| March 23rd, 2024

Compass Resource for Bad Decisions

Everyone makes a bad decision from time to time. Everyone.

You eat more than you want to. You hit the snooze. You show up late for meetings. You do things you’ve said you’ll never do again. You hurt the ones you love the most. You don’t exercise, eat healthy, spend quiet time with God, connect with your spouse, reach out to a friend. You don’t do the things you want to do.

“Life is the sum of the decisions you make.” – Craig Groeschel

According to Craig Groeschel in his latest book Think Ahead, there are three main reasons why you make bad decisions.

  1. Overwhelm – One study claims that the average person makes more than 35,000 decisions a day, both consciously and in-the-moment-split-second decisions made unconsciously. At some point in our day, we experience the overwhelm of decisions – decision fatigue shows up and we end up making the bad decision. The answer to the question, “Why do I keep doing that thing I don’t want to do?” may be tied directly to your overwhelm in decision making.
  2. Fear – You may not experience any fear about most of your decisions, but when it is an important decision, worry and fear show up and keep you paralyzed in indecision. What if this isn’t the best vehicle? What if I buy this and it turns out to be a lemon? What if I wish I had made another choice but I won’t be able to go back on it? Indecision is a decision you are making that ends up serving you in some way.
  3. Emotions – You are unaware of your emotions so in the moment your emotions take the lead over logic. You often spend more time analyzing unimportant decisions, but when it comes to big decisions, you let your emotions take the lead. You develop a budget but when a push alert or email hits you about a product you wish you had, your emotions make the decision for you. You don’t want to look lustfully at another, but in the moment, you think “What’s it going to hurt this one time. No one is going to get hurt. I deserve to have some fun,” and you let emotions drive your decision.

“Every decision you make is a vote for the person you will become.” – James Clear

If you are like most people, you do not make many pre-decisions. Pre-decisions are decisions that 1) reduce the number of decisions you will have to make and 2) prevents you from making bad decisions.

  • Instead of deciding to hit snooze and skip the gym when the alarm goes off, you can pre-decide you will have your car packed with your work clothes and your gym clothes next to the bed so you will have to go get them out of the car before you can skip the gym, or get a gym buddy who will be expecting you or an accountability partner.
  • Instead of feeling tired at the end of the day, stopping by the snack drawer and finding your favorite chips which inevitably leads to binge eating the bag, you can pre-decide to fill your snack closet with healthy snacks in small packages.
  • Instead of never having enough time to write the book or launch the podcast because you spend hours doom scrolling, binge watching or binge video playing, you can pre-decide to set an alarm for a technology fast and go to the place that you can start moving toward your goal.
  • Instead of spending time watching pornography and feeling guilt and shame because you blew it again, you can pre-decide to block out websites where porn exists or get an accountability partner or work as much off-line as possible, or only be hooked to the internet in public places.
  • Instead of going home after the date feeling guilt and shame because you drank a little too much and had another one-night stand, you can pre-decide that you will not have a drink on any date, or that you will only meet in public places or with others around.

Pre-Decide

You will fail almost every time when you haven’t pre-decided important decisions. The closer you are to the fire, the easier it is to get burned. Pre-decide a new line you do not want to cross that is further away from the fire. Pre-decide so that you have more success along your journey to become the person you want to be and who God wants to be. Pre-decide so that you prevent emotions from taking over. Pre-decide so that you reduce the fear of making the wrong decision.

If we can help you with pre-deciding, you can choose a Crucible Coach to have a free session to find out if you want to commit to working with a coach toward your goals. About 7,000 have started their journey by attending one of the Women’s or Men’s Crucible Retreats.

You have the power to start making the decisions that will lead to the life of your heart’s desires. Make the decision now! If you want to talk to someone about our weekends, schedule an appointment or attend a live session with a Crucible leader. The time is now for your to start your journey.