Relief
- I’m pretty sure I just made the world a better place (and it only cost me $4).
- What am I not stepping into and why?
- “Someday” and “never” have the same numerical value in that they both equal zero … and other highlights from “Decide.”
- Decisions: The School Uniform and Releasing Trapped Energy
- The big decisions will help guide the smaller decisions
- That thing you think is going to happen might not happen.
- When you change your mind, you change your mind
- The tiny little secret of the tipping point
- Relief
- When are decisions triggered in the subconscious minds of children?
- Give a Voice to Your Truth and a Truth to Your Voice
- What if you just don’t have the capacity to decide? What if you don’t have a prefrontal cortex? What if you’re, like, a teenager.
- “Wait, I take that back.” Are our decisions reversible?
- Dictatorship or democracy? Which is better for decision-making?
- In a back alley brawl, “Decide” is going to win out over “Hope.”
- Decisions Beget Decisions
- What if the “primary” decisions became the “secondary” decisions?
- Simple but not easy
- Not Simple and Not Easy
- I can’t, uh, decide! Which cover for the “Decide” book!?
- If you build it, they will come. What if you decide? Will they come, too?
- My idea of a good time
- Decision-making, belief, and behavioral biases
- See, Feel, Know | Mind, Heart, Gut
The feeling when it clicks.
There’s a point in decision making, probably quite a bit like reaching the summit of a mountain on a bicycle, when you feel relief. If the word relief doesn’t quite do it for you, let’s try:
- release
- satisfaction
- alleviation
- deliverance
- happiness
Everything from letting go to joy. There are standard lines we hear when you feel relief. Any of these strike a chord?
I’m so glad that’s over!
I can’t believe that was all there was to it.
Whew. I never thought I’d get there.
I did it. I actually did it.
These are statements of relief. This is what happens when you decide.
This is an excerpt from a chapter of Bradley Charbonneau’s book “Decide: The science and art of decision making”
People ask all the time, “But how do I know when I’ve made the right decision?” Usually my answer is “You’ll just know.” or maybe “You’ll feel it.” But the word relief is easier to swallow, to comprehend, to really feel. People know the feeling of relief. You just avoided a car wreck. You finally got that project done by the deadline. Your spouse got the numbers back from the doctor.
But relief can be achieved, reached, influenced.
It doesn’t only have to be something we receive or react to. It can be something we can proactively make happen. Through deciding, through making a decision, we can build it to the point where we feel relief because we made that decision. In fact, that’s the trick, that’s the rub, that’s the big secret: we know we have made the right decision when we feel that relief.
It’s a gut feeling, a feeling thing. It’s not science, but more of an art. I know you don’t want to hear it, but you’ll just know. Once you get better at building small levels of relief, you’ll improve at sensing when you feel that relief, how much of it, the level of importance, and how to then take it even to the next level.
When things really, really get interesting.
