Decisions will be made — by you, or for you.
You can either take active participation in those decisions and decide the direction of your future actively or allow them to happen without your involvement or influence.
Not all decisions matter enough to your happiness or wellbeing to warrant the time and analysis that making an active decision requires. However, big things like the direction of your career, the people you spend time with, your health, and other areas of your time and life can make a big difference.
Drivers
- Fundamental goals - Drive to first principles to understand what is important to you, who you want to be, what you want to do with your time.
- Doors - One thing to use in the calculus is whether the decision will open or close doors for you. Will this lead you down a path that will give you more or less opportunity or flexibility in the future?
Variables
- Career - Where do you want to be in 5 years? How will you get there? Is that really what you want, or is it just a social norm influencing your goals?
- Relationships - Like any relationship friends and family require time, it’s easy to de-prioritize friends and family in the moment, but remember you’re spending capital for that time and may undermine the relationship in the long run.
- Health - Failing to dedicate time and energy in your health (diet, exercise, sleep, alcohol) have long term effects on our abilities to perform as well as we want. It can effect our ability to think, analyze, or enjoy activities.
note: The photo is of my great uncle Ambrose who made the very active decision of immigrating to the US and starting a grocery store business after World War II.