It feels fitting to end 2020 with an article about 20/20 hindsight. At work and in our personal lives, we often find ourselves looking back on the decisions we’ve made and reflecting on if we could have done things differently. This year, in particular, many of us have had to make an extraordinary number of decisions—in many cases, difficult ones.

Regretting decisions can be frustrating and anxiety-inducing as you play them back in your mind. You think, “If only I had known [X], I would have done [Y].” Maybe you would have made a different decision about work-from-home versus in-office work at some point in the year, for example. Or maybe you would have used a different setup as you balanced your work and your kids’ online school. Or maybe this year just feels like one big series of “If only I had…”

That’s the tricky thing about 20/20 hindsight—it’s easy to see today what we should or could have done in the past. Figuring out what decisions to make in the moment is much harder, particularly with an unpredictable, once-in-a-lifetime event like a pandemic.

Decision-making is an essential everyday skill for professionals at all levels, especially for managers and leaders. Although many are relieved that 2020 is almost over, the complex work of pandemic decision-making won’t end on January 1, 2021. So how do we navigate decisions of any kind under this level of unpredictability and stress? And how do we use “20/20 hindsight” in an effective way, one that enhances our decision-making without embroiling us in “If only I had…”?

Although we can’t always guarantee an optimal decision, like any other skill, we can sharpen our decision-making ability and use our experiences in 2020 to inform decision-making in the year ahead. Here’s how:

Know Your Barriers (and How to Overcome Them)

We all make personal and professional decisions on a daily basis. Some are routine and easy, while others are more complex—everything from deciding on virtual or classroom learning for your child to choosing a strategic business partner to deciding who to hire or fire.

Decision-making is what delivers outcomes on all of these decisions, but this essential task can be hard for a few reasons:

  • You become consumed with making the “right” decision. No one wants to make a bad choice, and it can be especially hard to know what to do in an unprecedented business environment like that under COVID-19. But the more energy you spend on trying to avoid a mistake or “failure,” the harder it may be to actually make a decision. This reason is the most common stumbling block for professional decision-making.
  • You suffer from decision-making fatigue. When you are in a position of having to make many decisions all the time, it’s easy to become exhausted. This is exacerbated when the decisions are tough, or the stakes are high. Once decision-making fatigue sets in, it can be a challenge to make clear-headed decisions.
  • You are overwhelmed by the number of choices. Generally speaking, having options is a good thing. However, trying to assess a large or unlimited number of choices can create a dilemma. Producers of consumer products have discovered how too many choices can overwhelm customers and cause them to walk away: With too many options, we sometimes simply “shut down.”

Recognizing why—and when—decision-making is difficult for you is a good starting place in 2021. Reflect on the key decisions that you’ve made in 2020 and ask: “What were the key stumbling blocks that I encountered?”

Take me as an example: As a business owner, I often suffer from decision-making fatigue, and it’s important for me to be proactive in countering it. One way I do this is by shutting my brain off completely by not working or making any decisions, even small ones, for a few hours before I need to make an important or difficult decision.

This year I had to make two decisive, time-sensitive decisions back in April: what line items to keep, remove, or defer in my business operating budget, and how to pivot from in-person, classroom training to webinars. Initially, I was in overwhelm mode and didn’t know what to do. Quieting my thoughts on the bazillion other decisions I needed to make allowed me to gain clarity on these two decisions fairly quickly.

In this reflection process, it’s important to not get caught in a cycle of self-recrimination or frustration. Remember that 2020 was a tough year for all of us, and this process is to help make next year’s decisions better—not make you feel worse about the decisions you made under pandemic stress.

Once you know your stumbling blocks, you can start to use them to inform your decision-making process in the year ahead to make sure that you don’t get stuck.

Five-Step Decision-Making Process

In addition to recognizing why decision-making may be difficult for you, it is also helpful to be equipped with a process to make decisions. Here is one that can work no matter how major or minor the decision:

1.    Get clear on your goal. It is easy to simply start making decisions without considering your goal—in other words, having a ready, fire, aim approach. When you align your decisions to the goal you can improve outcomes.

2.    Gather all relevant information. Data-driven decisions will help you make the best strategic assessment and make you more confident about your ultimate decision.

3.    Create a comprehensive list of choices. Once you’ve done all of your homework so that you are well informed, document all of your decision choices.

4.    Consider the pros and cons. When you know the pros and cons of each data-driven choice, making a decision becomes that much easier. If you want, you can assign a number score to rate the relative importance of each pro and con, allowing you to make an even more objective decision.

5.    Make a decision. Be sure to determine a self-imposed deadline to make a decision and then do it.

As 2020 comes to a close, you may still find yourself pondering any poor decisions you made this year (or anytime in the past). It’s time to stop looking in the rearview mirror—hindsight is 20/20, and it’s easy to say what we “should have done” with the benefit of hindsight.

Instead, acknowledge all of the good decisions you have made, give yourself grace for the less optimal ones, and set your sight on making the best decisions you can using this five-step process in 2021 and beyond.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and comments on the article. Also, if you enjoyed the post, please share it with your network on social media!

About ShowUp! The company – aptly named “ShowUp!” – takes a results-oriented approach to advance our mission. Launched in 2007, we are based in the Washington DC area and have fast become a go-to resource for female and male leaders, executives, entrepreneurs, politicians, and organizations who are committed to raising the bar and ‘showing up’ for the successes they deserve. Through targeted corporate training facilitation from entry-level through executive, group keynotes and workshops, and individualized one-on-one coaching, we make an impact through leadership development, personal brand coaching, executive presence, and perception management, individualized personal style consulting, and business etiquette. www.showupllc.com