Six Questions for Making Decisions
What is my goal?
Does this move me closer to or further from my goal?
Am I being mean spirited?
Is it already in the past?
Will commenting on it make the other person feel better or worse worse?
Will commenting on it change our relationship?
These are six questions I developed from practice that are designed to help me make decisions in my life.
We have goals every day of our lives, whether we are conscious of them or not. We set and accomplish most goals without giving them a thought. Getting breakfast is a goal. Getting a shower and a shave, and getting dressed are goals. More difficult tasks require more complex goal setting. Getting a college degree is a complicated goal that requires great planning and tracking (measuring). Long term goals require periodic measuring to see what our progress is and to estimate when we might complete our goal. Measuring progress of a goal let's us know if it is realistic to think we can complete the goal, or if we should change the goal, or even abandon the goal.
Before setting a goal, one question should be asked: is this goal worthy?
To be the meanest man in town is not a worthwhile goal.
Most of us will set a goal to lose weight at some point in our lives. A motivation leads us to set a goal. Regarding weight loss goals, the motivation is frequently the external event of something that we want to look good for or at. Frequent motivations are high school reunions, weddings, ceremonies. Those are poor motivations because they are part of a D.I.E.T. mentality, meaning Do It Every Time (wash, rinse, repeat.) By that, I mean, we go on a rigorous diet and exercise program to lose weight to look good for a specific event, and then we go right back to the lifestyle that made us fat. Meaning, we'll get fat again. I speak as an experienced practitioner of this. Health is a much better motivation. It has the possibility of becoming permanent in our lifestyle. Losing weight for health is a worthwhile goal.
To give you some background, I have lived with depression since I was ten years old. I grew up in a small Oklahoma town so mental health professionals were unknown to me. I was in a terrible automobile accident December 19th, 2019, and during recovery, I gained weight. In January, 2023, I began to experience PTSD and my doctor prescribed Paxil for me. That ended my depression and I set a goal to reduce my weight to 170 lbs. (77.1 kg.).
What is my goal? My goal is to weigh 170 lbs.
But a goal without a time point is actually only a wish.
My goal is to reduce my weight to 170 lbs. by losing 4 ounces each day for 90-120 days.
Now I have a goal defined that I can measure daily by stepping on a scale.
Now for the actions that I can control that lead to achieving my goal. I can control what I choose to eat, both quantity and quality. I must decide what foods I can eat, and which foods I cannot eat.
That brings me to the next question: Does this move me closer to, or further from my goal?
I learned a lot about calories first. I read "Protein Power," by the Doctors Eades, "Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution," by Robert Atkins, and two books by Gary Taubes, "Good Calories, Bad Calories," and "Why We Get Fat and What to Do About It."
I decided to follow a program of low carbohydrates, high fat, and protein. Actually, I've done it before and had great success. But I got off of my program and regained weight. I weigh every day, in the morning, in just my underwear, after urinating. My weight will change through the week so measuring every day is a requirement for me to measure progress.
Every day, the second question comes into play. Does this move me closer to or further from my goal? A donut? Further. A small salad? Closer. Not exercising? Further. Walking three miles? Closer. It isn't easy. Knowledge alone isn't power. Knowledge is only power when it's used to make positive decisions. Knowledge is a tool to make good choices over bad choices.
Question 3, Am I being mean spirited? This is more about getting through the day without creating feelings in me that I will regret tomorrow. Revenge is at the top of the list. Any time I do anything to get back at anyone for any slight I perceive always blows up on me. An example. A neighbor died and the house was demolished, so there is a spare driveway between some houses. Different people use it. One day, it was open and I was annoyed at its constant use by one man. When he left, I thought about moving my pickup over to it to block him from using it. I quickly realized that this would be mean spirited. I chose not to do it and I chose to add that to my questions.
The next questions are closely related to each other.
Is it already in the past? Will commenting on it make the other person feel better or worse? Will commenting on it change our relationship?
These are about relationship controls and boundaries. If your partner has already done something that you don't like, then it's in the past and you can not change it. Commenting on what cannot be changed anyway only allows the partner to choose negative responses. Commenting negatively on what cannot be changed and creating negative responses causes relationship changes, usually in the form of revenge. These are little revenges but a continuous string of little revenges destroys a relationship just as effectively as a great revenge. It's called letting go. We don't have to keep everything, and some things, we shouldn't keep at all.
When I practice using these six questions, I have a successful day.
Stevie Joe Payne
