(psychology, self-help) it's your choice - decision making a

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Real-life problems, be they personal or business, are often easier to solve ifyou have a good understanding of your goals and values in life. Thispublication will help you outline your goals and learn to make choices

that best fit these goals.MT199011 HR 6/2002

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Its Your Choice:Decision Making and Goal Setting

by Dr. Robert W. Lind, former Extension Human Development Specialist

Americans are of more thanone mind about a greatmany things. There are

those who like football and thosewho do not. There are devotees of

classical music and those who pre-fer country and western. Certainfolks get thrilled about stamp col-lecting; others are bored. Differentstrokes for different folks, we say.Thats why paint companies makemany shades of paint. About most

things you will get a great varietyof answers, depending upon whichperson you question.

But most of us can agree on one

thing: there is too little time and too

much to be done. Practically every-one feels overloaded, rushed,cramped for time and thereforeforced to live in a way they regardas less than ideal. And most wouldalso agree there isnt much we cando about it. To live today, theywould say, is to be out of space, outof breath, out of time and out ofoptions.

Undeniably, these conditions aredescriptive of the lives of vast num-bers, but it only takes a single ex-ception to disprove a rule. Somepeople are terribly stressed and

pressured. At the same time, thereare people with homes, jobs andfamilies who manage on 24 hoursday to live lives of contentment andmeaning. This proves that life inthe 21st Century does not have to

be the kind of rat race we so com-monly make of it.

Some people have learned howto manage their time, money, en-

ergy and talent so they can spend it

for the things they believe to beimportant. They dont find them-selves hassled and frustrated mostof the time. Instead, they feel ful-filled and content. Their resources

are being directed toward thosethings they value most, and theyhave reason to feel good about life.

How to avoid therat race of life

Establish your personal priori-

ties, and deal off the top of the

deck to provide time for thosethings that come first. We have towork, we have to have some sleep,and we have to devote a certainamount of time to self-care. In de-veloping a time budget, these arethe kinds of things that for most ofus occupy an irreducible number ofhours per week.

It is in the second and third levelof time priorities that trouble oftenarises. After having taken care of

the basics, we arent able to makegood decisions about what properlycomes next. Of course, nothing

properly comes next except whatone chooses to place next. Thechoice is truly yours. However, ifthe choices you have made do notmake you feel happy or fulfilled,

but instead leave you feeling allmixed up, miserable and stressedout, it seems obvious they were notthe right choices for you at thattime in your life.

Determine what is important, asopposed to what is merely urgent.Some things have all kinds oflights, bells and sirens which grabour attention and just will not per-mit us to ignore them. Other thingsmay not be creating any ruckus ormaking any demands upon us, butmay be much more worthy of theinvestment of some of our time.

It is necessary to get a littlephilosophical and consider the

seemingly trite and yet highly im-portant notion that saying yes andsaying no are, in a sense, one and

the same thing. That is, in order tosay yes to one thing, we have to sayno to certain other things. Con-versely, by saying no to certainsuggestions, we are able to say yesto other things.

There are limits as to how muchtime, energy, money and moralsupport we have available to give.We must carefully guard against the

tendency to spend all that we haveon second-rate issues, with nothingleft for more important things thatmay come along.

Life demands that we makesome commitments, and goodpeople certainly should be involvedin worthy causes. But we want to


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be sure we are involved in thingswhich matter deeply to us, and thatwe have not said yes to some lesserconcerns, leaving us unable to sayyes to another thing that we value agreat deal.

What is it we wish to accomplishin our life? What values do we wishour life to stand for? What are the

major goals or objectives we havefor the immediate future, and whatare our long-range objectives? Oncethese are known, it is then possibleto determine whether a certain actionmakes sense, or whether that actioncreates cognitive dissonance by

working against that which we be-lieve. Steps taken in the direction ofour goal create harmony, while stepstaken away from our goal createdissonance. (Cognitive dissonance is

what we feel when we are doing orsaying something we know to bewrong, or when our actions do notagree with our beliefs.)

