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• Decision: A conclusion or resolution reached after consideration. Oxford Dictionary 
• Decision: A choice that you make about something after thinking about several possibilities. Cambridge Dictionary
• Decision: The act or process of deciding; determination, as of a question or doubt, by making a judgment.  Dictionary.com
• Decision: To make a final choice or judgment about. Merriam Webster
• Choice,  Problem solving,  Effectiveness,  Consideration,  Reflection, Compromise

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In our ability to decide lies great power

• Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Power is the faculty or capacity to act, the strength and potency to accomplish something. It is the vital energy to make choices and decisions. Stephen Covey
• Sometimes the smallest choice, one that you might make within these 24 hours, can set into motion huge energies bringing you great good and enormous joy. Neale Donald Walsch
• Nothing is more difficult, and therefore more precious, than to be able to decide. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made. Robert Schuller
• Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant. Tony Robbins
• Power

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In our ability to decide lies our greatest freedom

• Decision is a risk rooted in the courage of being free. Paul Tillich
• Freedom is the opportunity to make decisions. Kenneth Hildebrand
• Man is man because he is free to operate within the framework of his destiny. He is free to deliberate, to make decisions, and to choose between alternatives. Martin Luther King
• The more decisions that you are forced to make alone, the more you are aware of your freedom to choose. Thornton Wilder
• A man without decision can never be said to belong to himself. John Watson Foster
• Our greatest power is the power of choice; our greatest freedom lies in the exercise of our power of choice. William Curtis
• Freedom

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In our ability to decide lies our strength

• It does not take much strength to do things, but it requires a great deal of strength to decide what to do. Elbert Hubbard
• It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves. Dietrich Bonhoeffer
• A man has to choose. This is where lies his strength: in the power of his decisions. Paulo Coelho
• The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavour is taking the first step, making the first decision. Robyn Davidson
• Strength

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Life is all about making decisions

• Whatever you decide, don’t let it be because you don’t think you have a choice. Hannah Harrington
• Everything is something you decide to do, and there is nothing you have to do. Denis Waitley
• Living is a constant process of deciding what we are going to do. Jose Ortega y Gasset
• What is living about? It is the decisions you must make between two rights, hard and costly decisions because always you can do one right thing, but sometimes not two. Willa Gibbs (Seed of Mischief)
• When it comes down to it, it isn’t the major choices we make in life – career, marriage, etc. – that count the most. It is the everyday, minor decisions that make life work for us. Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D.

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Our decisions bring consequences …

• Long-term planning is not about making long-term decisions, it is about understanding the future consequences of today’s decisions. Gary Ryan Blair
• Life consists of an enormous number of choices that come at us and that each decision we make has consequences, so the quality of our lives depends on the quality of the decisions we make. Ray Dalio
• Consequences

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… and in so doing, shape and transform our lives…

• Using the power of decision gives you the capacity to get past any excuse to change any and every part of your life in an instant. Tony Robbins
• Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision. Tony Robbins
• The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. Ben Stein
• With every choice, you create the life you’ll live; with every decision, you design it. Mollie Marti
• Making a decision was only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision. Paulo Coelho
• There are moments that define a person’s whole life. Moments in which everything they are and everything they may possibly become hinge on a single decision. Jonathan Maberry
• Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives. Mary Balogh
• The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live. Flora Whittemore
• To direct your life, you must exert control over the consistent daily decisions that you make. Tony Robbins
• Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where you are. Chris Prentiss
• Life is a tapestry woven by the decisions we make. Sherrilyn Kenyon
• It is said that history turns on small hinges. A human career, too, results from an accumulating series of decisions about large and small matters over a period of years.  But the catch is that you can never know when a seemingly small decision may prove to be, from the vantage of later years, the big decision of your life.  Norman Vincent Peale
• Choice is the keynote of self-determinism. To determine anything, you must have the choice to determine. Choice to determine means that you must have the power of decision. Decision and time have a lot in common. When we have clean, clear decision, we have clean, clear time. And when we have indecision, there is an unclarity about time.  Ron Hubbard
• Every great decision creates ripples–like a huge boulder dropped in a lake. The ripples merge, rebound off the banks in unforeseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences. Ben Aaronovitch
• Reality is a product of our dreams, decisions and actions, you have to believe in yourself when no one else does. Venus Williams
• We all have within our grasp the ability to profoundly transform our lives if only we are willing to make clear decisions and take dramatic action to follow through on them. Tony Robbins
• What changes your life is not learning more. What changes your life is making decisions and using your personal power and taking action. Tony Robbins
• Transformation

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… for our lives are the sum total of our past choices and decisions

• There’s no such thing as an inconsequential decision. Our destinies are the culmination of all the choices we’ve made along the way, which is why it’s imperative to listen hard to your inner voice when it speaks up. Don’t let anyone else’s noise drown it out.   Megan McCafferty
• Life is the sum of all your choices. Albert Camus
• Our lives are a sum total of the choices we have made. Wayne Dyer
• The end result of your life here on earth will always be the sum total of the choices you made while you were here. Shad Helmstetter
• The consequences of today are determined by the actions of the past. To change your future, alter your decisions today. Tony Robbins
• You are the result of your past decisions. You will become and experience the result of your present decisions. Join me in deciding on the side of greatness. Raymond Charles Barker

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Even the smallest decisions can greatly impact our lives

• It is said that history turns on small hinges. A human career, too, results from an accumulating series of decisions about large and small matters over a period of years.  But the catch is that you can never know when a seemingly small decision may prove to be, from the vantage of later years, the big decision of your life.  Norman Vincent Peale
• People say that it’s the big decisions that are important… that these are the type of issues worthy of prolonged consideration. But no one ever explains how it’s the little choices that send your life careening in another direction. Julie Gittus
• Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever. Keri Russell

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Our decisions provide us with a way to take control over our lives

• Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives. Mary Balogh
• To direct your life, you must exert control over the consistent daily decisions that you make. Tony Robbins
• The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. Amelia Earhart
• Living consciously,  Control

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The decisions we make today shape our future destinies

• We create our own destiny with our choices and decisions. We can base these decisions upon the awareness of our inner truth or we can base them on reactions to outer circumstances. This power always belongs to us. No one can take it from us. Gail Pursell Elliott
• It is in your moment of decision that your destiny is shaped. Tony Robbins
• Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny. Bob Marley
• It’s choice…not chance… that determines your destiny. Jean Nidetch
• The roads we take are more important than the goals we announce. Decisions determine destiny. Frederick Speakman
• Choices are the hinges of destiny. Pythagoras
• No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently. Agnes De Mille
• You are the result of your past decisions. You will become and experience the result of your present decisions. Join me in deciding on the side of greatness. Raymond Charles Barker
• Destiny is a name often given in retrospect to choices that had dramatic consequences. J. K. Rowling
• When you make a choice, you change the future. Deepak Chopra
• You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be, and do in the tomorrow of your life. Zig Ziglar
• Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved. William Jennings Bryan
• Every decision has a consequence. Damon Darrell
• The future,  Destiny

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Our decisions shape who we are

