget, and most important, the quality of each product/service.

This can make the difference between a good investment, and one that costs your business thousands of dollars (or more) down the road.

Get an Outside Opinion

Even the Mother of Dragons in Game of Thrones needs an advisor to help her make big decisions.

It’s good to get an outside opinion, especially when you’ve been wrapped up in a decision for a while. A wise, objective voice can step in and help you out, and perhaps help you consider points you haven’t yet thought of.

Do you have friends, colleagues, or acquaintances with experience in the decision you’re facing? If so, now is the time to ask for help. A small piece of advice from an experienced person can go a long way, and perhaps even save you hours and hours of your own time and money.

Be Aware of the Worst-Case Scenario (And be Prepared to Accept It)

As we mentioned earlier, you won’t make the right decision 100% of the time. But if you follow the right decision-making process, you won’t have to regret the decision.

Part of making a good decision is to also consider the worst-case scenarios and potential problems. For example, if you’re thinking of buying a new car, don’t just consider the money you’ll potentially save on Ubers/car rentals. You should also consider the potential problems, like the odds of high annual repair costs and the chances that the car won’t run quite as well as you thought it would.

Be prepared to accept these worst-case scenarios and factor them into your decision. That way, you won’t be blindsided if the bad things happen, because you had already factored those things into your decision-making process.

Wrapping Up How Entrepreneurs Can Improve Their Decision Making…

As an entrepreneur, you’re forced to make important decisions all the time. Decisions within your business, as well as decisions in your life in general.

And so, a good decision-making progress is key. It’ll help you improve your business, remove unnecessary stress, lead to more success, and overall improve the quality of your life.

Infuse these strategies into your decision-making progress, and you’ll quickly improve your chances of consistently making the right decisions.

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