Goal-setting comes into play in

the very first step of decision-mak-ing. The first step is to state yourgoal in clear, specific, unambiguousterms so there can be no mistakeregarding your intentions. What isthe most important thing in your

life? Having made such a decision,

one can then formulate a goal that issupportive of that dominant value. Ifthe most important thing in my lifewas my car, it would then makesense for me to have as a goal a pro-

gram of refurbishing it and dressingit up in various ways. It would makeno sense for me to determine my carwas my chief value and then set anumber of different goals, none ofwhich had anything to do with the

car.

But often people claim somethingas their most important valuetheirfamily or homeyet they form no

goals nor do they take any actionsthat would lend credence to the ideathat they value that thing. All theirenergies are devoted to fishing orgolf or to various other hobbies,activities or pursuits which bear no

relationship at all to their stated ma-jor values. Such persons have neversat down for a decision-making ses-

sion with themselves, and they donot know what their real values are.They thinktheir family is their domi-nant value, but it really isnt, or theywould behave differently than theydo.

It is possible for us to fool our-selves and others. But our true val-ues, sooner or later, can be under-

stood if we observe and evaluate ouractions. Our actions will almost al-ways be in the direction of our be-liefs and true values. When there isdisagreement between our words andour actions, believe the actions anddiscount the words.

The Decision-MakingProcessThe SolveApproach

This is a five-step problem-solv-

ing approach applicable to a largemajority of real-life situationsbothpersonal and business. The outline is

based on the use of the acronym S-O-L-V-E, as follows:

S = State the problem in preciselanguage

O = Outline your usual response

L = List your alternatives and

their consequences

V = Vitalize the concept by

a) selecting an alternative

b) formulating a plan of actionc) implementing the plan

E = Evaluate the success of yourchoice. If this choice has not pro-duced satisfactory results, go back tostep 4 (V, part a) and select a differ-ent alternative.

State the problem in preciselanguage

Before we can state the problem,we must determine what the problem

really is, and be reasonably sure weare not merely stating what we be-lieve it to be. There are times when itis not possible to tell whether wehave hit upon the true cause or aremerely acting upon our beliefs or

feelings. In those cases we have togo ahead and act as though we reallyknow. If the chosen solution doesntwork, it could be because we had notchosen the true cause of the problem,or because we had the true cause but

the wrong solution. There is an ines-capable amount of trial-and-errorthat has to go on, because life doesnot always lend itself to crystal clearchoices.

With machines it is usually pos-sible to get results in a matter ofminutes that tell us if we have madea proper choice. In real life, it some-

times takes months or even yearsbefore we can get enough feedbackto be sure we made the right choice.Therefore it becomes even moreimportant for us to study things care-fully, to improve the chances of ourmaking the right choice.

After we have determined whatthe problem is, we still have to put itinto words so it can be clearly under-stood, such as, The reason our rela-

tionship is not working satisfactorily

is because I am a poor listener, orOur marriage is in trouble becauseyou and I have never reached anunderstanding in terms of our mar-riage role expectations. Stating the

problem tells you pretty clearly whatthe needed plan of action (a later stepin this process) will have to be.

Outline your usual responseThere is a good chance you have

encountered your current problem atsome other time in your life. It maybe that you already have a responseprepared. However, the fact that youare once again having this sameproblem should be sufficient evi-

dence to indicate that your usualresponse has not been effective insolving the problem. If your usualresponse when you and your spousehave had disagreements has been toshout and throw things, the fact you

are once again having the same prob-lem indicates the previous solution

has not worked for a long-term cure,and something else will have to betried.

If Johnny continues to get badgrades in school, despite your offerto pay him a hundred dollars forevery A on his next report card, itmay be that motivation or desire for

better grades is not the problem.Maybe he cant see, or maybe hecant read, or maybe it is something


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else entirely. If you still have theproblem, it is obvious your previoussolution was ineffective.

