“Our animals come before our products. If a young goat needs the milk, then there simply won’t be that particular cheese available for a while,” says Angela, a wonderful older lady who has been making cheese on her farm in Tuscany for several generations. Interestingly, she wasn’t the only person we had the chance to meet in recent days who places something more important than profit above profit itself.
There was also Michele, who told us that after many years in the advertising industry, he gave up his well-paid career to finally live his dream and make wine. And he does it differently than many other winemakers. His little booklet, where he presents his wines, feels almost like a motivation handbook. You’ll find beautiful quotes like “Only dead fish swim with the current.” His bottle labels reflect his love for Marvel superheroes, and next to each wine, he even recommends music that he personally connects with it.
You immediately feel it with both of them: This is not about selling. This is about living. Both made an important decision many years ago. To do things in the way that felt right for them. And that’s exactly where a question came to me: Why does it seem so easy for some people to make decisions, while others wait for years?
Here are a few thoughts on that. The most important step in making a good decision is knowing what you want. What should be the outcome of this decision? Because without a clear desire, you won’t make a clear and fast decision. If you’ve just eaten and someone asks whether you’d like to go out for dinner later that evening, the decision will be much harder than if you haven’t eaten all day and your stomach is practically touching your backbone. Without desire (whether driven by joy or fear), no quick decision. And that’s exactly why successful people often make decisions quickly. They know clearly what they want (or what they no longer want).
After that, you look at the different options available. Which paths could bring you closer to your goal? If you have multiple ideas, look at the consequences each one creates. Because every decision costs you something. Maybe it costs you the experience of the path you didn’t choose. Maybe it costs you money. And what it will definitely cost you is your (life) time. In the end, you weigh everything against each other, connect different possibilities you may never have seen together before… And then you go. Take the first step immediately instead of pushing it to another day. Because otherwise, everyday life will absolutely get in the way again, and your starting point will move from one day to the next.
And that’s how other people often end up deciding for you. Take your power back. Become (again) the creator of your life. And if you also have clear values—and actually live by them—future decisions become significantly easier. Just like Michele or Angela, for whom it seems easy to decide what they do, how they work, and how they shape their lives every single day. Because knowing your values doesn’t automatically mean you’ll always make the perfect decisions. But it does mean you’ll make far more conscious decisions for yourself.
And if it’s been a long time since you last did the values exercise, feel free to download it as part of my five free gifts and build the foundation for even better decisions.
