Why all our decisions are a dot that needs to be connected - Andrea Morrison

Over the years I’ve lost count of the conversations I’ve had about regretting our decisions - it’s interesting because with all of them there is that crucial moment when the decision is made and they are all fairly similar.

It may be that in that moment it makes sense, a kind of warped logic that in the clear light of day appears illogical, or your mind goes blank and you seem to be taken over by an invisible force that makes the decision for you, or you overthink it so much you can’t see the wood for the trees and from pure exhaustion you simply choose something - which you later regret.

But can we really get a decision wrong? I’m always reminded of the quote from Steve Jobs ‘You can’t connect the dots going forward, only backwards, so you have to trust the dots will connect somehow in your future’.

When I look back at some of my perceived humdinger decisions - and those of my clients - the common denominator in all of them is that, given time, it becomes obvious that they are always a dot that is connected.

That if that decision hadn’t have been made then a certain path would not have been taken, irrespective of whether I thought the decision was good or bad and ultimately, all of those ‘dots’ has led me to the point that I am at today.

So, what if we knew as a principle that any decision we make eventually becomes a dot, that in that moment when our mind is confused, bewildered or blank that there is in our mind an intelligence at work which makes the decision, and that decision is the decision that needs to be made to move us forward to be a dot in our future?

I find that what we are often so concerned about when making a decision is whether we or ‘things’ are going to be OK.

In a number of my programmes I play a game of consequences with my participants.

I ask them what are they worried would happen if they made a certain decision, and to follow this to its logical conclusion, by the time they have got to the end of the process they have often imagined themselves homeless, penniless, have lost everything or worse.

In making decisions we often fear that everything is on the line so that

it has to be ‘right’ - because the alternative if it is wrong doesn’t bear thinking about.

But what if we fundamentally knew that we would be ok?

What if we knew that no matter what step we took it wasn’t a fork in the road, between right and wrong, but merely a step forward, and that the next step would undoubtedly appear as it always has done and always will do; and that one day, irrespective of the nature of the decision, we will look back and be able to see how all the dots connect – just as we can now with the decisions that we have made before.

Andrea Morrison is a transformational coach and TedX speaker