• Life is an endlessly creative experience, and we are shaping ourselves at every moment by every decision we make. Kent Nerburn
• Our behaviour is a function of our decisions, not our conditions. Stephen Covey
• I just decided I wanted to become someone else… So I became someone else. Dusty Springfield
• The decisions that you make and the actions that you take upon the earth are the means by which you evolve. Gary Zukav
• Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself. A Course In Miracles
• It’s our choices, Harry, that show us what we really are… far more than our abilities. Albus Dumbledore from ‘ Harry Potter’ by J K Rowling
• Every time you make a choice, you are turning the central part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what is was before. C. S. Lewis
• You are your choices. Seneca
• It’s when we’re given choice that we sit with the gods and design ourselves. Dorothy Gilman
• As a man thinketh, so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• We all make choices, but in the end our choices make us. Ken Levine
• Decisions are a way of defining ourselves. There comes a time in life when there is nothing else to do but go your own way. Where you are headed there are no trails, no paths, just your own instincts. Sergio Bambaren
• The moment a question comes to your mind, see yourself mentally taking hold of it and disposing of it. In that moment. . . you learn to become the decider and not the vacillator.  Thus, you build character.  Van Anderson
• Someone once said anyone can be great under rosy circumstances, but the true test of character is measured by how well a person makes decisions during difficult times. Jack Gantos
• People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage. Rollo May
• Character

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Our decisions greatly influence our success in life …

• Success is a decision, not a gift. Steve Backley
• The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. Amelia Earhart
• Life is filled with difficult decisions, and winners are those who make them. Dan Brown
• Whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision. Peter Drucker
• The greatest accomplishment began as a decision once made and often a difficult one. Michael Rawls
• Decisiveness is a characteristic of high-performing men and women. Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. Brian Tracy
• Every accomplishment starts with the decision to try.
• Vacillating people seldom succeed. Successful men and women are very careful in reaching their decisions, and very persistent and determined in action thereafter. G. Elliott
• Frustration can become like a chain…and it can strangle your efforts for success… or you can get the key out and open the lock. Oh the key? The key of Decision that unchains the future. Doug Firebaugh
• High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true. Robert H. Schuller
• Success

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… and can help us to get what we want

• High achievers spot rich opportunities swiftly, make big decisions quickly and move into action immediately. Follow these principles and you can make your dreams come true. Robert H. Schuller
• Those who reach decisions promptly and definitely, know what they want, and generally get it. Napoleon Hill
• The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. Ben Stein
• We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals. Stephen Covey

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Effective leadership is all about making decisions

• An executive is a person who always decides; sometimes he decides correctly, but he always decides. John H. Patterson
• Be willing to make decisions. That’s the most important quality in a good leader. Don’t fall victim to what I call the Ready- Aim- Aim-Aim Syndrome. You must be willing to fire.  Boone Pickens
• A decision is the action an executive must take when he has information so incomplete that the answer does not suggest itself. Arthur W. Radford
• When the decision is up before you–and on my desk, I have a motto which says, “The buck stops here”–the decision has to be made. Harry S. Truman
• A true leader has the confidence to stand alone, the courage to make tough decisions, and the compassion to listen to the needs of others. He does not set out to be a leader, but becomes one by the equality of his actions and the integrity of his intent. Douglas MacArthur
• Management manages by making decisions and by seeing that those decisions are implemented. Harold S. Geneen
• Management: The act or skill of controlling and making decisions about a business, department, sports team. Merriam Webster Dictionary
• Leadership,  Effectiveness

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Effective politics is all about decisions

• Of what does politics consist except the making of imperfect decisions, many of them unjust and quite a few of them deadly? Lewis H. Lapham
• Politics: The art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.  Henri Queuille
• Politics

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Effective investment is all about decisions

• Investors frequently benefit from making decisions with less than perfect knowledge and are well rewarded for bearing the risk of uncertainty. The time other investors spend delving into the last unanswered detail may cost them the chance to buy into situations at prices so low they offer a margin of safety despite the incomplete information. Seth Klarman
• The art of stock picking is more about synthesizing information across disciplines and making decisions than a strict devotion to finance. Allan Mecham
• Investing

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Being effective in business is all about making decisions

• Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level. Peter Drucker
• Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake. Peter Drucker

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Decisions are at the heart of problem solving

• Never bring the problem-solving stage into the decision-making stage. Otherwise, you surrender yourself to the problem rather than the solution. Robert H. Schuller
• Again and again, the impossible problem is solved when we see that the problem is only a tough decision waiting to be made. Robert H. Schuller
• more
• 90% of worries will banish by taking these four steps: 1) Writing down precisely what I am worried about. 2) Writing down what I can do about it. 3) Deciding what to do. 4) Starting immediately to carry out that decision. Dale Carnegie
• I wonder how else I can look at this problem? I wonder how else I could deal with this decision? I wonder what other possibilities I have there? Jim Rohn
• The word “crisis” is from the Greek, meaning “a moment to decide.” The recurrent moments of crisis and decision when understood, are growth junctures, points of initiation which mark a release from one state of being and a growth into the next. Jill Purce
• Problem solving

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Let your decisions be guided by your deepest sense of who you

• As you become more clear about who you really are, you’ll be better able to decide what is best for you – the first time around.  Oprah Winfrey
• Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness. Kathleen Pedersen
• Every decision you make—every decision—is not a decision about what to do. It’s a decision about Who You Are. When you see this, when you understand it, everything changes. You begin to see life in a new way. All events, occurrences, and situations turn into opportunities to do what you came here to do. Neale Donald Walsch
• Every choice before you represents the universe inviting you to remember who you are and what you want. Alan Cohen
• You rarely have time for everything you want in this life, so you have to make choices, and hopefully your choices can come from a deep sense of who you are. Fred Rogers
• We must make the choices that enable us to fulfil the deepest capacities of our real selves. Thomas Merton
• Every decision that you make either moves you toward your personality, or toward your soul. Each decision you make is an answer to the question, “How do you choose to learn love?”, “How do you choose to learn authentic empowerment– through doubt and fear, or through wisdom?  Gary Zukav
• When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.  Sigmund Freud
• You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make.  Forget your past.  Who are you now?  Who have you decided you really are now?  Don’t think about who you have been.  Who are you now?  Who have you decided to become?  Make this decision consciously.  Make it carefully.  Make it powerfully.  Tony Robbins
• Every decision we make, every stop we take, must be informed by our commitment to living a life that is true and honest and authentic to ourselves and ourselves alone. Robin Sharma
• Self-knowledge

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Let your decisions be guided by your purpose and goals

• One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.” Lewis Carroll
• Is this decision really in keeping with my purpose? Does it line up with what I consider really important? David Allen
• Each decision we make, each action we take, is born out of an intention. Sharon Salzberg
• A personal mission statement becomes the DNA for every other decision we make. Stephen Covey
• Purpose,  Goal setting

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Let your decisions be guided by your principles and values

• When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier. Roy Disney
• The good thing about principles is that they make life easy. I have heard it said that when someone bases his life on principle, 99 percent of his decisions are already made. Dave Ramsey
• It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. Roy Disney
• Begin each day with the blueprint of my deepest values firmly in mind then when challenges come, make decisions based on those values. Stephen Covey
• Good judgement comes when your logical and rational thoughts and ideas are supported by a gut reaction that the decision “feels right”, and you can live comfortably with the consequences of your action. Inner wisdom goes even further because the decision not only feels right, but it also fits in with our values and beliefs.  Something deep inside you can answer, “Yes!” Dr Barbara Killinger
• When you achieve complete congruence between your values and your goals, like a hand in a glove, you feel strong, happy, healthy, and fully integrated as a person. You develop a kind of courage that makes you completely unafraid to make decisions and take action. Your whole life improves when you begin living your life by the values that you most admire. Brian Tracy
• When you know what your values are, making decisions becomes easier. Glenn van Eckeren
• Principles,  Values

