Introduction to Intentional Decision-Making
Introduction to Intentional Decision-Making
Transcript
I want you to Google the title of this section of the course, Intentional Decision-Making. Go ahead. Pause this video, open up a new tab in your browser, and Google those three words-- Intentional Decision Making, in that order. Scroll around a little, and then come back to me. So what did you find? I suspect the first thing you stumbled upon were links to a set of scholarly articles on intentional decision-making, each with a very fancy-sounding title. The next things you likely found were lists of questions to ask and steps to take to make yourself a more intentional decision-maker.
According to one article, making an intentional decision can be accomplished in four simple steps, one of which involves lighting a scented candle, and breathing deeply in and out six times. As even a simple Google search shows, there are clearly many different ways to think about and approach decision-making, and there are a lot of options and opinions out there, some of them really good ones, about how people should make decisions and what good decisions look like.
The fact that you're here with us, the fact that you found this course and are engaging with this video right now tells me that you are preparing to make an important decision of your own. And so I suspect you've come hungry for some guidance about how to make your next decision the right decision. If so, I'm afraid you're out of luck, because in this course, we don't really believe that you should be searching for the right decision.
Instead, we think you should be focused on making a right decision. In other words, we believe that a good, robust, and thoughtful decision-making process isn't necessarily clean or simple, and it rarely results in a single, easy, correct answer. More often than not, making sound decisions requires creativity, flexibility, self-knowledge, and a willingness to entertain multiple exciting and productive possibilities at once.
This module, Intentional Decision-Making, resists the idea that there's one and only one right choice for you out there, as long as you do what you're told and follow the correct set of prescribed steps. Instead, this course is animated by a vision of decision-making as a process of self-reflection and discovery, one that may uncover more than one way for you to achieve your goals.
In our experience, most questions worth asking do not have simple straightforward answers, and most decisions worth making aren't easily made. We think that's a good thing. It's proof that what you're doing matters. I also want to challenge the notion that good decision-making always looks the same for every person. Yes, there are certainly some best practices that decision-makers should keep in mind, and we'll certainly share those with you.
But as a rule, we're going to try to steer clear of presenting you with a definitive method or a single set of steps for how you should approach your decision-making process. Instead, this module is going to place you into conversation with young women and men who have gone through a similar discernment process to the one you are approaching.
By listening to their stories and learning about their experiences, by hearing directly from them about how they made their own tough choices, you will have the opportunity to see what thoughtful decision-making looks like, and critically, you will see that what constitutes good decision-making looks a little different for every person. In short, this module aims not to tell you what intentional decision-making is, but rather, to show you. Welcome to Intentional Decision-Making. Let's get started.
According to one article, making an intentional decision can be accomplished in four simple steps, one of which involves lighting a scented candle, and breathing deeply in and out six times. As even a simple Google search shows, there are clearly many different ways to think about and approach decision-making, and there are a lot of options and opinions out there, some of them really good ones, about how people should make decisions and what good decisions look like.
The fact that you're here with us, the fact that you found this course and are engaging with this video right now tells me that you are preparing to make an important decision of your own. And so I suspect you've come hungry for some guidance about how to make your next decision the right decision. If so, I'm afraid you're out of luck, because in this course, we don't really believe that you should be searching for the right decision.
Instead, we think you should be focused on making a right decision. In other words, we believe that a good, robust, and thoughtful decision-making process isn't necessarily clean or simple, and it rarely results in a single, easy, correct answer. More often than not, making sound decisions requires creativity, flexibility, self-knowledge, and a willingness to entertain multiple exciting and productive possibilities at once.
This module, Intentional Decision-Making, resists the idea that there's one and only one right choice for you out there, as long as you do what you're told and follow the correct set of prescribed steps. Instead, this course is animated by a vision of decision-making as a process of self-reflection and discovery, one that may uncover more than one way for you to achieve your goals.
In our experience, most questions worth asking do not have simple straightforward answers, and most decisions worth making aren't easily made. We think that's a good thing. It's proof that what you're doing matters. I also want to challenge the notion that good decision-making always looks the same for every person. Yes, there are certainly some best practices that decision-makers should keep in mind, and we'll certainly share those with you.
But as a rule, we're going to try to steer clear of presenting you with a definitive method or a single set of steps for how you should approach your decision-making process. Instead, this module is going to place you into conversation with young women and men who have gone through a similar discernment process to the one you are approaching.
By listening to their stories and learning about their experiences, by hearing directly from them about how they made their own tough choices, you will have the opportunity to see what thoughtful decision-making looks like, and critically, you will see that what constitutes good decision-making looks a little different for every person. In short, this module aims not to tell you what intentional decision-making is, but rather, to show you. Welcome to Intentional Decision-Making. Let's get started.