List your Alternatives andtheir Consequences

Sometimes we simply do not see

that we have alternatives. Peoplemake the statement, I had no other

choice or You leave me with noother choice than to... To truly haveno other choice happens very rarelyin life. Practically always we do have

at least one other choice and some-times dozens of other choices as tohow we can deal with a certain situa-tion.

Often we are unable to see ourother options. No one person islikely to see all possible angles. Tryhaving a group of people brainstorm

the issue with you. Remember to ruleout from your brainstorming list the

options you have previously triedand found ineffective.

List all the possible alternatives,then look carefully at each of thesealternatives and ask yourself whatthe probable results or effects wouldbe if you were to select that alterna-tive and act upon it. There will al-ways be some consequences whichwe cannot foretell, but we must at

least be prepared to deal with theknown and predictable results oftaking a certain action.

When you can see the full range

of probable consequences, you willbe in a better position to know whichoption you would want to chooseone that has consequences you canlive with. One way to kill the weeds

in your lawn is to treat the entire areawith a soil sterilizing agent, but theconsequence of that is that everyliving thing in your yard, includingthe weeds, will be killed. If that is aconsequence you are not prepared to

live with, you will have to battle theweeds on a different level, choosingsome other solution to your problem.

Vitalize the Concept bya) Selecting an Alternative

With the full list of possiblecourses of action laid before you,along with the probable or most pre-dictable consequences of each one, it

becomes simpler to determine whichalternative to choose. Give it the oldcollege try, knowing that, if this par-ticular choice proves not to be thebest, there are a number of other

things you can try.

b) Formulating a Plan of Action

Now your task is to develop aplan of action based upon the choiceyou have just made. This plan ofaction need not be worked out down

to the finest details, but it needs tohave a strong outline of what to dofirst, and what next, and what to doin the third place. The nature of cer-tain objectives may be that they will

naturally run their course and cometo fruition in three definite phases.Other choices will require a series of5 or 6 or more steps to carry themthrough to a point of completion. Asa part of the preliminary planning,you will have determined the length

of your trial period, or how long youare going to keep on following your

plan before you stop to see if it isproducing the results you had ex-pected.

c) Implementing the Plan

Having chosen what to do and

having developed a plan by whichyour decision can be implemented,you now have to put the plan into

motion, making every effort to see ifit will produce the results you haveforetold. First you plan your work,then you work your plan.

Evaluate the Success ofYour Choice

When your trial period comes toan end, whether it be 30, 60 or 90days, you then must ask to whatdegree did this choice lead toward asatisfactory solution? You will need

to have firmly in mind some criteriafor judging success so you can make

a fair evaluation of each solution youtry. There may not be any solutionwhich will give you 100 percent ofwhat you want, so it may be neces-sary to decide what kind of resultsare close enough.

Remember, to be fair you have tomeasure each different solution youtry by the same yardstick. If you feeldissatisfied by the results of the first

alternative you put to the test, by allmeans dont hesitate to set it aside

and select another alternative for atrial. The law of averages clearlyindicates that we should not expectto find the right choice on the firsttrial when there may be a dozen orso alternative solutions.


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The programs of the MSU Extension Service are available to all peopleregardless of race, creed, color, sex, disability or national origin. Issued infurtherance of cooperative extension work in agriculture and homeeconomics, acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S.Department of Agriculture, David A. Bryant, Vice Provost and Director,Extension Service, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717.

Copyright 2002 MSU Extension ServiceWe encourage the use of this document for nonprofit educational purposes. This document may be reprinted if no endorsement of a commercialproduct, service or company is stated or implied, and if appropriate credit is given to the author and the MSU Extension Service. To use thesedocuments in electronic formats, permission must be sought from the Ag/Extension Communications Coordinator, Communications Services,416 Culbertson Hall, Montana State University-Bozeman, Bozeman, MT 59717; (406) 994-2721; E-mail - [email protected] order additional publications call your local county Extension office, or visit www.montana.edu/publications.

File Under: Human Development

D-2 (Motivation and Achievement)

Reprinted June 2002 1000602 ST

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