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Let your decisions be guided by ration and logic

• He thought logically, and then acted on the conclusion of logical thought. Whereas most of us, I suspect, do the opposite: we make an instinctive decision, then build up an infrastructure of reasoning to justify it. And call the result common sense. Julian Barnes
• To say that man is a reasoning animal is a very different thing than to say that most of man’s decisions are based on his rational process. That I don’t believe at all. Rex Stout
• Logic,  Rationality

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Let your decisions be guided by your intuition, feelings and instincts

• I know when something is too important to be decided by logic. Lisa Kleypas
• Check your ego at the door and check your gut instead. Every right decision I have ever made has come from my gut. Every wrong decision I’ve made was the result of me not listening to the greater voice of myself. Oprah Winfrey
• When you don’t know what to do, get still. Get very still until you do know what to do. Oprah Winfrey
• When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature. Sigmund Freud
• Most decisions are seat-of-the-pants judgments. You can create a rationale for anything. In the end, most decisions are based on intuition and faith. Nathan Myhrvold
• Whenever I make a choice, I will ask myself two questions: “What are the consequences of this choice that I’m making?” and “Will this choice bring fulfilment and happiness to me and also to those who are affected by this choice?” I will then ask my heart for guidance and be guided by its message of comfort or discomfort. If the choice feels comfortable, I will plunge ahead with abandon. If the choice feels uncomfortable, I will pause and see the consequences of my action with my inner vision. This guidance will enable me to make spontaneously correct choices for myself and for all those around me. Deepak Chopra
• Truly successful decision-making relies on a balance between deliberate and instinctive thinking. Malcolm Gladwell
• Decisions, particularly important ones, have always made me sleepy, perhaps because I know that I will have to make them by instinct, and thinking things out is only what other people tell me I should do. Lillian Hellman
• Every decision to act is an intuitive one. The challenge is to migrate from hoping it’s the right choice to trusting it’s the right choice. David Allen
• I make all my decisions on intuition. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect. Ingmar Bergman
• When you connect with stillness, you also connect with a creative intelligence that is higher than analytical thinking. Very often, the right decision then arises spontaneously. Eckhart Tolle
• Our world requires that decisions be sourced and footnoted, and if we say how we feel, we must also be prepared to elaborate on why we feel that way… We need to respect the fact that it is possible to know without knowing why we know and accept that – sometimes – we’re better off that way. Malcolm Gladwell
• Intuition

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Let your decisions be guided by what your heart and soul is telling you to do

• Go with your heart, buddy. Our brains only screw things up.  Chris Fedak
• Look to your heart and soul first, rather than looking to your head first, when choosing. Rather than what you think, consider instead how you feel. Look to the nature of things. Feel your choices and decisions. It just might change everything. Jeffrey R. Anderson
• When your heart speaks, take good notes. Judith Campbell
• Make decisions from the heart and use your head to make it work out. Sir Girad
• Let your heart guide you. It whispers, so listen carefully.  Littlefoot’s mother, Land Before Time
• Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength. Chinese Proverb
• There is a wisdom of the head, and… a wisdom of the heart. Charles Dickens
• I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart: I am, I am, I am.  Sylvia Plath
• Alas! there is no instinct like the heart… Lord Byron
• The seat of knowledge is in the head, of wisdom, in the heart. William Hazlitt
• Why do we have to listen to our hearts?” “Because, wherever your heart is, that is where you’ll find your treasure. Paulo Coelho
• In the big and small decisions in your life, do you follow your heart? Or are you swept along by the tides of circumstance and the expectations of others? Amanda Harvey
• Today I will witness the choices I make in each moment. When I make a choice, I will ask myself two questions: What are the consequences? Will it bring happiness and fulfilment to me and those effected by this decision? Then I will ask my heart for guidance and be guided by its feeling of comfort or discomfort. Deepak Chopra
• Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness. Kathleen Pedersen
• The heart,  The soul

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Make life decisions based on what feels right

• Anytime there is a struggle between doing what is actually right and doing what seems right, then your ego is interfering with your decision. Darren L. Johnson
• My basic principle is that you don’t make decisions because they are cheap; you make them because they’re right. Theodore Hesburgh

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If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it

• If it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. That’s the lesson. That lesson alone, will save you a lot of grief. Even doubt means don’t. Oprah Winfrey
• And how do you know when you’re doing something right? How do you know that? It feels so. Oprah Winfrey
• Every time I’ve done something that doesn’t feel right, it’s ended up not being right. Mario Cuomo

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Always ask what decision will bring you the greatest degree of peace

• There may be no trumpet sound or loud applause when we make a right decision, just a calm sense of resolution and peace. Gloria Gaither
• You know you’ve made the right decision when there is peace in your heart.
• Inner peace,  Calmness

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When making life decisions, realise all roads are ultimately connected

• No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections. Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads. Deepak Chopra

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Let your decisions flow from a calm place …

• In Zen, you can’t really make a ‘wrong’ decision. But you can’t make a ‘right’ decision, either. You can only respond moment to moment in a way that feels the least harmful and deluded, the most compassionate and true. Colleen Morton Busch
• Continually one faces the horrible matter of making decisions. The solution is, as far as possible, to avoid conscious rational decisions and choices; simply to do what you find yourself doing; to float in the great current of life with as little friction as possible; to allow things to settle themselves, as indeed they do with the most infallible certainty. Christopher Morley
• Calmness

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… for a turbulent mind cannot decide

• When we worry, our minds jump here and there and everywhere, and we lose all power of decision. Willis H. Carrier
• Stress is a hindrance thinking Stress leads to poor health, poor decision-making, poor thinking, and poor socialization.  Marc and Angel Chernoff

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Make your own decisions

• People will always have opinions about your decision because they’re not courageous enough to take action on their opinion. Steve Maraboli
• The most important choice we can make in life is the decision to follow our hearts and trust our intuition. If you listen to your heart and have the courage to act boldly, you will be able to look back on your choices and proudly say, “I did it my way.” Amanda Harvey
• The truth is not always the same as the majority decision. Pope Jean Paul
• A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion. Chinese Proverb

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Sometimes the best decision is to do nothing, at least for a while

• One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned recently is that when you don’t know what to do, you should do nothing until you figure out what to do because a lot of times you feel like you are pressed against the wall, and you’ve got to make a decision. You never have to do anything. Don’t know what to do? Do nothing. Oprah Winfrey
• Sometimes, simply decide not to decide.
• To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy. Hippocrates

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Stand back from the decision to get some perspective

• “I wonder what Graeme is going to do now?” I set myself apart from the drama. I become the observer instead of the decision maker. Susan Jeffers
• Perspective

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Take your time and deliberate carefully, especially if the decision is an important one

