The First Step To Making Things Happen

“If you don’t make up your mind, then your unmade mind will unmake you.”

E. Stanley Jones

I’ve Been Thinking . . . and observing how difficult it is for some people to make a decision.

When its harvest time in Idaho, farmers turn their attention to tons and tons of potatoes. One farmer hired extra help to assist him in sorting a mountainous pile resulting from a bumper crop. He instructed his hired hand to divide the potatoes into two piles - the big ones in one pile and little ones in another.

The farmer returned from the field at noon to check on his helper’s progress and was astound to find not one potato had been moved all morning. Stunned by this evidence of laziness, the farmer asked the man why he had accomplished nothing. “Well,” the hired hand hesitantly replied, “I don’t mind working, but all of these decisions are driving me crazy.”

Some people find making decisions to be harder work than work itself. Unfortunately, their indecision usually produces inaction. It’s just not possible to ride the fence and produce any significant achievement. When loyalties are divided between decision and indecision there is inertia.

A comical story is told about a man whose acreage was located on the border that separated the North and the South during the Civil War. Unable to decide which side to support, he wore a Confederate Army jacket and Union Army pants. That indecisive action produced unusual results. The Union soldiers shot at his jacket and the Confederates shot him in the pants. Either way, he was under fire.

Theodore Roosevelt said, “In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” Always remember that when you stall or refuse to make a decision, that, in itself is a critical decision. You are just as accountable for the consequences of indecision as you are for the results of making one. I’d rather take responsibility for something I decided to do than allow fate to run its’ course.

I am often at meetings where decisions need to be made. It’s incredible how strong the temptation is to spend time moaning, groaning, and whining about the issues needing to be addressed. The seemingly popular thing to do is complain and get everyone in the group caught up in negativity and crying on each others’ shoulder. Then people wonder why they dislike attending meetings.

I’ve often wondered what it would be like if every meeting chair took a pledge that read: “I hereby promise, as the leader of this group, to limit the conversation of all in attendance to three minutes discussing the issue. I will then turn their attention to generating and choosing options that will create positive outcomes.” I’m convinced people would not leave meetings cursing the waste of their time and energy as well as dreading the next meeting.

The same is true of personal indecision. Your success or failure will depend upon the decisions you make each day of your life. Bemoaning your situation, rather than making a decision to do something about it, snuffs out the spark of life. Remember the conviction of Wilfred A. Peterson; “Decision is the spark that ignites action. Until a decision is made, nothing happens.” Keep the spark alive. Decide to decide.

“The greatest difficulty in making decisions is not in knowing the right decision, but in making it.”

John Maxwell