Research, Intuition, Letting life decide.
I would say that these are the three main components of decision making. They can be used on a stand-alone basis or combined.
I will discuss all of this and more, but first a related story from my days working at an investment management firm (a.k.a. a hedge fund). This was one of those places that people with A LOT of money invested their money - everything from pension and retirement funds to high net worth individuals. They invested with this company because they had a track record of performance and a team of “smart” people working there. They also had an investment strategy that people liked. They liked it because it kept humans mostly out of the picture when it came to investment decisions. Let me explain.
THE BASICS
The firm received money from investors.
This money was invested in a particular market (i.e. stocks, bonds, currencies, commodities, etc.).
There was an investment strategy which outlined things like the target return, target level of risk, portfolio allocation, etc.
There were people called traders who would buy and sell assets within the given market and in alignment with the investment strategy.
The most interesting part of the investment strategy was that the traders didn’t really make the decisions, they just executed the trades. Each morning they received a piece of paper which told them how much of a particular asset they needed to buy or sell and when they should make the trade. At the specified time they pushed a button on their computer or made a phone call to a sales desk.
So who decided what they were buying or selling that day?
A computer program or “model” as it was called, would determine exactly what they should buy and sell and when they should do it. This was before the days of AI but essentially there were mathematicians working for the company who would analyze large sets of historical market data and based on this analysis they would see patterns which could be applied to future market conditions. They were trying to predict what the market would do, which is the key to making money. Hence a “model” or computer program was born. Each morning the model would spit out all of the trades it thought the traders should execute that day. Of course the model wasn’t always right but it was a solid strategy at the time.
In the investment management space this was referred to as a quantitative approach to investing and many investors trusted a computer model more than a human. so they liked it and often invested in this firm because of it.
There were however people that didn’t trust computers as much, they trusted humans, and so the strategy had a second component whereby the head trader could override the computer. This was referred to as the qualitative component of the investment strategy. We told people that the strategy was 90% quantitative and 10% qualitative. Many investors appreciated letting computers be the primary decision maker and having a human backstop of sorts. Other didn’t and went to firms where humans had more control over the daily investment decisions.
What’s the point of this whole explanation?
There are various ways to make decisions, but more importantly, most humans think they are making decisions but really it is their programming that is making decisions for them and through them.
When someone does research for decision making purposes, they are not really doing research, they are just looking to confirm what they already believe. Your core beliefs are the primary drivers in all decisions you make in life. Your core beliefs are often instilled in the early years of your life - from your early childhood experiences, from your parents, education, etc. When belief systems are in play, which they almost always are, YOU are not even making the decisions. They are being made by your belief systems, which are entirely mechanical and pre-programmed. It is an actual computer model of sorts that was programmed early in your life. We can’t make real decisions until we begin to deprogram ourselves.
If the idea of dismantling your beliefs sounds interesting to you, I wrote a full article on how to begin dismantling beliefs which I will link HERE.
But what about Intuition
Of course, connecting with intuition or our inner compass is one of the most valuable tools we have as humans. There are many ways to do this from a pendulum to muscle testing to feeling into your body. I am biased towards a pendulum and I teach everyone I work with how to use one. I suspect many successful traders and business people in general are using intuition when making trades and/or business decisions. They are probably not using pendulums, but you never know.
Regardless of the method, it takes constant practice for 3 main reasons.
It is extremely difficult to override our programmed nature. The things that were installed in our childhood are deeply rooted.
Our mind is under constant attack. Every time we open our phone, look at a screen, watch a television show, watch a documentary our core programs are being reinforced and potentially new ones are being installed. I haven’t watched television or movies in years. My daughter is 8 and hasn’t either. I will put it off as long as possible.
And to go deeper, there is a mind virus which has permeated the collective since the dawn of man. Yes, this is the virus you should be worried about, not the other one. Often referred to as Wetiko. It operates through each and every one of us. Author Paul Levy has written extensively on this topic.
But there is more.
There will be points along the way where YOU are not making any decisions. Life is making your decisions. Life is deciding what your next experience should be. Life knows where you are headed and it will keep you on course. Actually it is not about you, it is what life or the divine needs to accomplish through you. It is multi-dimensional, it is not bound by time, it is not really understandable by the mind. Most of our decisions are based on the false ego's idea of what life should look like. This is all pre-programmed.
This is a terrifying notion if you really think about it because it requires you to relinquish control, to let go of the tiller. No one wants to do that. We say we do, especially when we read spiritual books and the idea of surrender and letting go sounds cool and exciting, but we don’t. Letting life decide is terrifying because you are stepping into the unknown. I don’t think we really have control over letting go or surrendering either. It usually happens on its own or when there is just no other way to get through to you.
But life is always trying to steer us, most often with a gentle nudge. Hey, you should leave this job, get out of this relationship, change your lifestyle. But often we don’t get the subtle message and it gets ramped up in intensity. Often this is when something more dramatic and painful occurs. This is what happened to me toward the end of my time at the above mentioned investment management firm. It was quite painful and took me years to recover from it to be honest. It also happened to me when I turned 40 and had a mystery illness which brought me to my knees.
In other instances though “what happens”, which is effectively a decision, can be a more positive experience. When I started posting instagram videos about Qigong and energy healing it was kind of a joke. My wife convinced me to do it. Within a few months it just exploded. I wasn’t really even thinking about what I was doing. I would sit down with an idea which seemed to come out of nowhere and often in a matter of 5 minutes, I would shoot a video in one take, post it and it would reach thousands of people. I wasn’t even doing it to get more followers or likes or for money. I was just doing. Pure doing and there was a creative flow that came to it which was beyond the understanding of my rational mind. In recent months the video side has felt different which is why I have been writing more, doing more 1:1 work and building a bit more community. It feels like it is where I am being guided.
9 Ways to Improve Your Decision making:
Psychospiritual work will help you make decisions from a more neutral place. This includes healing trauma, dismantling beliefs, soul retrieval and all the other things people talk about when they refer to “inner work”. Don’t get stuck here though. Move to step 2.
Learn practices that get you back into your body and give you the ability to feel into your vessel (Qigong is my favorite).
Learn to use a pendulum for connecting with intuition.
Practice divination through dreams and shamanic journeying. Very often you can get very clear guidance. Set a simple intention before you go to sleep each night.
Perform personalized rituals and ceremony each day in an effort to communicate with your guides, spirits and other helpers.
Learn how YOUR mind works, in particular the false ego. Learn to monitor the thoughts coming through. Almost all of them are nonsense.
Support the Gallbladder. Yep. From a TCM and energetic perspective the gallbladder is involved in decision making. We can support our gallbladder in many holistic ways - everything from eating artichokes and taking herbal preparations to coffee enemas. But even better, I would recommend doing Qigong and Jin Shin Jyutsu to support the gallbladder. I will share some videos on this soon. The Wood element is in play.
Spend less times on devices. Every single time you look at a screen, you are being programmed, whether you think you are or not.
Pay attention to how the universe communicates to YOU. It is a secret language that only you can learn.