Decide, Define, Deploy, Defend

 

For the longest time, either I always heard OR invoked "DECIDE, DEFINE, DEPLOY, DEFEND' at work, so all along, this sounds more like jargon BUT I realized that this is as relevant to our personal life as it is at our work life.  WHY?  Because in life, we will always have tons and tons of DECISION-POINTS.  As we move along in our life journey, there's just NO option for us to be going back to page one of our life every day, with some of them far more complex than others📗📙📘

Frankly, our DECISIONS in those critical or complex moments matter and it may even likely trigger a ripple effect as to WHAT NEXT may happen.  Think about dominoes falling one by one.  One day, we may be choosing one strategic priority over another option BUT we might also be choosing between 2 apples or 2 oranges that are almost similar except for 1 or 2 differentiating factors.  At times, DECISION-POINTS are tough📌📌📌

LIKE you might get into the crossroads of deciding on the career you now have versus another career option.  That's WHEN you will have to cautiously weigh the UPSIDEs and DOWNSIDEs of each of the 2 career options.  Unfortunately, from my life experiences, it is very extremely rare to have a  'perfect option' because no matter how 'near perfect' one option may be, there is OR are a couple of downsides WHICH you need to weigh on, so you can arrive at an INFORMED DECISION😄😄😄

Sometimes, the choice we have on our hands is so crystal clear, it becomes a no-brainer BUT at times, that fork in the road stumps us and we become consumed with the weight of the DECISION.  I personally have experienced ordeals like this and WHILE I considered them as 'happy problems', we need to be mindful that all it takes is one wrong decision for things to turn upside down, for you to get waylaid and get off-track.  Sometimes, WHERE we were once confident in our DECISION-making, we tend to question ourselves and even our choices [despite all the tedious considerations we had to go through before reaching that DECISION POINT.  BUT we're better off compared to an INDECISION!!!

Our takeaway:  Allow me to share my simple decision matrix

• Take stock of the first option/choice you have at hand.
• Then, compare apples-to-apples your options like a X/Y axis
• On the flip side, consider which options are of low-impact as they might provide you an 'easy path' towards a DECISION
• Then, map both long and short-term risks associated with your high and low impact DECISION POINTS 
• Finally, step back & take a final look before it's crunch time

Easier said than done BUT to DECIDE, DEFINE, DEPLOY and DEFEND runs in parallel to our DECISION-MAKING!!!