How we live our lives and what we get out of life are functions of the decisions we make daily. And planning is one of the prerequisites for making good decisions. The U.S. military uses a Military Decision-Making Process (MDMP) to analyze and make complex decisions. Of course, you will expect this from an organization with over 1 million active service members, over 800,000 reservists, having equipment valued at billions of dollars, and non-stop training to remain one of the most powerful fighting forces across the globe.
The complexity of making a decision in the military flows from the President; and his/her decisions impact even the lowest ranking personnel; especially when the stakes are high. This is why the application of the MDMP is critical; it creates room to weigh several alternatives and choose the best course of action with the lowest risk. There are seven steps to MDMP; but I will only address the first three that are applicable.
The first one is to accept the mission. We can relate to this by simply having adequate knowledge of what our mission in life is. What is your mission in life? It is the knowledge of your mission that helps to work out the next level in the decision-making process. The second step is mission analysis. If you don’t know your mission in life you cannot analyze it. If you are not sure where you are heading to and what are your goals, then there is nothing to analyze. And lastly is the course of action development. Once you are clear about your mission and have done a thorough analysis, you can develop different approaches and settle for the best option to fulfill your mission in life.
Our mission is to discover the purpose of our life. Whatever that purpose is, we must take the time to thoroughly examine how to fulfill it. We also need to fully analyze the consequences of not fulfilling it. What goals do we need to have/set to make sure our purpose becomes realized? What company do we need to keep? What are the limitations we have? Whose help would we require and who should be avoided? In doing this, we get to understand all the pros and cons as well as all the variables to achieving our goals.
After the analysis stage, then we go on to develop different approaches to all the options available. Sometimes our journey in life has more than one path to get there. But we need to consider the best possible option as our course of action and then settle for the final decision.
Jesus said, “For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not sit down first and count the cost, whether he has enough to finish it.” Luke 14:28. The cost of the life we live includes decisions about our relationships, jobs, purpose, pursuit, possible challenges, and so much more. Though everything, are you counting the cost of your journey and planning the mission of your life?
Making decisions is not as important as making the right decisions. The point of decision making is to understand the cost, so we can make the best plan. It is therefore essential to perform a thorough analysis to ensure we are making the right decisions. There are some well-organized people who have already made plans for the next ten years. Imagine you already know, from planning, where you will be in five to eight years. That is a well-calculated, planned-out, future-focused life. You would be able to manage whatever distractions come your way and will not find yourself wasting time or wasting resources. I believe it is a well-focused life that helps in making good decisions. At that level, you make your own decisions and are in control of your plans. This is very different from you following your organization’s schedule. This is you planning out the fulfillment of your purpose in life and setting the goals to fulfill them.
There are almost seventy days before 2018 runs out. And good planners would already have 2019 mapped out to further the pursuit of their purpose. They are the ones already planning out their decisions on what to spend money on, where to travel to, what to get engaged in, what to start, what to stop, who to be friends with, who to take a step back from, what books to read, what seminars to attend, what investments to venture into, where and whom to learn from, and what areas of their lives would need development and growth. All these decisions would become easy as we actively choose to plan out our journey in advance.
A lot of Christians will seek God in prayer for guidance for the coming year. But next year is only considered a new year because of the calendar numbers that calculate it as new. It is actually the same life we were born into and continue to live. We make it a new year by our plans and decisions. It is only new if we have something new to do/achieve; otherwise we remain in the same mentality and approach we have been living with.
Decide to make it a better year by understanding and analyzing your mission and developing your approach to whatever you want to accomplish. And make it your goal to always make good decisions. In the words of Jim Rohn, “The primary reason most people are not doing as well as they could and should, can be summed up in a single word: neglect.” Don’t make 2019 your year of neglect! Plan ahead and make good decisions.
