What Drives Decisions - Should or Want?

by Joan Friedlander

" Decision making is an inherently emotional business."
~ David Brooks, The Social Animal (Random House, Inc. 2011)

When it comes to making good, sound decisions for your business and your life, emotional capacity is a key player. Emotional capacity is, by its very nature, always fluctuating. Furthermore, emotions are not easily controlled and are often elusive. With mindfulness, they can be observed, tempered and accommodated.

Emotions move through us in energy waves. They are neither good or bad; they are part of the human experience. If embraced and accepted, emotions offer us a ride through life that is, as they say, bitter sweet. They give us the color in our earthly experience. It is our resistance to and/or suppression of the waves that can get us into trouble.

Our emotional state in any given moment is influenced by various external and internal factors: by hormones, by sleep or lack thereof, by the mood of someone around us, by the weather, by the condition of our environment, by the absence or presence of physical pain, and by our emotional history. All of these factors have the potential to skew our ability to know what is best for us and anyone who may be influenced by our decisions and actions.

Some decisions can be made with relative ease. Your response is a clear and resounding: "Yes, I want that! or "No, that's not right for me." Other decisions, usually those that have a greater potential to change the landscape of your life, carry more emotional weight. Regardless of potential impact, all decisions are yours to make; they are your right to make and your responsibility to make.

Should as an Emotional Barometer

When I hear the word “should” slip out of someone's mouth, it is a good indicator that they are not making the decision, something else is. That something else is usually some undetected voice living in their head. That voice can be parental in nature; it can be the voice of a teacher or mentor, or an "everybody knows" voice.

With "should" in the mix there is little room for want, and less room for clarity. Should is born in childhood when parental opinions are strong and the default dictators of our forming belief systems.

• You should clean your room and make your bed

• You should eat your vegetables - every day and before dessert

• You should get into college or you will not succeed as an adult

• You should get married and have children with (the kind of person we say you should)

• You should always be polite and wear a smile on your face (if you don't your face will freeze like that - and that's wrong)
  

Then, later in life - and in business - we graduate to advanced should statements:

• You should expect to have to work really hard to be successful

• You should always be productive, with your eyes on the prize and your goals in front of you

• You should buy MY system because my system works for everyone!

• You should attend family gatherings because if you don't you'll break (someone's) heart

• You should be on the Social Networking sites because all successful businesses are these days...you know
  

A whole lot of finger wagging going on, isn't there? It's no wonder that "should" slips easily out of our mouths with little thought for "want," and often without detection. In the face of "should," one's capacity to act when faced with uncertain outcomes, to flex when presented with new information, and to otherwise be guided by what is true and correct for you is hard to access. When you do realize that you don't want to do something that is contrary to some "should," the internal dialogue can become excruciatingly loud.

What about "want?"

It should be easy (isn't that funny?) to replace "should" with "want" and answer, instead of "Should I?,""Do I want to?" But it is often not the case. If you have been putting your wants on the back burner in favor of the needs, wants and opinions of others, "want" presents some problems.

The decision to honor your "want" may mean a break with the tradition of "the tribe." Depending on your perception of the potential degree of the break, and with whom, your entire sense of security may feel as if it is being threatened. This is what makes "should" so difficult to shed.

If you are more used to acting upon what you think you should do rather than what you want to do - or not do - trust in your own guidance system is likely to be diminished. Even the simpler decisions are difficult to make. The more complex ones are torturous.

Decisions that involve children, family or employees may be the most difficult. Here, too, when something is right for you, it is right for you. When your emotional capacity is well developed, even more complex decisions become easier. Well developed emotional capacity gives you the ability to consider your wants in the equation, as well as the wants of others who may be impacted.

Some times there is no way around it. Sometimes, your wants will hurt others. When you are true to yourSelf, in the long run no one gets hurt.

Adjusting the Should vs. Want Scales

"Make your own rules. Live them fiercely and consistently."
~ Eric Fullerton

Decisions and actions based on "should" are likely to set you on a course of pursuing dreams that are not yours, of making decisions that eventually backfire, and in the end have the potential to create a pile of regrets when you realize you've been living life by someone else's good ideas and not your own.

Here are 6 ways that you can adjust the should/want scales if you notice yourself weighing in more heavily on the "should" side of the scale with some frequency.

 

by Joan Friedlander, © 2011. All rights reserved.