We’re all very busy people. Quite frankly, we could call what we do a juggling act. We’ve all got plenty of personal and professional commitments that we need to deal with. Plenty of balls in the air, every day, at all hours of the day. Life is busy enough; throw in the small business-owner thing and we very quickly reach overload. If we stop for a few minutes to think about it, it’s likely that we’re already running on overload, all the time.
And that can’t be good.
That’s the whole thing, isn’t it? We don’t have time to stop for a few minutes and think. It would be great if we could hit the pause button in real life, giving us a few moments to appraise the situation, evaluate our options and their likely consequences, and decide exactly what works best for us in each specific instance. Undoubtedly, our lives and relationships would be much better if we only had a few moments to think about things before deciding to do them.
Alas, the pause button is a feature that has not yet been added to the game of life.
(Please let me know if you do happen to figure out how something like that would work, as I’d be interested in going into business with you – instead of doing home inspections.)
As the result of living such a busy life, we don’t often have time to stop to consider everything that goes into our decisions. And the decisions, both big and small, just keep on coming. For most of the situations we face every day, due to time constraints, we’re unable to put much thought into our responses. We’ve simply got to rely on our education and experience, often called “our wits” or “wisdom,” to get us through. Sometimes our plan works, other times, not so good.
For new business owners, this news isn’t great.
If we could chart the relationship between our level of education and experience and the quality of our decision making, we’d see both lines rising together; a clear sign that we get better at the game of life as we grow in wisdom. Unfortunately, the reality of this situation is that we’re unlikely to make great decisions when we’re first starting out..
The question is “What can we do about it?”
We already know that education and experience are keys to better decision making. If we want to be better decision makers, it’s pretty clear what we need to do: get more experience and more education.
There are a few ways that we can gain experience in life. One is by living through these situations, which in addition to taking a long time, could end up costing us dearly once we factor in the bad decisions we make along the way.
The other way we can gain experience is through education. Seeing what happened to somebody else can help us navigate similar situations. Learning what other people have gone through, seeing how things turned out, and taking away beneficial knowledge seems like a smart thing to do. However, very few of us actually do it. It’s pretty easy, at the end of the day, to kick back with Netflix, a refreshing beverage, and chill. Learning something new, while easier than it’s ever been in history, is still harder than doing nothing.
(And I’m not saying there’s no benefit to watching Netflix. They have quality educational programing, and there’s always something to be learned from any content we consume. It’s just that watching reruns of Seinfeld probably won’t teach us as much as a podcast on becoming a better business owner.)
We’re constantly faced with decisions. Some matter little, while others have long-term consequences. Learning as much as possible, so that we’re in a better place to face those difficult decisions, seems like a prudent thing to do.
Less stress is healthier, we can’t beat having fewer problems, and a happier life sounds like a wonderful thing.
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Thanks, Joe