• Never let someone force you to make a hasty decision. Think about it in your own time.
• That should be considered long which can be decided but once. Publilius Syrus
• Quick decisions are unsafe decisions. Sophocles
• Be slow to resolve, but quick in performance. John Dryden
• A rule of thumb for a warrior is that he makes his decisions so carefully
• that nothing that may happen as a result of them can surprise
• him, much less drain his power. Carlos Castaneda
• Just because we increase the speed of information doesn’t mean we can increase the speed of decisions. Pondering, reflecting and ruminating are undervalued skills in our culture. Dale Dauten
• A decision made in haste sometimes takes a long time to own up to. Linda Poindexter
• Set aside time to think

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Don’t make major decisions when you’re stressed or in a low mood

• Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come. Robert H. Schuller
• The general guideline then is: Good mood = good decisions, Bad mood = bad decisions. I am taking ‘bad mood’ to include times of pressure, stress and time constraints, and I am not saying that all decisions made in such circumstances are bad decisions. Instead, it’s more likely that we will make poorer decisions or decisions that are wrong when we are in a ‘bad mood’. David Mc Dermott
• There will be times when you absolutely have to make decisions when you are stressed or under pressure. A useful trick here to minimize such occurrences is to make decisions ahead of time, that is, before you ‘have to’. David Mc Dermott
• And when we make choices informed by a depressive state of mind, they’re more than likely to keep us stuck in our unhappiness. Mark Williams
• Don’t try to solve serious matters in the middle of the night. Philip K. Dick
• Never make a permanent decision based on temporary feelings.
• Form the habit of making decisions when your spirit is fresh. . . to let dark moods lead is like choosing cowards to command armies. Charles Horton Cooley
• When you are in a low mood, don’t make important business (or life) decisions. Don’t force it. Your thinking and wisdom are not as sound as they will be in a higher state of mind. Richard Carlson
• All our final decisions are made in a state of mind that is not going to last. Marcel Proust
• Stress,  Low mood

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When you can’t decide, sleep on it or do something else for a while

• Make important decisions when relaxed and rested. Gary Marcus
• When you can’t figure out what to do, it’s time for a nap. Mason Cooley
• Big decisions are always better made after a night’s sleep. Gary Marcus
• Don’t decide yet, wait until daybreak. Daybreak is a good time for decisions. Hephaestus
• Our most important decisions are made while we are thinking about something else. Mason Cooley
• One’s mind has a way of making itself up in the background, and it suddenly becomes clear what one means to do. C. Benson
• It is better to sleep on things beforehand than lie awake about them afterwards. Baltasar Gracián
• Sleep

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Some of us try to avoid or delay decisions at any cost

• Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions. Brendan Francis
• The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions. Mike Krzyzewski
• When faced with two equally tough choices, most people choose the third choice: to not choose. Jarod Kintz

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Realise that often it is better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length

• The percentage of mistakes in quick decisions is no greater than in long-drawn-out vacillation, and the effect of decisiveness itself ‘makes things go’ and creates confidence. Anne O’Hare McCormick
• Make up your mind to act decidedly and take the consequences. No good is ever done in this world by hesitation. Thomas Henry Huxley
• The man who insists upon seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides. Accept life, and you cannot accept regret. Henri Frederic Amiel
• It’s better to be boldly decisive and risk being wrong than to agonize at length and be right too late. Marilyn Moats Kennedy
• There is enormous value in arriving at a decision. Failure to find a purpose and the circulating around in our mind of jumbled ideas can do great damage. Make a decision. Start immediately to carry out that decision. Dale Carnegie
• Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Steve Jobs
• Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never. Alan Bennett
• To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. Eva Young
• When possible make the decisions now, even if action is in the future. A revised decision usually is better than one reached at the last moment. William B. Given
• One thing is sure. We have to do something. We have to do the best we know how at the moment. If it doesn’t turn out right, we can modify it as we go along.  Franklin D. Roosevelt
• The things you refuse to meet today always come back at you later on, usually under circumstances which make the decision twice as difficult as it originally was. Eleanor Roosevelt

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Often any decision is better than no decision

• Almost any decision is better than no decision at all. Brian Tracy
• Almost any decision is better than no decision – just keep moving. Danielle LaPorte
• Sometimes success isn’t about making the right decision, it’s more about making some decision. Robin S. Sharma
• When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Yogi Berra

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Not to decide is to become immobilised

• If you put off everything ’till you’re sure of it, you’ll get nothing done. Norman Vincent Peale
• In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. Theodore Roosevelt
• Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he’ll never move. Paulo Coelho
• Remember that not making a decision is a decision not to take action. Meir Liraz
• Do nothing, and nothing happens. Life is about decisions. You either make them or they’re made for you, but you can’t avoid them. Mhairi McFarlane, You Had Me At Hello
• He who deliberates fully before taking a step will spend his entire life on one leg. Chinese Proverb

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Not to decide is to allow outside factors to make the decision for you

• There is a time when we must firmly choose the course we will follow, or the relentless drift of events will make the decision for us. Herbert B. Prochnow
• Decisions are being made right now. The question is:  Are you making them for yourself, or are you letting others make them for you?
• Do what you think is right. Don’t let people make the decision of right or wrong for you. Steve Maraboli

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Not to decide is often to decide

• We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision. Gary Collins
• When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice. William James
• Not to decide is to decide. Harvey Cox
• Indecision becomes decision with time.
• When faced with two equally tough choices, most people choose the third choice: to not choose. Jarod Kintz
• If you decide not to decide, you have already decided. Vickie J. Crabtree
• No answer is also an answer. German Proverb
• Remember that not making a decision is a decision not to take action. Meir Liraz
• Indecision with the passing of time becomes decision. Bill Wilson

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Get off that fence and decide

• Do not fence sit.  Put your foot down on one side or the other, swing the opposite leg over and start walking. You’ll know before you take ten steps if you’re going in the right direction. Not to decide is to decide. Try to not make choices by default.   Neale Donald Walsch
• It doesn’t matter which side of the fence you get off on sometimes. What matters most is getting off. You cannot make progress without making decisions. Jim Rohn
• We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over. Aneurin Bevan
• It is human nature to stand in the middle of a thing. Marianne Moore
• Don’t stand shivering upon the bank; plunge in at once, and have it over. Sam Slick
• Standing in the middle of the road is very dangerous; you get knocked down by the traffic from both sides. Margaret Thatcher
• You can start to become a decisive person by making a decisive decision right now to stop being indecisive. Jerry Bruckner
• When a decision has to be made, make it. There is no totally right time for anything. General George Patton
• You must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. Always take the decisions you need to take, even if you’re not sure you’re doing the right thing. Paulo Coelho

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Excessive indecision can do much damage …

• Indecision and delays are the parents of failure. George Canning
• To think too long about doing a thing often becomes its undoing. Eva Young
• Indecision is debilitating; it feeds upon itself; it is, one might almost say, habit-forming. Not only that, but it is contagious; it transmits itself to others. H. A. Hopf
• Decision is a sharp knife that cuts clean and straight; indecision, a dull one that hacks and tears and leaves ragged edges behind it. Gordon Graham
• Where there is no decision there is no life. JJ Dewey
• Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing so futile. Bertrand Russell

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… bringing confusion, worry and fear …

