Ever have a tough time making a decision?
With so much available information, including an abundance of others’ points of view, it’s possible that decision-making is actually becoming more difficult. In nautical terms, this can lead to a “be-calmed” state that is, internally, anything but calming.
Researchers at the U.K.’s University of Bristol listed some of the factors impacting our decision-making: Instability in the world, changes such as financial or climate, shifting goals, or the temptation to “wait and see what else happens.” That last factor can easily become entangled with our natural human bias toward inaction, which ends up favoring default options.
It turns out that making a decision, or, more specifically, taking action is itself the antidote. Peter Sheahan is an expert in workforce trends and the author of “Flip.” He writes, “Action creates clarity! … Stop trying to find the perfect job, or the perfect product or business idea. Move! Do something!”
The idea here is that, while yours may not be the “perfect” answer, it is a start. One effect of taking action is to generate clarity, which may, in turn, lead us to tweak or even scrap the original strategy. Either way, there is momentum and, without that, we aren’t going anywhere.
It’s true that there may be risk. “What if this is the wrong decision? The wrong direction?” However, the way the body acts on a physical level may give clues as to the non-physical as well. Researchers at Queen’s University in Canada looked at what happens when someone extends a hand to reach a certain object.
The researchers found that “reaching movements are supported by reflex responses that compensate for errors that can arise during movement execution.” In other words, when we see that we are off-course, a fast “visuomotor” reflex corrects our motion. Think of catching a frisbee. Might we also correct for stormy seas on the way to the “harbor” of business or personal goals?
Sheahan would say yes. He finds that it’s important to be flexible enough to adjust to changes in conditions. He even goes a step further, sensitive as he is to the changing times, when he writes: “It is no longer possible to begin with Point B in mind and reverse-engineer the result until you get back to Point A.”
Detailed, step-by-step plans are out the window, or in this case, the porthole. Even those who deal in looking to the future all the time have had to adapt. Australian futurist Paul Higgins writes: “Our work has changed over the last decade to be far more focused on how do you create a strategy which deals with the fact that forecasting does not work and that ‘best stabs’ are somewhat useless.”
Now is the time for all of us to get our “sea legs” as we sail our respective ships through the uncharted waters that are the future.
Sail your way toward a mobile app for your town with our MAPP (Mobile App Planning Pack). It can be that one small action to help you get moving.
