“Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm”

–Winston Churchill

This week we’ve discussed the background of judgment and decision making. We set out by distinguishing between these terms and looking at some internal and external factors that affect us. So let’s figure out where to go next.

The first step is to ask yourself where you’re going. If it doesn’t matter, or you’re not sure how to even measure success or failure, go with your gut or flip a coin. Save your energy.

If, however, the outcome matters and is measurable, it’s time dig in and disconnect. Emotion, other people, and our broken brains are the enemy. We need to gather as much data as possible and act with little emotion. As I previously discussed, we also need to determine success or failure conditions before we ever act. Otherwise, we’ll be more concerned with being right or wrong than with a good or bad outcome.

I’ll provide some more tools next week.