Practical options
Taking a choice to a practicable extreme (and comparing your options) is a great way to think about what you want to do, on your way to making a decision.
Consider the case of choosing a career. It’s hard to choose if you want to go to grad school or law school or stick to what you’ve been doing, all on it’s own. But by expanding your pool of choices—and linking each of them to a tangible and practical goal—it becomes much easier to choose.
Would you rather…
a. Lead marketing for a high-growth SaaS startup?
b. Publish 5 books, a blog, and a podcast?
c. Win a Webby award, a Grammy, or an Oscar?
d. Design an app that delights 1,000 people?
e. Start a business that changes the lives of 10,000 people?
f. Teach physics, english or algebra…and be really good at it?
g. Be a world-renown doctor, lawyer, or saint?
I don’t know about you, but, for me, there’s a very clear winner. (And it’s relatively easy to rank what I’d most like to do against what I don’t care for.)
Decisions (of all kinds) are like that. It’s hard to choose when you have but one option. And especially hard when don’t know how you'll feel later for having chosen it.
By expanding your options and then expanding on them—linking them to concrete experiences and long-term goals—it becomes easier to choose.
Because then it’s not simply a ‘yes or no’ decision, with no clear objective in mind. Instead, you’re choosing a future against a pool of potential realities, based on what you want to achieve, and the life you want to live.