I know that’s a big claim. I ask you to think about the mistakes you’ve made in your life. The wrong man you dated and hurt you. The bad investment you made that put you in financial hurt. The easy course you took that sabotaged your career path.

What do they all have in common? Don’t just nod your head here. Take a deep breath and think about each of those situations. Try to feel the situation as you lived it at that time. What drove you to make the decision each time? Were you clear about what your desired outcome was for each decision?

How much emotion drove these decisions? Did the financial decision involve someone pushing you and making you feel stupid?

Clarity is always compromised in highly emotional states. It’s not that emotions aren’t important. It’s that they tend to take over the process. That is why in making critical decisions there needs to be a cooling off period. It doesn’t have to be a day or week. It can be just enough so you can ask yourself ‘why?’ about your desired outcome.

I ask you to use the mantra, “What is my desired outcome from this action?” for the next week in all the decisions you make. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. If you do you will experience at a fundamental level the truth of the title.