Until we have experience, it is hard to look at a situation with different perspectives. Perspectives come with experience. But, widening our options and seeing choice is an important part of making good decisions. So, the question then would be – how do we make good decisions when we are young and relatively inexperienced? (this isn’t necessarily a reference to age. It could just refer to our experience within a specific topic as well.)
A suggestion that helped me greatly was engaging a “board of directors” group. This is different from mentorship – a board of directors are engaged in an organization (in this case, you) on all long term decisions. They may not be around for the short-term day-to-day activities – they could, but it’s not necessary. The idea here is to float the important questions with this board of directors group. If you’ve done a half decent job assembling this board, you will likely receive 3-4 different points of view and voila! Your options are here. You can now pick or tailor a solution to suit your style.
You can take this concept forward in any decision you make – for example, if you are considering making a decision on setting up a website, pick 3 friends who you think know how to do this and get their advice on how to approach it. Of course, blogs have made this easier since someone on the internet has definitely gone through what you are going through. But, for the more personal, less public decisions, triangulation as an approach works really well.
If at all possible, let your board be a mix of people of varying age groups. If this is hard at this point of your life, start with a group of peers you respect. The important thing here is to get started – triangulation is a great way to make slightly better decisions.
A Learning a Day 