““When you come to the fork in the road, take it””

Another option is to find someone trained in “motivational interviewing”. The name is misleading; it’s not used to increase someone’s motivation, but to help a person come to a decision, move to a point of action. Pretty interesting stuff.

What I do in this situation is to do as much reaerch as I can, talk to a few people I trust, THINK about it for a little while, and then go with my best instincts.

Nobody is an expert at everything, so sometimes, I think we just have to rely on our gut.

And if it turns out I made a mistake, I make the best of it, learn from my mistake, and make sure it doesn’t happen twice…

I’ve been living life by some of these rules over the past few months; just taking an option and going with it, no matter what the consequences, and it’s been an amazing, continuing journey!

http://rob-nightingale.co.uk/

Always look forward to your posts. Thank you!

In the U.S. I think we are at a point where many spend their days reading about (or viewing) and discussing how things ought to be, and what they (or others) ought to do. I believe if we devoted 10% of our time to taking action, 90% of our perceived problems would disappear.

If there is any action on the Top Ten Personal Finance To-Do’s that a person has not done – in my case, it’s making a will – it’s time to schedule a To-Do Day and get that stuff DONE.

It’s far better, in almost all circumstances, to take SOME action than to endlessly discuss WHICH action should be taken.

Next year, I will continue paying off my student loans but I also plan to apply to MBA programs. I’m hoping to be able to pay for it with scholarships and cash.

I make a decision, then live with the consequences of that decision until I can mitigate it. But, I make a decision. I learn from my mistakes.

I look at my mistake and ask myself these questions:

1. What did I do wrong? What exactly was the mistake in the process?
2. What should I have done differently?
3. How can I mitigate what has already happened?

And, most important of all of them:

4. What can I learn from this to keep from doing it again? Was there any good at all, from this decision? How can I keep the good part of the decision and not repeat the bad part of the decision?

I also go into a decision, especially large ones, without FEAR. Once the decision is made, then I go with it. I know I will fail sometimes and I am okay with that hit to my self esteem. Heck, crap happens!

And, I have this belief that if I make decisions, with a good and not selfish heart, without the intention to hurt anyone, then Life/God/Karma will pay me back ten fold.

It has worked so far in the past 47 years I’ve been on this planet.

I read a quote awhile back that I really like, it said something to this effect: “If I had to live life over again, I would have made the same mistakes, but much sooner!”

Amen to that one.

I’m confident and feel good about all my decisions. Why? Because it’s the decision that I made. It’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just the decision that I made. Learn to stop that judgmental, pre-conditioned thought loop. It’s silly anyways. Cheers!

I absolutely love the coin flip idea. It doesn’t even have to be the decision maker – it’ll quickly help you see which direction really want to go.

I’m going to start using that. Now to find a nice shiny half-dollar.

Sometimes two choices are better than one.

For example, when deciding between paying off credit card debt or saving more, the earlier savings compounded earned more than what I would save in interest expense. I discovered this in a spreadsheet and decided to split my efforts between the two.

By the time I got my credit card debt paid off, I also had a nice 12 month emergency fund stashed in a high-yield checking account earning 4.75%

Both goals were equally important to me and it pained me to pick one over the other, so I chose to fund both at the same time.

If the best course of action doesn’t become apparent within a reasonable amount of time and research, I make a list of pros and cons for each choice. Then I rate them by how effectively each will help me reach my goal and eliminate (or put on hold) the least effective ones making the best choice more apparent.

This simple process of elimination works every time for me and keeps me moving and making progress toward my goals.

My other tactic is start small and add for any long term goal. For example, college fund for the kids. Folks freak out worrying about paying $100K plus and how will they save that. Do they use a 529, invest in the market, etc. I say start with $20-50 a paycheck in saving account and add to it in $10/20 as you get raises and take your time deciding where to invest it later. The fact that you start saving is often more important than delaying because you are worrying about where you are saving it and picking the best investment. The $500-1200 you might save that first year is more than the likely difference in interest between any of your choices.

Doing something now makes it easier to do something else, later – it’s not hard to make the jump from emergency fund, to emergency fund in a CD ladder, to a fat retirement account and a full-fledged portfolio.

1) Instinct – Experience lets them subconsciously pick out patterns in decision branches, so even if they’re not aware, they can avoid disaster.

2) Minimize risk – Successful people are able to position themselves so that even if they make a bad decision, the negative impact is minimal, and / or they can backtrack quickly.

3) Ignore fear – Everybody’s afraid. Successful people either ignore it or thrive on it. They realize, what’s the worst could happen? I lose everything? I’ll just build it up again.

By the way, my “magic coin” is a half dollar.

When I really get stuck, I also have a special coin. It literally says on it, “Executive decision maker.” Flip it and it will make your decision for you

Like Tom’s girlfriend, I often flip a coin. Heck, if you have role-playing dice, you can roll a dice for all sorts of numbers of decisions.

If you are searching for more extra money within your current income, take a look at my website – it’ll show you where to find it. Be sure to leave a comment, I love to interact with my readers!

http://www.lifeandmyfinances.com