• I find that thinking about our problems beyond a certain point is bound to create confusion and worry. There comes a time when any more investigation and thinking are harmful. There comes a time when we must decide and act and never look back. Dale Carnegie
• Indecision is the seedling of fear. Napoleon Hill
• The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision. Maimonides
• Action cures fear. Indecision, postponement, on the other hand, fertilize fear. David Schwartz
• Confusion,  Worry,  Fear

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… and bringing much regret and unhappiness

• Then indecision brings its own delays and days are lost lamenting o’er lost days. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision. William James
• Indecision leads to inaction, which leads to low energy, depression, despair. George Leonard
• Do not plant your dreams in the field of indecision, where nothing ever grows but the weeds of “what- ”  Dodinsky
• The hardest thing about the road not taken is that you never know where it might have led. Lisa Wingate
• Regret,  Unhappiness

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Making a decision tends to bring clarity and peace

• Nothing brings order to a disordered mind like making a decision and letting it stand. Tony Robbins
• A peacefulness follows any decision, even the wrong one. Rita Mae Brown
• I banish about 90 per cent of my worries by taking these four steps: 1. Writing down precisely what I am worried about. 2. Writing down what I can do about it. 3. Deciding what to do. 4. Starting immediately to carry out that decision. Dale Carnegie
• You will find that decisions are liberating. The paradox is that some of the most stressed people on the planet are people who are frozen by indecision. There is a tremendous energy and peace that decision making brings. Dave Ramsey
• The opposite of fear is not happiness, it is decisiveness. Have no fear; happiness is to be found in having made a decision. Michael Rawls
• Every decision is liberating, even if it leads to disaster. Otherwise, why do so many people walk upright and with open eyes into their misfortune? Elias Canetti
• Clarity,  Inner peace

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To transcend indecision, let go of the idea that there is a “right” and “wrong” choice

• When you are standing at a crossroads in your life, realize that the greatest block that you can put in front of your Self is the idea that there is a ‘right’ choice. Story Waters
• If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another. The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience. Deepak Chopra
• No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections. Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads. Deepak Chopra
• Instead of asking questions like, “What should I do?” or “What’s the right decision?” consider asking, “What do I want to experience now?” Life is an ever-unfolding experience, not a collection of right and wrong (or optimal and suboptimal) decisions.  When you focus on the experience a decision will bring you, you’ll stop seeing life as either- or and begin seeing it as and.  For example, if you’re considering starting your own business, realize you don’t have to commit to it for the rest of your life.  You can run a business or work a certain job for a while just for the experience, and you’re free to switch to something else whenever you want.  Steve Pavlina
• The problem, simply put, is that we cannot choose everything simultaneously. So we live in danger of becoming paralyzed by indecision, terrified that every choice might be the wrong choice. Elizabeth Gilbert
• Let go of the need to be right

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To transcend indecision, let go of the fear of making a mistake …

• The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one. Elbert Hubbard
• To be effective a manager must have the luxury of having the right to be wrong. Meir Liraz
• Not all of your decisions will be correct. None of us is perfect.  But if you get into the habit of making decisions, experience will develop your judgment to a point where more and more of your decisions will be right.  After all, it is better to be right 51 percent of the time and get something done, than it is
• to get nothing done because you fear to reach a decision. W. Andrews
• Fear,  Mistakes

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… realising that life is an experiment …

• Don’t be timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Life is trying things to see if they work. Ray Bradbury
• Experimentation

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… and an opportunity to learn from the decisions you make

• The key to success is to make good decisions. The key to making good decisions is to have experience. The key to getting experience is to make bad decisions.
• We lose the fear of making decisions, great and small, as we realize that should our choice prove wrong we can, if we will, learn from the experience. Bill W.
• Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions. Mark Twain
• My deepest wisdom is leading me to this decision. If I am wrong, I will learn from it, and my wisdom will have deepened. I’m willing to be wrong, and grow from it. David Deida
• Learning

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Knowledge aids decision making

• Half the worry in the world is caused by people trying to make decisions before they have sufficient knowledge on which to base a decision. Dean Hawkes
• Do not make a decision or worry about something until you have sufficient knowledge with which to make a decision. Dale Carnegie
• By asking myself, “What’s the next action on this?” I have generated more creative thinking, tough decision- making, critical conversations, innovative ideas, clarity, and motivation than by using any other specific technique I’m aware of. David Allen
• An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgements simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Edward de Bono
• Knowledge

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Understanding aids decision making

• The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding. We are swimming in the former. We are desperately lacking in the latter. Malcolm Gladwell
• Understanding

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Planning aids decision making

• Good plans shape good decisions. That’s why good planning helps to make elusive dreams come true. Lester R. Bittel
• Human decision-making is complex. On our own, our tendency to yield to short-term temptations, and even to addictions, may be too strong for our rational, long-term planning. Peter Singer
• Long-range planning does not deal with the future decisions, but with the future of present decisions. Peter Drucker
• Planning

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Emotional intelligence aids decision making

• Emotional intelligence is a different way of being smart. It includes knowing what your feelings are and using your feelings to make good decisions in life. It’s being able to manage distressing moods well and control impulses. Daniel Goleman
• Emotional intelligence

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Will power aids decision making

• Most of life’s actions are within our reach, but decisions take willpower. Robert McKee
• Your decisions in life can never change if you fail to change the thought patterns that have led to your negative past decisions and actions. Edmond Mbiaka
• Willpower is our decision to use higher-mind thinking instead of lazing around in the clutches of our primal mind. A.B. Curtiss
• In addition to self-awareness, imagination and conscience, it is the fourth human endowment – independent will – that really makes effective self- management possible. It is the ability to make decisions and choices and to act in accordance with them. Stephen Covey
• Will power

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Self-esteem aids decision making

• Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself. A Course In Miracles
• Only make decisions that support your self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth. Oprah Winfrey
• Self-esteem

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Play aids decision making

• We develop more emotional maturity if we play more. We develop better decision-making ability if we play more. Steve Keil
• Play

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Responsibility aids decision making

• Frozen in fear, you avoid responsibility because you think your experience is beyond your control. This stance keeps you from making decisions, solving problems, or going after what you want in life. David Emerald
• When the decision is up before you–and on my desk I have a motto which says “The buck stops here”–the decision has to be made. Harry S. Truman
• Responsibility

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Diversity aids decision making

• Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise. James Surowiecki
• Diversity

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Build your decision-making muscles through repeated practice

• The way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are, with the very next question you face. Napoleon Hill
• Build your decision-making muscle. Tony Robbins
• Practice,  Skill

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For major decisions, use a trusted process and do it on paper

• Do your decision making on paper. Make notes and keep your ideas visible so you can consider all the relevant information in making this decision. Meir Liraz
• Be not careless in deeds, nor confused in words, nor rambling in thought. Marcus Aurelius

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Clearly define the decision to be made

• A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved. Dorothea Brande
• Frame the decision clearly and gather your facts. Look at the issue in its broadest context, and take time to describe the decision as clearly and objectively as possible. Harriet Nezer
• At its essence – in one sentence – what is the decision I’m really facing? What is the bottom, bottom line?
• In fact, merely writing the facts on a piece of paper and stating our problem clearly goes a long way toward helping us to reach a sensible decision. As Charles Kettering puts it: “A problem well stated is a problem half solved. Dale Carnegie

