A Simple Tool For Better Decisions & More Effective Actions

One reason we don't make progress towards our goals is that the actions we take often aren't aligned with our values and desires. We take actions that are disempowering.

There is often a gaping chasm between our values and our actions. That gap is bridged by our decisions.

If you want to get leverage on yourself and take actions that move you towards your dreams instead of away from them, you can't do it by just trying to take better actions. You have to go upstream and address this at the level of your decisions.

You can't take an action without first making a decision to take that action.

Our decisions are the nexus between our values or desires and our actions.

A lot of the time we make decisions that don't serve us or don't empower us.

We want to lose 15kg, but every day we're eating ice cream and drinking sugary soft drinks.

We want to have a loving relationship, but we yell at our partner and emotionally blackmail them when we feel triggered by something they do.

We want to make a sustainable income from our music, but every night we're binge-watching Netflix or scrolling aimlessly through social media for hours instead of working on our marketing to build our fanbase.

I want to give you a really simple tool you can use to optimise your decisions and help you get unstuck and move towards your dreams.

When you're in a situation and you don't know how to react or you're conflicted or you're stuck in a disempowering pattern or you're triggered, ask yourself: What would the most extraordinary person in the world do right now? Then imagine it and execute it.

When you ask yourself this question, something magical and profound happens. You can get access to new ideas and ways of being that wouldn't occur to you normally. When you get the insight about what the most extraordinary person in the world would do in that situation, and then you make the decision and follow through with that and actually do it, you're being the most extraordinary version of yourself.

I'll give you a couple of examples of how I've used this in the last few days.

I was presented with an opportunity to upgrade my coaching training. And there's a significant investment financially as well as time-wise. And I was conflicted about whether I wanted to go spend the money and the time to do this training. So I asked myself, “What would the most extraordinary man in the world do right now?” And the answer came to me almost instantly.

The most extraordinary man in the world would invest in the training and do it because he invests in himself and in his future. He sees himself as a lifelong learner and so he's committed to his own education and development and transformation. And he's also committed to the development and transformation of his clients and to creating greater and greater value for them going forward. So I made the decision and I signed up for the training.

Another example was when I did my weekly grocery shopping the other day. I paid for it, wheeled the trolley out to the car, and loaded the bags into the car. And I noticed as I lifted the last bag out of the trolley, underneath it was some ginger root that I hadn't noticed when I was at the checkout and so I hadn't paid for it. And the thought crossed my mind... it's only small, it's just a couple of dollars, they'll never miss it, it'll be OK, just leave without paying for it, it's too much effort to go back in and pay for something so small. And so I was in this quandary.

And so I asked myself, “What would the most extraordinary man in the world do right now?” And it was immediately obvious. The most extraordinary man in the world, if he was in this situation, would go back into the shop and pay for it. And he would do that because he wants his actions to be aligned with his values. He would want to be in integrity with himself. And so I went back into the shop, and paid for it, and it was like $3. $3 and the walk back in and back to the car was a small price to pay for being aligned with my values and being the most extraordinary version of myself.

We want to make these giant leaps and go to the next level where we've achieved our dreams. But it's important to remember that giant leaps are the accumulation of smaller steps. It's doing those small steps consistently that adds up to the giant leap that takes us to the next level.

It's obvious to use this question when you're at the crossroads making the big life-changing decisions because the stakes are high. It's counter-intuitive to use it for the smaller, microscopic decisions that have seemingly insignificant consequences.

But if you use this with the smaller decisions it helps you build that muscle for the bigger decisions.

But even more than that, using it for the smaller decisions paradoxically builds our character more. Our character is being tested in a multitude of ways, multiple times every day. It's easy to justify not doing optimal behaviour in the seemingly insignificant situations, because the potential consequences are easier to dismiss. You think it doesn't matter, and so you let it slip through the keeper.

But that can create this cascading effect where, if you've done it once, if you've justified to yourself that it doesn't matter that you do the right thing or practice the optimal behaviour, then the next time you're in that situation, you're less likely to do it too. You've established a precedent, and then you reinforce that through repetition and it becomes the path of least resistance. It becomes a habit.

Our lives are a network of paths that started out as arbitrary paths of least resistance, but as the saying goes, the chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they're too strong to be broken. First, you shape your habits, then they shape you. So you really want to pay attention to the smaller opportunities to practice this. Awareness builds its own momentum.

If you want to get out of the loop of doing an unproductive habit or that self-defeating pattern, you need to have some awareness in the moment when you're on the cusp of doing it, and then ask yourself “what would the most extraordinary person in the world do right now?”

When you ask this question for the little things and then follow through, you build your self-esteem. You notice that instead of just taking the path of least resistance, you did what the most extraordinary version of you would do. And then you can celebrate it, which builds your self-esteem because you can see that your actions are aligned with your values/desires.

This week, I invite you to notice where you can ask “what would the most extraordinary person in the world do right now?” in the different domains of your life. Notice where you can ask this question in your health, with your exercise, with your food, with your sleep, in your relationships, with your partner, with your family, with your co-workers, in your music career, with your time management and productivity.