I’ve heard conflicting advice about letting your emotions into the decision making process or not. I’ve heard people say that never ever should you let emotions decide anything. And I’ve heard credible folks say that the best decisions are made by listening to your emotions.
Observations
Most people I bump into in my circles say that it’s best to leave the emotions out. And I’ve seen some people make some incredibly bad choices by letting their emotions drive the decision.
So, for the longest time I believed that all decisions should be made rationally – no emotions involved. I became a Vulcan, Mr Rational, an almost robot, or whatever you want to call it. Emotions were only something to get rid of, and they certainly had no place in decision making.
Then I started hearing people say things like, “The best decisions are made with the heart,” “The mind is a great servant, but a poor master.” And now our coaches are telling us that we should be getting people to feel something and then make a decision from that. And in addition, I’ve now seen people make poor choices because they wouldn’t listen to their heart.
What is going on here? How can both concepts be true, or is one really a lie? Let’s take a closer look.
Examination
First, if your driving emotion is fear, you probably aren’t going to make a good decision. Unless you are being chased by a bear, you aren’t in any real immediate danger, and your decision process is probably hindered. This includes fear of losing, fear of missing out (the main drivers of the short term stock market), fear of not being accepted or liked, and other fears. If you are feeling fear, it’s best to postpone any decisions. We don’t want this type of emotion to drive your decision making process.
If you are feeling entitled, like you deserve to have ___, you probably want more analytics in your decision making. If your typical thought process is, “What can I get?” as in the pirate creed, “Take all you can. Give nothing back.”, and your emotions are filled with, “I want!” you probably don’t want to let your emotions decide.
On the other hand, if your emotions are filled with love and compassion, in a spirit of giving, and everyone winning, you want to let your heart lead. If your emotions are telling you that you are meant for something more, that you can make a bigger contribution, you want to decide with your emotions.
We chase our dreams with our heart, not from our head. It’s good to decide to get married from our heart. Decisions in our relationships are usually better made from the heart. Analysis has it’s place, but in may cases we don’t want the deciding factor to be our analysis. Instead our heart knows best.
Decide From Love
I’ve noticed that often when I am feeling expansive with love and compassion, and then I use that to try to decide something, I sometimes have fear come up. So I have competing emotions at war within me in the middle of the decision process. I want to always be listening to love, quieting my fear and then decide from this place.
