CHOICES CAN BREAK OR MAKE YOU

The future is to a great extent created by the events we choose to undertake today; therefore where you end up in life is not determined by where you start but greatly by the choices you make along the way.  Your choices can break or make you.  Some choices are simple and seem straight forward, while others are complex and require a multi-step approach to making the decisions.  Therefore at times we might encounter the consequences first to realize that we made the wrong decision.

God gave us the power to choose, so choose wisely because choices have consequences.  When we are younger it is much easier for us because our parents and guardians help us in making the decisions but it reaches a time when you are not under your parents/guardians umbrella therefore you are forced to make the choices on your own.  

Tips

Ø  Always think of the possible consequences before you make a choice, more especially if it’s something you are not sure of.  Thereby knowing whether you are ready to deal with the consequences or not just in case.

Ø  If possible seek for advice and guidance when the choice is hard for you to make but make sure that you make the decision on your own so as not to blame others for your own mistakes. 

Ø  Take responsibility for your actions, we learn through experience

Ø  You should never be afraid to make choices because no one is perfect; mistakes are part of our learning process and are supposed to make us better.

As much as the future is created by the choices we make, we can not rule out the fact that there are other factors that determine our future; like fate.  Therefore don’t kill yourself incase your future didn’t end up the way you wanted; because to some extent there are things you have no control over. But then again even if what you are facing is due to the decision you made in the past you should know that; no one is perfect so we are deemed to make wrong choices at some point in our lives.

Factors that Influence our Choices

Ø   Past experiences

It stands to reason that people are usually keen and tend to avoid repeating past mistakes while on the other hand positive results from a decision will cause people to more likely decide in a similar way, given a similar situation.

Ø   Age

It is evident that an older person might make the right choice because of experience and other things.  In addition, older people in most cases may be more overconfident regarding their ability to make decisions, which inhibits their ability to apply strategies (de Bruin et al., 2007).

Ø   Belief in personal relevance

When people believe what they decide matters, they are more likely to make a decision.

Ø   Cognitive Biases

Cognitive biases include, but are not limited to: belief bias, the over dependence on prior knowledge in arriving at decisions; hindsight bias, people tend to readily explain an event as inevitable, once it has happened; omission bias, generally, people have a propensity to omit information perceived as risky; and confirmation bias, in which people observe what they expect in observations (Marsh, & Hanlon, 2007; Nestler. & von Collani, 2008; Stanovich & West, 2008).

In decision making, cognitive biases influence people by causing them to over rely or lend more credence to expected observations and previous knowledge, while dismissing information or observations that are perceived as uncertain, without looking at the bigger picture. While this influence may lead to poor decisions sometimes, the cognitive biases enable individuals to make efficient decisions with assistance of heuristics (Shah & Oppenheimer, 2008).

Ø   Escalation of Commitment

Individuals invest larger amounts of time, money, and effort into a decision to which they feel committed; further, people will tend to continue to make risky decisions when they feel responsible for the sunk costs, time, money, and effort spent on a project.

The Paradox of Choice

Individual behavior differs when there are a number of choices to choose from; there is a stronger effect for the allure of more choice.  There is some evidence that while greater choice has the potential to improve a person's welfare, sometimes there is such a thing as too much choice.

Choice can demotivate someone from doing something in the sense that; one assumes that perusing a larger number of choices imposes a cognitive burden on the individual.  The other assumes that individuals can experience regret if they make a suboptimal choice, and sometimes avoid making a choice to avoid experiencing regret.

Problems that emerge as a result of increasing options

Ø  Having more choices leads to an escalation of expectation. When there are increased options, people’s standards for what is an acceptable outcome rise.

Ø  With many options available, people may come to believe they are to blame for an unacceptable result because with so many choices, they should have been able to pick the best one.

Ø  Having the opportunity to revise one’s decisions leaves people less satisfied with the decision outcome and may end up regretting.

Looking at the factors that influence our choices, it is probable that some choices may be hard for the young people. It is evident that they most definitely require guidance in order to avoid so many mistakes. Therefore my advice to the young adults and teenagers is that they should always open up and seek guidance because no one was born knowing it all.

In life, we make so many choices; some very important and others not.  Many of our choices are between good and evil thus, the choices we make however, may determine to a large extent our happiness or unhappiness. It is with no doubt that some of our important choices have a time limit, therefore if we delay a decision we end up loosing the opportunity.  As a result it is advisable to know when a decision is urgently needed and when not.