Trying to Make a Tough Decision? Try Asking the Five Fateful Questions

[David Baxter PhD]

Trying to Make a Tough Decision? Try Asking the Five Fateful Questions
By Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project
September 1, 2010

When I?m reluctant to take a risk or face something uncomfortable, I ask myself these five questions which, in melodramatic form, I call the "Five Fateful Questions." They help me think clearly about a situation.

1. What am I waiting for?
2. What would I do if I weren?t scared?
3. What steps would make things easier?
4. What would I do if I had all the time and money in the world?
5. What is the worst, and the best, that could happen?

For example, when I considered switching from law to writing, I thought, ?I?m moving to New York, the publishing capitol of the country. I have friends who are agents and writers who can give me advice. I have an idea for a book that I?m dying to write, and in fact, I?ve already started writing it. I really want to be a writer. What am I waiting for?? Nothing. I made the switch.

 

[Daniel E.]

When I’m reluctant to take a risk...

For those who have the opposite problem:

Dysfunctional belief systems are not always worded in the negative. For someone suffering from the extreme highs of mania, as with Bipolar Disorder, for example, the beliefs may be overly optimistic or euphoric,

• I'm destined for greatness!
• I need to seek adventure and excitement!
• The sky's the limit!
• You only live once. Go for the gusto!
• Buy it! I deserve to pamper myself.

http://forum.psychlinks.ca/cbt-cognitive-behavior-therapy/20866-dysfunctional-belief-systems.html

 

[David Baxter PhD]

Good reminders, Daniel!

 

[Daniel E.]

When I’m reluctant to take a risk or face something uncomfortable, I ask myself these five questions which, in melodramatic form, I call the "Five Fateful Questions." They help me think clearly about a situation.

1. What am I waiting for?
2. What would I do if I weren’t scared?
3. What steps would make things easier?
4. What would I do if I had all the time and money in the world?
5. What is the worst, and the best, that could happen?

Some more:

• If you don't take the risk and stick with the "safer" option (e.g. status quo), what may your life be like in 5 years? In 10 years?
• List the pros and cons of retaining (or changing) the status quo in terms of quality of life for you and your loved ones.
• How would you like your life to be in 5 years? In 10 years?
• Which of your beliefs, behavior patterns, or earlier life influences are affecting this decision?
• What other improvements to your current situation can you make?
• How does this decision affect your next stage of personal development?

Adapted from: Developmental Cognitive Behavior Therapy with Adults

 

[Daniel E.]

A more values-based approach:

Here are some questions that might be of help, just to get the right set.

• What if values were a choice?
• What if values were a matter that was between you and you?
• What if what was at sake is a kind of self-liberation -- the liberation to be about 
what you most deeply would choose to be about
--- not to avoid guilt, or get applause, or otherwise objectify yourself but just to be in the world how you choose to be in the world.
• What if you cannot really do it wrong ... you can just do it freely?

Here are some guides that might be helpful.

• Look at what hurts you the most. Look at your deepest sense of vulnerability. What would you have to not care about for that hurt and vulnerability to not be there?
• Think of the most amazing moments in your life ... times when you 
feel most alive. Go inside that memory. What is the larger pattern of caring that makes that moment dear?
• Assume you belong here. Assume you make a difference. Assume your being is not in question. 
If you took your own sense of vitality, when is it at its highest. What larger pattern of caring 
embraces that vitality?
• Look not just to the future. Values are "about" that but they show up here and now. If they do not, that is not what 
we are talking about.

Kelly Wilson has a nice metaphor. You design a house. You build it. You would never then ask "is this my real house?" It would not make sense. This is the house you built. If it is not right for you, you redesign it, remodeling it, or move.

In the same way you choose your values. You live inside the life they structure. It does not make sense to ask "are these my real values?" as if your life is a puzzle to be solved. These are the values you've been choosing and inside that choice, life can become a process. You are free to choose again, and again, and again.

Holding Back from Life | Psychology Today

 

[Daniel E.]

A related poem:

Whenever you're called on to make up your mind,
and you're hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.

No — not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you're passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you're hoping.

~ Piet Hein

 

[Daniel E.]

"The only way you can lose the game of life is to choose nothing":

 

[Daniel E.]

The Myth of The Perfect Decision

 

[Daniel E.]

How To Stop Arguing With Yourself And Make A Decision | The Therapist Within

...“In argument, there’s so much unnecessary time spent in discussion attacking someone,” de Bono said.

And maybe you’ve also taken that argument inside yourself…

So, for instance, maybe you tear strips off your own ideas just as they emerge. Or you repeatedly flip from why something will work, to why it won’t, to why it’s good, to why it’s bad, without doing anything much but cancelling out all the alternatives.

De Bono says it’s time to ditch the argumentative thinking. It’s time to get parallel. To think about one aspect at a time. And to forget about the notion of “getting it right” for a moment...

 

[Daniel E.]

10 Steps For Any Dilemma

Step 3: No Perfect Solution

Next, recognise there is no perfect solution. (If there were, you wouldn’t have had a dilemma in the first place). So whichever choice you make, you are likely to feel anxious about it - and your mind is likely to tell you, ‘That’s the wrong decision’, then point out all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it. If you’re waiting until the day there’s no feelings of anxiety, and no thoughts about making the wrong decision, you’ll probably be waiting forever.