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Source all the information and advice you need to decide…

• Give no decision till both sides thou’st heard. Phocylides
• While collecting the facts, do not allow your mind to get too far ahead towards the outcome but instead stay focussed on the facts. Dale Carnegie
• Confusion is the chief cause of worry. If a man will devote his time to securing the facts in an impartial, objective way, his worries will usually evaporate in the light of knowledge. Dale Carnegie
• When trying to get the facts, I pretend that I am collecting this information not for myself, but for some other person. This helps me to take a cold, impartial view of the evidence. This helps me eliminate my emotions. Dale Carnegie
• When you approach a problem, strip yourself of preconceived opinions and prejudice, assemble and learn the facts of the situation, make the decision which seems to you to be the most honest, and then stick to it. Chester Bowles
• In many domains of life, the experience of one randomly selected other person can beat your own best guess by a factor of two. Daniel Gilbert
• Talk it out. Discussing your decision with a trusted party helps to clarify and articulate the best course of action. It gets the “muddle” out of your head and crystallizes what steps need to be taken. Pam Solberg- Tapper

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…but avoid paralysis by analysis …

• You’ve heard the saying, ‘Analysis creates paralysis.’ You can’t be 100 percent sure of anything. Mark Burnett
• You’ll never have all the information you need to make a decision. If you did, it would be a foregone conclusion, not a decision. David Mahoney Jr.
• Set the timer. Give yourself a defined period of time to finish the process of data gathering. Theresa Rose
• Work expands to fill the time available for its completion. Parkinson’s Law
• You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act. Lee Iacocca

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… realising you will never have all the information you might want

• On an important decision one rarely has 100% of the information needed for a good decision no matter how much one spends or how long one waits. And, if one waits too long, he has a different problem and has to start all over. This is the terrible dilemma of the hesitant decision maker. Robert K. Greenleaf
• In any decision situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision. Paul Dickson
• It is important to accept the fact that there will always be unknown factors; you will never have all of the data about a particular subject. Theresa Rose
• You’ll never have all the information you need to make a decision. If you did, it would be a foregone conclusion, not a decision. David Mahoney Jr.
• Making a decisive decision means to be able to quickly make a decision to do something, or not to do something, even if the choices are ambiguous and all of the facts are not yet known. Jerry Bruckner

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Identify and evaluate all the alternatives …

• I invented this rule for myself. I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness, and other things being equal I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side. Katharine Butler Hathaway
• So when somebody asks me to make a decision about a situation, I don’t offer a solution, I ask a question: What are our options? Give me the good, give me the bad, give me the pretty, give me the ugly, give me the impossible, give me the possible, give me the convenient, give me the inconvenient. Give me the options. All I want are options. And once I have all the options before me, then I comfortably and confidently make my decision. Jim Rohn
• Check to make sure that you have considered a wide array of options and their consequences. Play a lot of “what if.” Take a step back and try to develop a broad array of options. Take time to consider some of the most likely consequences of various choices. Check with trusted sources to see if you are accurate in your assessments and whether you missed any important possible outcomes. Harriet Nezer
• Consider the advantages and disadvantages of each of the options open to you. Simply listing the advantages and disadvantages of each option is a powerful way of moving forward on decisions. Duncan Brodi

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… considering the consequences, of each alternative including the benefits and costs

• Every time I find myself in a situation where there appears to be no solution that will make everyone happy, I ask myself three questions: What are the consequences of my decision in 10 minutes?  In 10 months?  And in 10 years?  The answers usually tell me what I need to know not only to make the most reasoned move but to explain my choice to the family members, friends, or co-workers who will feel its impact.  Suzy Welch
• What’s called a difficult decision is a difficult decision because either way you go there are penalties. Elia Kazan
• Weigh the costs against the benefits. One factor we often forget is the ‘opportunity cost’: when we do one thing, we can’t be doing something else. Gary Marcus
• That’s the thing about freewill: Every decision we make is a choice against something as much as it is for something else. Rebecca Serle

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Be happy with a solution that is “good enough” rather than be overly obsessed with finding the perfect solution

• Schwartz and his colleagues have identified two decision-making styles: satisficing and maximizing. Satisficers are individuals who have a minimum threshold for what is acceptable to them, and maximizers are people who strive to get the very best out of every decision. Maximizers, according to a series of studies by Schwartz, are lower than satisficers in happiness, optimism, self- esteem, and life satisfaction, and higher in depression and regret! Ed Diener &Robert Biswas- Diener
• As incredible as it sounds, having more choices can actually detract from happiness. Ed Diener & Robert Biswas-Diener
• We would be better off seeking what was “good enough” instead of seeking the best. Barry Schwartz
• Bear in mind that selecting the products, relationships, and outcomes that are good enough for you, regardless of what others may think, is a surer route to happiness. Ed Diener & Robert Biswas- Diener
• In order to make happy choices, listen to your heart, don’t worry about getting the very best all the time, and evaluate each outcome on its own merits rather than against others. Follow this dictum: Search for a decent parking spot and take it; don’t waste your life searching for the best spot in the whole lot. Ed Diener & Robert Biswas-Diener
• The difference between the two types is that the satisficer is content with the merely excellent as opposed to the absolute best. I believe that the goal of maximizing is a source of great dissatisfaction, that it can make people miserable—especially in a world that insists on providing an overwhelming number of choices, both trivial and not so trivial. Barry Schwartz
• It should also be clear that the problem of regret will loom larger for maximizers than for satisficers. No matter how good something is, if a maximizer discovers something better, he’ll regret having failed to choose it in the first place. Barry Schwartz
• Use Absolute Yes/No lists and limited choices to streamline your decision-making around “good enough”. Stever Robbins

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Ask yourself if the decision you are making is coming from a place of love or fear

• Every single free choice you ever undertake arises out of one of the only two possible thoughts that there are: a thought of love or a thought of fear. Neale Donald Walsch
• Although every man believes that his decisions and resolutions involve the most multifarious factors, in reality they are mere oscillation between flight and longing. Herman Broch
• A decision made from fear is always the wrong decision. Tony Robbins
• Decide that you want it more than you are afraid of it. Bill Cosby
• Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. Rumi
• Happiness and love are just a choice away. Leo Buscaglia
• It doesn’t matter what you choose, what matters is the energy with which you choose it. Caroline Myss
• You can’t make decisions based on fear and the possibility of what might happen. Michelle Obama
• I invented this rule for myself. I would sort out all the arguments and see which belonged to fear and which to creativeness, and other things being equal I would make the decision which had the larger number of creative reasons on its side. Katharine Butler Hathaway
• Fear is the enemy. I distrust it. Any feeling or decision I make that might be motivated by fear I quickly reassess. Andrea Riseborough
• Every decision that you make either moves you toward your personality, or toward your soul. Each decision you make is an answer to the question, “How do you choose to learn love?”, “How do you choose to learn authentic empowerment– through doubt and fear, or through wisdom?  Gary Zukav
• Love,  Fear

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Some more rules of thumb when making decisions

