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7 Keys to Being a More Thoughtful Leader

Written by Jeshua Zapata | Jun 28, 2016 5:34:16 PM

There's a lot of pressure weighing on CEOs to move their company in the right direction, but decision making isn't an easy process all the time. As the complexities of business culture grow, decision makers need to quickly and efficiently keep up with the demands of their team and ultimately their customers. This requires an increasingly mindful approach. Fortunately, there are numerous mind-enhancing techniques to tackle decision making with greater confidence. As a result, creative solutions to business problems will come easier.

Daily journaling helps your mind work through
complicated decisions with more consistent thinking.

1. Keep a Daily Journal

Improve your decision-making abilities with daily writing. Detail within a journal any concepts and strategies that come to mind. It doesn't matter how good or bad they are. What's important is that you get out what you're thinking. Writing helps process cognitive and emotional intricacies better than thinking without it. Seeing your thoughts on a sheet of paper brings you to a higher level of awareness. It increases your ability to think creatively, analyze, and solve problems. You can also benefit from writing positive affirmations for 10 to 15 minutes a day. This leaves less mental space for toxic thoughts to develop.


2. Practice Optimistic Visualizations

Effectively finalizing any decision requires a positive outlook. Set meaningful goals, and visualize good strategies for reaching them. Furthermore, imagine yourself encountering and overcoming obstacles to bring your ideas to life. This aspect of healthy visualizations is the most crucial. When you imagine confrontations with barriers, it creates an urgency to shift into problem-solving mode. As a result, making tough decisions becomes easier because you are less intimidated by potential hardships. Also, it helps you adapt to a winning frame of mind, meaning success is less distant.


3. Weight the Pros & Cons

Similar to the previous tip, you need to assess the good and bad of every idea you have. Don't sugar-coat anything. Live by a policy of honesty, by picking apart and scrutinizing your ideas. Strip down as many layers as you can to expose the nakedness of your proposals then you can know them for what they truly are. This reveals their strengths and weaknesses because - face it - no idea is perfect. Furthermore, you can afford to categorize and prioritize your plans. You'll know which plans deserve to be established and which don't. Weighing the benefits and risks allows you to make realistic decisions without inflated expectations.




Don't listen to simply give a response; listen to understand and connect.


4. Be an Active Listener

Developing your listening skills will certainly make you a good communicator. It appears the biggest communication problem is not knowing how to listen. This means people often fail to listen for the right reasons. People focus too much on listening to give a response rather than to understand. As a result, a communication loophole exists, leaving out information. The loophole interferes with adequate decision-making since one is missing out on significant details. Make listening a greater priority than speaking. Aim to interpret the meaning of what is being said during conversations so you can know the right ways to respond.


5. Break a Sweat

Physical activity improves mental and emotional capacities. Therefore, it can help you process decisions easier and quicker. It induces more blood flow, oxygen, and nutrients to the brain, supporting its functions. More parts of the brain become active, making it more alert and responsive. Also, it's a great way to relieve stress and tension stemming from the need to make hard decisions. As little as 10 minutes of exercise a day or most days out of the week can make a positive difference in brainstorming creative solutions.

6. Get Your Zzzs In

Getting sleep seems to be the easiest way to tackle business decisions, while becoming a more thoughtful leader. Sometimes all you need to do is enter the depths of your nighttime dreams and escape the real world to get creative juices flowing. The restorative power of sleep will help you organize your thoughts and process events of the day. This leads you to act more mindfully during the day. Your dreams may even give you good ideas about how to make decisions. Just make sure you get enough sleep each night!


7. Need Help? Ask For It

Drawing up creative solutions for business decisions isn't easy to do alone. Sometimes you'll need extra insight to help guide you in a better direction. It's of your best interest to ask the right people for help. From processing paperwork to creating sales formulas, you need other people on board to diversify your ideas. This gives you more options to choose from, meaning better decisions.

Apply these valuable tips to your decision-making needs, and watch your business reach new heights. Looking for more ways to optimize your skills? Schedule a consultation to learn more about how we help solve marketing problems.