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But my perspective about the decision-making process changed when I read about what you call the discernment, deliberation or simply the decision-making process taught by St. Ignatius of Loyola. There is a better (and more organized, logical and even spiritually-aligned) way to make decisions.
Sharing with you the steps to help you make a good decision especially when you're presented with options and you don't know which one to pick. I got useful excerpts and insights from various sections of the book "A Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything: A Spirituality for Real Life" by Fr. James Martin, SJ and organized them under each step.
1. Pray and present your options to God.
Remember the following though when coming up with your options:
- Your options shouldn't be manifestly evil. This disqualifies choosing between lesser evil as we sometimes put it when we're presented with options bordering a gray area. Because after all, there's always the choice to do the right thing which is refraining from doing the wrong thing.
- Make sure you're indifferent when you come up with your options. By indifferent, it means you've to approach each decision fresh. Many times we enter into a decision with our minds already made up, or too concerned about how others will judge our decision. And while advice from friends and families can help us arrive at a good decision, begin the decision-making process as impartially as possible. Starting off by assuming that you should decide one way or the other, is cheating yourself out of a good choice.
2. Identify your ultimate objective.
3. Ask God to move your heart toward the better decision.
4. Make a list of the possible positive and negative outcomes of all the options.
Remember, no decision leads to a perfect outcome. There's no perfect solution - each option has both pros and cons.
5. Meditate on which option gives you the greater consolation.
Consolation is a sense of peace and rightness of the choice. Consolation leads you to feel encouraged, confident, and calm in your decision.
What I found very useful from the book are these suggested techniques to help us seriously think through our various options by visualizing them. Here are some visualization techniques in decision-makingnpresented in the book:
- Imagine living with each choice for a set period of time and seeing which choice gives you a greater sense of peace.
- Or imagine a person whom you have never seen or known and imagine what advice you would give to this person regarding the same decision you are facing. This can help free you from excessive focus on yourself.
- Or imagine yourself at the point of death and imagine asking yourself this on your deathbed - "What should I have done?"
- Or imagine yourself at the Last Judgment - which choice would you want to present before God?
- Or imagine what your best self would do. Making decisions as if you were you were your best self will help you become your best self.
That's not to say that a good decision won't stir you up. In an example cited in the book between staying in a small condo versus moving to a bigger apartment where you have decided to move to a bigger apartment, it doesn't mean that you'll feel calm all the way. If you decide to move to a bigger apartment, there will be lots to do. And everyone feels some buyer's remorse. You may feel anxiety as you think all the responsibilities a new house entails. But if deep down, you feel consolation, you feel peace, you feel you're headed to the right direction, it's probably a good choice.
6. Ask for some sort of confirmation from God that it is the right decision.
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As a final learning on decision-making, we are entitled to change our decision in the face of new data unless it's commitments like a vow, marriage, etc. But if you've made a changeable decision for good reasons and you're comfortable with it and there's no reason to change things, don't bother making a new decision.
Lastly, if you've made a good decision and suddenly feel downcast, it's not a sign to reconsider. An example cited in the book is say you have decided to be a more generous person and will forgive someone against whom you've had a grudge for many months. So you speak with your friend. If your forgiveness doesn't seem to heal the relationship immediately, it does not mean you should stop being a forgiving person. "When you have made a good decision to serve God better and after a while go into desolation, you should not change the decision because it's hardly a good spirit moving you."