Successful career planning requires good decision making ability. A myriad of decision making approaches can be adopted. These options include:

• Planned – using rational thought to weigh the facts, obtain the necessary information and explore consequences.
• Impulsive – this is the ‘’leap before you look’’ approach, or giving little thought to the decision before taking action.
• Intuitive – making the decision based on a ‘’gut feeling’’ and striving to preserve harmony.
• Compliant – this is when a person is content to let someone else decide and typically does not assert her/his own preferences.
• Delaying – avoiding thinking about it or taking actions. The decision maker procrastinates and hopes that something happens on its own to avoid making a decision.
• Defaulting – ‘’playing it safe’’ by choosing the direction with the lowest level of risk.
• Paralytic – experiencing complete indecision and fear, resulting in the inability to act.

In addition to your decision making approach, a whole range of influencing factors can also impact you. These factors include:

• External factors – such as family expectations, responsibilities, cultural pressure, male/female stereotypes and survival needs.
• Internal factors – such as lack of self-confidence, fear of change, fear of making the wrong decision and fear of ridicule.

Structure decision making

You can enhance your career decision making ability by following a structured framework. The five step process laid out below is a useful method for doing this.

Five step process:

• Define your goals and list objectives for each goal.
• Gather relevant information.
• Review alternatives.
• Assess likely outcomes as objectively as possible.
• Establish a plan of action.

Good decisions are almost always the result of a well thought out process and a willingness to take calculated risks. Understanding this is critical. However, good decision making also requires you to dedicate time to the process and to gather and use lots of information.

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