Hicham Maged's blog Inquisitive curiosity paves knowledge path

Decision Making Process: It’s My Life

Assalam Alaikum wa rahmat Allah.
Peace be upon you dear visitor.

Where you are going: Decision Making Process

Decision Making is one of the basic and common processes that we pass through in our life almost on daily biases. In this blog entry, I do not pretend being an expert in this field from the scientific point of view; however I am sharing my reflections as a normal human being who is called to take many decisions in order to know exactly where to go in this life, and this – I think – is the case with other people!

Let us start but notice this is a long post so bare with me

Decision Making Strategy

You can look for the formal or scientific definition in dictionary but here I define this process as the act of choosing between two or more alternatives for a specific situation within definite period.

In other words, the process is about making choice to reach wise decisions whereas avoiding bad decisions. Hereby, this is valid on different scales; starting with the individual scale, passing by the community scale and ends with the global scale.

Tough Decisions Factors

In the light of this, the decision making process means you make a choice: i.e. to pick up one alternative among the others. Hence, your ability to take a decision depends mainly on the integration of the following five factors:

1. Cognition: how person perceives this situation from all perspectives,
2. Information: for dealing with this situation on different levels,
3. Revenue: pros & cons from making the choice on the person himself,
4. Impact: pros & cons from making the choice on the community around, and
5. Timing: the period allowed for making the choice.

I will give you a common example to illustrate how these factors work together. Assume that you are going to hang out with your friends to have meal at any place. If you did not take the right decision within a specific time for what you want to eat from the menu, then one of the following cases can happen:

• Case 1: Your friends will go mad with you,
• Case 2: The waiter might loose his (and her) mind if you return back to the same place,
• Case 3: You may eat something you do not want just to please your friends.

It is clear that you are loosing in the three cases, however your loss in the 3^rd is more than the other two when your choice is bad and wrong. On the other hand, if your choice was wise and right, you plus the people around will feel happy and no one will be the looser except the one who shall pay the bill at last

Circles of Relationship

Straightforward, every human being in Mankind is surrounded by different circles of relationships with others humans:

• Circle 1: your family with radius “a”,
• Circle 2: your friends with radius “b”,
• Circle 3: your colleagues (school/college/work, etc.) with radius “c”,
• Circle X: with all humans member of of Mankind with radius “x”.

These circles may vary in their radius but in the same time you are in the center of each circle within the whole medium. This is important to understand for the action plans about this process to achieve success and avoid failure.

Decision Making Process: Success vs Failure

Success and Failure: Action Plan

Before placing my self improvement tips about this plan, let me highlight that there is nothing 100% free of errors or risk free in our world; however the idea lies behind how you perceive the situation to reach a wise decision and avoid bad decisions in whatever situation.

Hereby, I can summarize the broad lines for this action plan in the following nine points:

1. Study the situation well from all perspectives,
2. Never take a decision when you are angry,
3. Do not take a decision to please yourself regardless the people in different circles of relationship,
4. Do not take a decision to please people in different circles of relationship only,
5. Be honest with yourself, people and the Creator, Almighty Allah (swt) when you make your decisions,
6. Do not take a decision without listing to the people around you, whom you trust, in case you need other opinions,
7. Do not take a decision without listing to the both sides, in case you are in charge of judgment in anything: Listen to person y in the same manner with the same magnitude you did while listening to person x before you judge,
8. Do not take a decision based on your personal emotions only; i.e. because you love someone or hate someone, race, religion, etc. Rather try to be rational in your decision,
9. Never make a decision that contradicts with the direct orders of Allah to please people around you or please yourself.

This section – in a nutshell – simply means you need an action plan that depends on your rational way of thinking where your human intellect lead you to implement it in order to achieve success and avoid failure.

It’s My Life

My elaborations in this post is dealing with the decision making process on the minor individual scale through presenting a self improvement guide for humans; however the case of dealing with groups on the major scale is out of my scope.

There are other ways for them that simply starts with “brain storming” and ascends in its complexity to reach “Intelligent Decision Support Systems (IDSS)” where in the later factors became more complicated when dealing with organizations relationships that requires these systems to analyze and pick up the suitable decision.

So returning back to the minor scale of people decisions, I always believe that we are neither angels nor devils; rather we are just humans who are subjected to act right and wrong. Hereby, Muslims believe in destiny; however this does not mean to stop taking actions to improve our life and self improvement; this is totally wrong in Islam unlike the call for laziness that your hear sometimes especially in the Arab world.

Even if you are non-Muslim the same applies as the closer you get, the better you will reach through your human intellect where you use your mind rationally. Hence, destiny is only about things that we cannot change as humans like birth, death, your figure; however everything else is possible for our personal achievement. Even if you passed through hard times, you can go for a process of positioning oneself to align your life in the light of the circumstances that created a new situation.

In a nutshell, when people study the situation well they can decrease the risk of taking wrong decisions and increase the chances for taking wise and right decisions to improve themselves and their life, and this simply achieved through the right implementation of their human intellect. Hereby, I usually make my decision day at the beginning of the New Year to celebrate it in a better way!

Nevertheless, I would like to end these self improvement tips with personal reflections. This life will end on day, and we will be judged by the Creator, Almighty Allah (swt) – GOD – for every penny we spent in life; money, time, effort, or knowledge which you did not implement for welfare of Mankind. Nevertheless, it is notable how the last 9^th point is widely abused from people worldwide who are talking and hiding behind the name of Allah or God whatever their religion is. They focus about special acts and say that they are the only right sect while the others are wrong and must be killed. I see this as the basic law and order that terrorists and racists follow whatever their religion or race is.

I wish every body who read this all the best in their decisions!

Related Quotes and Sayings

To be is to do. — Immanuel Kant

Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Salam,
Hicham

« photo credit 1 – photo credit 2 »

Tags: human intellect, self improvement tips
Categories: Coexistence
Viewd: 993 views

(10 votes, average: 4.90 out of 5)

 Loading ...