Making Tough Decisions
How I chose to do the A Levels, and ways to approach seemingly impossible decisions.
I’m a student from India. For those of you who don’t know, the 10th grade is a pretty big deal here. And the moment you’re done with the 10th grade, you’re faced with a decision that could have a lasting impact: where to go for 11th and 12th grade.
Unlike countries like the USA, India separates the 11th and 12th into a distinct 2-year programme. Here, we have to choose which curriculum we’d like to study for these 2 years.
It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal, and in reality it probably isn’t. But in that moment, it feels like the biggest decision of your life. If you make the wrong choice, your life is ruined. That’s how it feels.
For months, I weighed the pros and cons of both the programs I was considering: ISC and the A Levels. I spoke to different seniors, talked to people I admired and people in the fields of work that I desired to be in, but all I got was conflict.
Somebody became successful doing ISC and loved it. But on the other hand, another did the exact same thing doing A Levels too. So what is the right decision here?
I’d be in a constant shuttling state: I’ve decided to choose ISC. Now I’ve decided to choose the A Levels. Actually, you know what, I’m gonna go with ISC after all.
My mind was splitting, I couldn’t focus on anything, and the biggest thing weighing me down was “What if”. What if I made the wrong decision? What if I hated the curriculum I chose? What if I wouldn’t be able to achieve my goals in this curriculum? What if my life went to ruin?
Writing this now, it sounds funny. It’s like, come on man, just pick something and move on. In reality, the decision is often like this. At this point, when I’ve completely detached myself from this decision-making process, I can see how silly it all was. I can see how there was no right and wrong decision after all.
Ultimately, I ended up choosing the A Levels. Was it because of the prestige of the program? Was it because it made it easier for me to go abroad? Was it because the curriculum was more challenging?
No. I chose the A Levels based on a pure gut reaction, on the last day to submit my curriculum selection. I just picked it, and moved on.
Now, I’d like to offer two different strategies that I’ve thought would’ve helped me make this decision. They are two varying strategies, which you should probably attempt in order.
Detaching
Former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink is one of my idols. As a leader on the battlefield, he had to make many difficult decisions, often under extreme pressure, which were in life/death situations. He found that the best way to make these decisions was to detach. To lift his weapon into the high port position, scan his surroundings, assess the situation and make a call.
As he later found, this strategy has immense value in life too. We’re often bogged down in the tiny details of what we’re doing. I was too involved in the merits and demerits of each course, the inconsequential matters, too accurately make my decision. Often times, all we really need is to take a step back and zoom out, to try and look at the big picture.
This also translates to taking your mind off the decision. As Author James Clear says:
These simple techniques help us detach and take our minds off the decisions we need to make. Little do we know that our subconscious is still doing all the thinking, and lo and behold, we arrive at a solution.
If you’re still stuck…
I’m a huge fan of Gary Vaynerchuk. He is an inspiration to millions out there, and I remember going to his YouTube when I was stuck with a particular decision.
There, I saw a video which changed the way I looked at decisions. In short, Gary basically advised everybody to just go with their gut feeling and make a decision in these circumstances, because we never really know how things will pan out. You could choose to do one thing, but maybe that’ll affect you in a different way in the future.
Nobody has a way of telling what is going to happen in the future. There are too many micro-decisions, acts of nature and simple coincidences that get in the way of perfectly predicting the future.
So, if in doubt, take a moment, relax. Detach. Go for a walk, maybe sleep over it. And if the answer still doesn’t come to you, just pick one and don’t look back. Because life’s too short to care about these things.
