Guessing Isn’t a Very Good Plan for Making Business Decisions…
Or any other kind of decision for that matter. Over the past several months I’ve heard or asked the question, “What should I do?” This question gets asked about all sorts of things both big and small.
Some decisions are more critical than others…Should I start this new business? Should I ask this person to marry me? These are more important questions than, “Where do you want to eat?” Knowing what to do in any given situation can be hard, but not as hard as we make it.
I think Satan likes to keep us guessing.
The uncertainty of what we should do keeps us from moving forward and accomplishing the things God wants for us. Sometimes it takes a smack in the head to get our attention and give us clarity. If God gives you a direction to go then stop questioning.
We think it would be great if we knew exactly what it was that we were supposed to do all the time. If this were the case, we would just be robots. We were made to have choices.
Knowing the destination doesn’t mean there’s only one path to get there.
“Clarity starts with a decision.” This is something Ray Edwards said in his 7 Steps to Getting Clarity podcast. His point was that we won’t ever have all of the answers in the beginning. If we do something we never will.
Here are three components to making the best decisions we can. –
We need to listen to God – I believe that God has given each of us a specific purpose. Something that only we can do in the way that we can do it. After God got my attention with the board, I knew what mine was. This doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes lose my focus and start asking questions.
This is when we need to go back to the Architect of our lives and review our life blueprint.
We need to know ourselves – We’ve been given an internal compass to direct us toward our purpose. Sometimes it gets misplaced or we forget to look at it. We’re moving along down life’s road and when we look up, we don’t know where we are or which direction to go.
Maybe we never knew that we had a compass or how to use it. This internal compass is who we are, what we like, what we dislike, what we’re good at, what we’re not so good at, etc. Every one of our compasses are different.
You just need to know your own compass and use it.
We need to take action – You may know what God wants you to do. You may know which direction your compass is pointing you. If you don’t do something, you’re doing nothing.
Making a decision and taking action can be scary. What if I make the wrong one?
As I think back over some of the big business/life questions I heard asked and the answers given, I ask myself…how would I know what is the right thing for that person to do? I don’t know what purpose God has given them, I don’t know what their specific gifts are, I don’t even have many details of their question.
I can encourage them, I can offer them opinion, but really a surface answer is the best I can do in this situation.
I know that when I’ve had suggestions or answers to my questions, they have been helpful (even though more times than not I already knew the answer.) Sometimes we just need some reassurance that we’re not crazy.
Ultimately the right answer is already there and comes from within.
