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Writer's pictureJoe Andrews

Speaking of: Being Decisive as a Skill

I've heard people say in the past "I'm just not very decisive," as an excuse for laboring over a decision or trying to weasel out of choosing a single thing and instead choose a bunch different of things.

I think this notion is wrong. This idea that it's binary and people are either decisive people or indecisive people and it's an unchanging part of who you are is completely mistaken. Being decisive is a skill to be practiced and honed just like every other skill. If you don't practice it or learn the techniques, then you'll never get better at it.

Being decisive isn't about knowing the right answer but about how quickly you can organize all the information you have so that you can eliminate the garbage answers, and I think that piece of it is very teachable. It's about recognizing when you're overthinking and knowing how to pull the central questions out of a discussion so the main objective never gets lost. It's not easy for everyone, myself included. But it's not a fixed personality trait.

Anyone saying they "just aren't decisive" just isn't trying hard enough.

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