BARRIERS TO MY
DECISION MAKING PROCESS
At
this point in my life, making a decision has become a very critical assignment.
I can no longer make decisions like I used to some few years ago. I no longer
rely totally on people’s opinion to make a decision; even though I do pick
pieces of advice from various sources. The days when decisions where decisions
were made for me by my parents or guardians are over. There is still the possibility of consulting them
once while when making a decision.
My
life at this point is as a result of the decisions I have taken over years; those
I personally took and those taken for me by my guardians, parents and relatives
among others, at one point in time or the other.
I
have come to realize that some things seriously war against my ability to make
decisions every now and then. One of such warring factors is the fear
of failure.
The
fear
of failure has become a major impediment to taking any decision in my
life, even though it does not totally prevent me from taking decisions. It
slows down the process. The fear of mockery and ridicule stares me in the face
anytime I want to take a decision because of the fear that that decision may
not turn out well. This has prevented me from taking certain steps which would
have had very drastic impacts on my life and the people around me. These
impacts I believe would have been both positive and negative. Since everything
that has happened in my life over the past years have all not been positive or
plausible implies I have made decisions which did not always turn out good or
in my favor.
Another
thing that proves itself to be a real obstacle to my decision making process is
experience.
Experiences that affect my decision making take two forms: Personal experiences and experiences
of other people.
Because
I made decisions in the past which did not turn out well or produced
undesirable results, they have become reference points to similar decisions
that I have to make presently in my life. For example, due to past failed
relationships with the opposite sex, it has become somehow difficult for me to
go out and approach a lady, let alone make any propositions.
Certain
areas have been marked as “no go zones” due to past failures
in those areas. Meanwhile with a little bit of careful considerations, I could
venture into these areas again.
Most
often when we want to take certain key decisions in our life (who to marry,
when to marry, career path, which course to pursue in the tertiary, the kind of
house to buy among others), we do our best to consult people we believe have
some kind of experience in such areas and might have lived on earth longer than
us. As a matter of fact, these people counsel us based on their personal
experiences over the years without necessarily looking at our peculiar
situation and leading us to the best fit choices or decisions for us.
The
decisions I have made along the way are sometimes based on other people’s
experiences and the challenges they faced along that same way I am intending to
take.
The
third factor that often obstructs the smooth process of decision making process
in my life is societal expectation. I believe no couple or man and woman seek
societal consent in order to make love to procreate. However, once the child is
born, society influences everything about that child from birth to death. Even
the name given to the child is influenced by society and when the child begins
to develop or grow, society expects him to conform to certain norms and abide
by certain rules and regulations. He is also expected to live in a certain
manner cut out by the society.
Whenever
an opportunity to make a decision arises, one thing that pops up in my mind is;
how society would react to the outcome of that decision. Sometimes you would
prefer not to take any decision at all rather than take a decision that would
be to the displeasure of society. I am often tempted to believe that we become
what society expects and it looks like our lives are remote controlled by
societal expectations.
At
every point in man’s life, he must take a very critical look at his present
circumstances. If he appreciates his present life that means the decisions he
has made or taken in the past have turned out well or yielded good results.
However, if the present life conditions are not the best or what he hoped for
or undesirable, that means the decisions made over the past years did not turn
out well. He must therefore do a significant assessment to ascertain what went
wrong and at what point and make necessary changes to his decision making
process. Decisions should be flexible so that alteration can easily be made to
them when the need arises.
John
Benjamin Eshun © 2012
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