• Choose always the way that seems the best, however rough it may be. Custom will soon render it easy and agreeable. Pythagoras
• That should be considered long which can be decided but once. Syrus Publilius
• It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be. Isaac Asimov
• If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is a compromise. Robert Fritz
• Consider those affected by your decision. Whenever feasible, get them involved to increase their commitment. Meir Liraz
• As part of your decision-making process, always consider how the decision is to be implemented. Robert Harris
• Only make decisions that support your self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth. Oprah Winfrey
• Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I’m a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst-case scenario. I call it ‘the eaten by wolves factor.’ If I do something, what’s the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don’t worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do. Randy Pausch
• The best we can do is size up the chances, calculate the risks involved, estimate our ability to deal with them, and then make our plans with confidence. Henry Ford
• Every decision-making conversation has three hidden conversations lurking just out of sight. One is about what we’re trying to accomplish by even bothering to make a decision.  After all, we could just let things fall where they may.  The second conversation is about the criteria we’ll use to make the decision.  The last conversation is about finding and choosing between different options.  Steve Robbins

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After deciding, take determined action …

• A real decision is measured by the fact that you’ve taken a new action. If there’s no action, you haven’t truly decided. Tony Robbins
• Once you have made a careful decision based on facts, go into action. Don’t stop to reconsider. Don’t begin to hesitate, worry, and retrace your steps. Don’t lose yourself in self- doubting which begets other doubts. Don’t keep looking back over your shoulder. Dale Carnegie
• It is not always what we know or analysed before we make a decision that makes it a great decision. It is what we do after we make the decision to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision. William Pollard
• Decisions are the father of actions, which in turn leads directly to results. Tony Robbins
• Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens. Decision is the courageous facing of issues, knowing that if they are not faced, problems will remain forever unanswered.  Wilfred A. Peterson
• Life rewards action. Make careful decisions and then pull the trigger. Learn that the world couldn’t care less about thoughts without actions.  Dr Phil McGraw
• Action

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… dismissing all doubt …

• Once a decision is made and we begin acting toward it, dismiss absolutely all anxiety and fear about the outcome. Over-investigation and further thinking can be harmful and prevent focus on the task at hand. Dale Carnegie
• Whenever a warrior decides to do something, he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must know first why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them. Carlos Castaneda
• Move forward with no second-guessing, no guilt trips, no hesitation. Your purpose is to recreate yourself anew in each moment. Neale Donald Walsch
• You can hesitate before deciding, but not once the decision is made. Jose Bergamin
• Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in. Napoleon Bonaparte
• Vacillating people seldom succeed. Successful men and women are very careful in reaching their decisions, and very persistent and determined in action thereafter. G. Elliott
• When once a decision is reached and execution is the order of the day, dismiss absolutely all responsibility and care about the outcome. William James
• Once a decision was made, I didn’t worry about it afterward… Harry S. Truman
• A weak man has doubts before a decision; a strong man has them afterwards. Karl Kraus
• Deliberate with caution, but act with decision; and yield with graciousness, or oppose with firmness. Charles Hole
• .. If we don’t have faith that we’re making the best decision we can, then we will be swallowed up in doubt. And doubt, at least as far as your brain is concerned, is a precarious state in which to live. Faith is equivalent with hope, optimism, and the belief that a positive future awaits us. Andrew Newberg
• Once we’ve made a decision, we are efficient only if we go through with it decisively, undistracted by doubts about its correctness. John Cleese
• Doubt

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… sticking to your decision …

• Deliberate often – decide once. Latin Proverb
• Making a good decision means sticking with your choice and dealing with what comes with it. Being able to deal with the consequences—that’s making a good decision. X. Burros
• Changing our decision sets up a bad habit. It reinforces decision-making as an expression of bewilderment and ignorance, instead of wisdom and freedom. Sakyong Mipham

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… without looking back

• Once the decision has been made, don’t look back. Be aware of how it is currently affecting you and focus on your next move. Never regret a decision. It was the right thing to do at the time. Now focus on what is right at this time. Meir Liraz
• I don’t believe in looking back. If you make a decision that you think is the proper one at the time, then that’s the correct decision. John Woody
• To decide is to walk facing forward with nary a crick in your neck from looking back at the crossroads. Betsy Cañas Garmon

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Commit yourself to your decision but stay flexible in your approach

• Once you have made the decision and have started what you are going to do, put the “what if’s” aside and do it with commitment. Meir Liraz
• The moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves, too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never have otherwise occurred…unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. Tony Robbins
• Realise the power of a single choice acted upon immediately and with total conviction. Tony Robbins
• Struggle ends where commitment begins. Sumner Davenport
• Character is the ability to carry out a worthy decision after the emotion of making that decision has passed. Character simply stated is doing what you said you were going to do. Hyrum W. Smith
• Any person can do almost anything they want to if they make a decision to commit to that course, starting now. Tony Robbins
• Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness. Kathleen Pedersen
• Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. H. Murray
• Commitment,  Flexibility

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Realise that the success or failure of a decision lies in the implementation

• A bad decision well implemented is better than a brilliant decision not well implemented. Peter Schutz
• It is not always what we know or analysed before we make a decision that makes it a great decision. It is what we do after we make the decision to implement and execute it that makes it a good decision. William Pollard
• No decision has been made unless carrying it out in specific steps has become someone’s work assignment and responsibility. Peter F. Drucker

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Review your decisions and learn from them

• Checking the results of a decision against its expectations shows executives what their strengths are, where they need to improve, and where they lack knowledge or information. Peter Drucker
• Check in on the results. So, how effective was your decision-making process? Are you pleased with the outcome? Did it advance your interests and goals? Are you comfortable with the outcome? Does it fit with your beliefs and values? Ask yourself these questions, and if you’re not completely comfortable with the outcome, don’t treat it as a failure. Instead, learn from it, and use the experience to make better decisions in the future. Harriet Nezer
• Keep a journal of some of the decisions you make during the day. Notice when you do what you want, when you choose not to, and for what reasons.  For example, you may choose to go to a party when you really want to stay home.  Do you push yourself to work hard even if you are not feeling well?  Do you hold back from expressing your ideas, feelings, or creative impulses out of fear of criticism?  Write how you feel about the choices you made.  Notice how you feel physically and emotionally.  Be careful not to judge or criticize yourself for any of your choices.  Cultivate an attitude of compassionate observation so you can learn what works for you and what doesn’t.  Shakti Gawain
• Reflection

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Be bold in the decisions you make

• When you cannot make up your mind which of two evenly balanced courses of action you should take – choose the bolder. William Joseph Slim
• If you always make the right decision, the safe decision, the one most people make, you will be the same as everyone else. Paul Arden
• Boldness,  Risk taking,  Courage

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Here are some of life’s most important decisions

• Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.   Elizabeth Stone
• The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of ego. Eckhart Tolle
• Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness. Martin Luther King Jr
• The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. David Russell
• So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
• If you want to reach a state of bliss, make a decision to relinquish the need to control, the need to be approved of and the need to judge. Deepak Chopra
• The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe. Albert Einstein
• We are given one life, and the decision is our whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live. Omar Bradley
• You are now at a crossroads. This is your opportunity to make the most important decision you will ever make. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don’t think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully. Tony Robbins
• You must make a decision that you are going to move on. It won’t happen automatically. You will have to rise up and say, ‘I don’t care how hard this is, I don’t care how disappointed I am, I’m not going to let this get the best of me. I’m moving on with my life. Joel Osteen
• Your friends can either lift you up or bring you down. You make the decision which type of friends you wish to have. Jim M. Allen

