How are decisions made? what makes us make decisions? Do we follow any structure or orders, in other word what principles guides those process? Answers to this will of course vary from person to person but are there certain commonalities, that we all have? Let us shed light by following the questions that popped up above.

Let us start with looking at what makes us make decisions. We are constantly making decisive actions in everything that we do. Certain actions and decisions due to evolution automatically integrates to our system. Which do not require conscious effort but nonetheless, they influence our life. That single automated decision in turn influence something else and that continues to create a ripple effect. I am sure you may not be sitting there right this moment telling yourself to breathe in and out at a rate of 63 breath per minute or making your blood pump at 110 systole and maintain 87 diastoles. It may be possible to do these tasks with certain degree of accuracy through technology and machines. However, through sheer will alone, extremely limited number of individuals could dedicate such an amount of time to it at this state.

What makes us make decision? Answer is when we are presented with more than one option. Decisions are conditions of tangents and life is full of possibilities. In the context of the breathing, the spectrum that our breathing range could dwell, spans such a large scale. Our body automates this action based on previous decisions we made to simplify and reduce processing bandwidth of the individual. Where we want those output altered however, we need to go back re-train the system to be aware of new data and create a new pathway of change. Let us further extend this exploration to the question of how are decision made? Our decision is not solely stimulated internally for example, me wanting to decrease or increase my breathing rate, sometimes that can be influence by our external environment. Like when you see something rushing towards you at high speed that would put you in danger. The information gathered from the external environment you then transmit to your system and have you prepared to react. That may be an increase in breathing or heart rate to prepare your body to make decision.

What principles guide our decision making? This is a layer of a question that one can intentionally add and correct. Over the years our belief, values, perspective, principles etc expands and this in turn changes how we interact with people and our environment. Our decision making becomes more of a way of how we want ourselves positioned in society. We start to develop some level of consistency and biases from one interaction to the other to maintain certain relationship whether with family or other extensions. Due to these choices, we start developing principles or procedure of decision making to make things easier. We are creatures of comfort as much as we always crave for freedom and independence; too much of it will overwhelm us.

The idea of control is something we desire and the concept of having freewill excites us. I am not sure how much of freewill we would manage if such volume of possibility was assigned to us. Anyway, to have a principle and understand how you make decision you have to revisit your previous decision that you made. If you can’t recall many it may serve value to start noting down what steps, you take to make decision. The chapter on Documenting and Data may serve value for reference. You can make attempt to understand if there are any relationships or similarities that exist in the steps or type of decision you made. This may reveal a bit more about you and your motive. You can from there see what you need to change and adjust.