Every day we make decisions. These decisions can vary greatly in significance, but most of them for the majority of people can be traced back to one thing. Emotion. Emotions are the things that cause us to think or act in a certain way. Some people are more emotional than others, but if you really think about a big decision you have made in the past, you will probably be able to trace back some or most of the cause for this decision to emotion. This is the human nature of decision making; however, this can be both a gift and a curse. It can get dangerous when you make a “heat of the moment” decision based purely off emotion. This can lead to regret and unforeseen consequences. It is important to examine the facts of a decision before you make one under all circumstances that the decision you make may have ramifications.
Human nature
In sales, a common tactic when trying to sell something to somebody is to get them emotionally excited and take advantage of their emotion to trigger them into making a hasty decision. This is exactly why salespeople get a bad name. Oftentimes, these salespeople hook excited prospects into buying something that they really don’t need, and sometimes even make them sign contracts they don’t fully understand locking up payments for a certain period of time. Headlines for ads are designed to hook you in and get you to buy a certain product. It’s not an accident that you have an emotional response for headlines that interest you the most, as this was the intention. What human nature doesn’t entail is self-accountability and doing their own due diligence before buying something. They let emotions take over and carry them to the end of a purchase without understanding exactly what it is they are buying. Getting into an arrangement with someone such as a partnership is something that could go wrong as well if the decision is based purely off emotions. If someone promises you something in a partnership that they may not be able to deliver, it may lead to you making a bad decision that you could be stuck with. These are just some examples of things that emotional decisions can lead to. I’ve been a victim to them at times just like everyone else. The key here, however, is to understand the decision you are making clearly by taking emotion out of the equation. If this decision still makes sense to you when examining the facts of it, go for it. If not, it’s crucial to understand your emotions may be playing tricks on you!
Understanding the emotion of a decision
Identifying the motive for a decision before making one is a sound and efficient thing to do. Easier said than done however due to its misalignment with human nature. When something gets us emotionally charged, we naturally want to do it in that moment. This is the point that we need to catch ourselves. Do the facts warrant this decision? Is this decision right for you given your situation (whatever that may be)? Do you really need whatever is being offered to do? These are all questions you should ask yourself before making any decision that will allow you to take a more objective approach. At first, to take your emotions out of the picture to do an objective evaluation of the answers to the aforementioned questions may be difficult to do. Over time, this process will become easier and easier.
be honest with yourself
When someone wants something based purely off emotion, they try really hard to justify a decision even if that decision doesn’t make sense for them. This justification is our mind playing tricks on us which relates to what we talked about relating to human nature. Emotions are extremely powerful, and our mind can justify and defend just about anything when there is significant emotion tied up in it. For this reason, it is vital to be honest with yourself about a decision, and realize when you are making up invalid justifications to get what your emotions are telling you that you want. This skill takes patience, objectivity, time, and practice. It will be quite obvious to you when your brain starts trying to find justifications for emotional decisions when you start looking for these instances. Recognize these behavioral patterns, and learn to control them in order to ultimately make the best decisions you can for yourself.
Practice makes perfect
After you learn the skill that is taking the emotion out of a decision in order to do your due diligence, repetition of this process will make it second nature. You will be able to clearly identify when your emotions begin to take over in a way that doesn’t make sense based on your situation, and stop it before it is too late. This practice will in time save you a lot of money, stress, doubt, and regret.