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Decide what you want

• Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work. L. Hunt
• Decide carefully, exactly what you want in life, then work like mad to make sure you get it! Hector Crawford
• The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want. Ben Stein
• Know what you want

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Decide to be happy

• The decision is mine, and I choose happiness. Malori Howell
• Happiness is a decision, not an experience. You can decide to be happy. Your experience is the result of your decision, not the cause of it. Neale Donald Walsch
• Happiness

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Decide to love

• The decision to kiss for the first time is the most crucial in any love story. It changes the relationship of two people much more strongly than even the final surrender; because this kiss already has within it that surrender. Emil Ludwig
• Love is my decision to make your problem my problem. Robert Schuller
• Choose your life’s mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery. Jackson Brown, Jr.
• This is how life works. Deciding whom to love is not an alien form of decision-making, a romantic interlude in the midst of normal life. Instead, decisions about whom to love are more intense versions of the sorts of decisions we make throughout the course of our existence, from what kind of gelato to order to what career to pursue. Living is an inherently emotional business. David Brooks
• Love isn’t a decision. It’s a feeling. If we could decide who we loved, it would be much simpler, but much less magical. Trey Parker
• Love

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Decide to forgive …

• Forgiveness fashions your future. It is a brave and brash thing to do.  The gutsiest decision you can make.  Barbara Johnson
• Forgiveness is not a one-off decision; it is a journey and a process that takes time, determination, and persistence. Forgiveness is not forgetting; it is simply denying your pain the right to control your life. Corallie Buchanan
• Forgiveness

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… especially yourself for any bad decisions you have made

• I resolve to renounce all guilt and remorse for all mistakes, past and future. I do my best. No more is asked. Sometimes I will make bad decisions. Sometimes consequences will result which will hurt others. I am human. But I will not pay too much heed to these things. I will offer a silent prayer and move on. John Kehoe
• In order to heal and move past your inner pain, you must forgive. You must forgive other people who have harmed you, and you must forgive yourself. Holding on to anger and pain doesn’t change the past or change the person who hurt you. It only poisons you with resentment and negativity. Make a daily decision to forgive and be determined to live a successful and happy life in spite of your past. Barrie Davenport

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Decide what you want your life to be about and what you’re willing to give up

• It’s not hard to decide what you want your life to be about. What’s hard, she said, is figuring out what you’re willing to give up in order to do the things you really care about. Shauna Niequist

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Decide what to focus on

• It’s not what’s happening to you now or what has happened in your past that determines who you become. Rather, it’s your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you’re going to do about them that will determine your ultimate destiny. Tony Robbins
• Focus,  Put first things first

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Make life’s most important decisions by imagining yourself at the end of it

• When making decisions about your life, imagine yourself on your own deathbed. Looking back from there, what do you wish you had chosen at this time? Lucy Jo Palladino, Ph.D

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Decide to transcend the ego

• The decision to make the present moment into your friend is the end of the ego. The ego can never be in alignment with the present moment, which is to say, aligned with life, since its very nature compels it to ignore, resist, or devalue the Now. Eckhart Tolle
• To be able to love and live in freedom means to be able to make godly decisions. To make godly decisions we have to surrender our egos and all the falsity and shame that goes with it. James McGreevey
• Transcending the ego

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Decide to be free

• There is only one decision you need to make: You are either working at your Freedom or you are accepting your bondage. Robert Adams
• Freedom

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Decide to succeed

• Your current situation does not determine your future. Your future is determined by your decision to succeed. Tony Robbins
• Success

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Decide to act and embrace life

• This is as true in everyday life as it is in battle: we are given one life and the decision is ours whether to wait for circumstances to make up our mind, or whether to act, and in acting, to live. General Omar Bradley
• Everything tells me that I am about to make a wrong decision, but making mistakes is just part of life. What does the world want of me? Does it want me to take no risks, to go back to where I came from because I don’t have the courage to say “yes” to life? Paulo Coelho
• Embrace life

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Decide to create positive habits

• To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behaviour. Maxwell Maltz
• Habit

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Decide to be aware

• Awareness is a choice, and sometimes it takes effort. But it’s never disappointing if we truly put some effort into it.  The rewards for our effort already surround us all the time, but they’re awards that we miss constantly until we make the decision to open our eyes and our hearts to the beauty that’s always everywhere.  Tom Walsh
• Awareness

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Decide what and what not to believe

• There is a force that controls all your decisions. It influences how you think and feel every moment you’re alive… That force is your beliefs. Tony Robbins

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Make life decisions in favour of life

• People “died” all the time. . . . Parts of them died when they made the wrong kinds of decisions–decisions against life. Sometimes they died bit by bit until finally they were just living corpses walking around.  If you were perceptive you could see it in their eyes; the fire had gone out. . . you always knew when you made a decision against life.  The door clicked and you were safe inside–safe and dead.  Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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• Making decisions is easy for me. I welcome new ideas, and I follow through with what I say. Louise L. Hay

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• A day for firm decisions! Or is it?
• A decision is what a man makes when he can’t find anybody to serve on a committee. Fletcher Knebel
• Conference: An organized way of postponing a decision.
• Even before the kids are born you’ve got to make these decisions; if it’s a boy do we get him circumcised? if it’s a girl do we keep her?   Greg Giraldo
• Ever notice that ‘what the hell’ is always the right decision. Marilyn Monroe
• I always have trouble deciding wether to go to church or golf. Last Sunday I had to flip a coin 27 times.
• I must have a prodigious quantity of mind; it takes me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up. Mark Twain
• I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not so sure.
• I’ll give you a definite maybe. Sam Goldwyn
• In any decision situation, the amount of relevant information available is inversely proportional to the importance of the decision. Cooke’s Law
• In my house, I’m the boss my wife is just the decision maker. Woody Allen
• Indecision may or may not be my problem. Jimmy Buffett
• Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results. Scott Adams
• It’s awful to be indecisive. You’re like a centipede who’s told to put his best foot forward.
• Justice: A decision in your favour.
• No good decision was ever made in a swivel chair. George S. Patton
• Once I make up my mind, I’m full of indecision. Oscar Levant
• Politics: the art of postponing decisions until they are no longer relevant.  Henri Queuille
• Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions. Brendan Francis
• The key to success is to make good decisions. The key to making good decisions is to have experience. The key to getting experience is to make bad decisions.
• The National Academy of Sciences would be unable to give a unanimous decision if asked whether the sun would rise tomorrow. Paul Ehrlich
• The perfect bureaucrat everywhere is the man who manages to make no decisions and escape all responsibility. Brooks Atkinson
• Those wise decisions you make when you’re young are those foolish ones you’ll live with when your old. Country expression
• When it is not necessary to make a decision, it is necessary not to make a decision. Falkland’s Rule
• When you come to a fork in the road, take it. Yogi Berra
• Whenever I’m caught between two evils, I take the one I have never tried before. Mae West
• Why do men name their penises? Because they want to be on a first name basis with the person who makes all their decisions.
• Sometimes it’s important to work for that pot of gold. But other times it’s essential to take time off and to make sure that your most important decision in the day simply consists of choosing which colour to slide down on the rainbow. Douglas Pagels

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