There are three ways you can make decisions:

1) Ready, aim, fire: You prepare yourself. You aim by doing your homework and making sure you have the necessary information to make an informed decision. Then you decide. You go for it!

2) Ready, fire, aim: This is for all of you impulsive types out there. You go with your gut. You make the decision with your heart and justify it later with your head (or kick yourself for not gathering more information before taking the plunge).

3) Ready, aim, aim, aim: You determine what decision needs to be made, and then you gather information, ask a lot of questions, and analyze what you’ve learned from your research. Then you decide that you don’t have enough data to make a decision so you set out to gather more info. Sometimes you even revisit the same data and re-read it a few more times. You contact more references or talk to more experts. You consider yourself to be diligent. You are dotting all of your i’s and crossing all of your t’s. But what if you’re spending your whole life aiming and it’s time to pull the trigger? What if you are missing opportunities because you can’t make a decision?

If you find yourself getting ready and aiming and aiming and aiming, you’ve got to pull the trigger at some point. You can only gather so much information, create so many pro & con lists, and analyze a decision so much. The time to decide is now. Your future depends on it!

As a leader, you will be called upon to make tough decisions. You can count on it. Those who follow you are counting on you.

“Indecision becomes decision with time.” ~Author Unknown