Do you ever find yourself making the same mistakes when it comes to making decisions? Week after week, month after month, year after year... Perhaps it isn’t so surprising. Maybe you have a hard time deciding the "right" thing, or even making a decision at all. It can be difficult!
We all have a default decision-making style and process. This style comes to the surface when we are especially stressed out, or in a hurry – which always seems to happen when we need to make a really important decision.
So, how can you make better, more well-rounded decisions in 2023? The first step might be to look into your personality type.
You’ve likely heard about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) assessment and know that your type affects certain aspects of your personality, like Extraversion and Introversion. When you need to make a decision you're likely taking in information first, and then deciding based on that information. This is where two personality type elements come into play: Sensing-Intuition and Thinking-Feeling.
Taking In Information
Sensing and Intuition describe how you take in information.
People with a preference for Sensing rely on the direct evidence of their senses (hence the name), like what they see and what they hear. They prefer practical, factual information. They tend to focus on the details, and they trust their past experiences.
In contrast, people with a preference for Intuition want to see the big picture and how everything connects. They are less interested in specifics, and are more focused on the future than the past.
We all have a preference for either Sensing or Intuition. We can make ourselves "act against our type" when we need to, but it doesn’t always come easily.
Coming To Conclusions
Thinking and Feeling describe how we come to a conclusion, and make a decision.
People with a preference for Thinking prefer to make a decision based on logic, but those with a preference for Feeling prefer to take account of what’s important to them, their values, and how other people might be affected by the consequences of their decision.
A lot of us can do both — but we often prefer one side over the other, and we will be especially likely to adopt our "default mode" when we are short on time or under pressure.
When we make a decision, we tend to have personal bias. We concentrate on the areas that fit only our personality type and ignore the ones that don’t.
For example, my own MBTI personality code is INTP, meaning that I have preferences for Intuition and Thinking. I’ll tend to forget about (or ignore) all the useful questions that people with a Sensing or Feeling preference might ask (What are the facts? What is realistic? How will other people be affected?) and just look at the bigger picture and the logical pros and cons. I can miss important aspects that Sensing and Feeling preferences might pick up on.
So, if it’s an important decision, I’ll challenge myself to look at those Sensing and Feeling areas as well as my own so I can see the larger picture.
Here are some starter questions for you to ask yourself if you want to make sure you cover all of the bases, and avoid personal biases:
Questions For Sensing Types
- What are the current facts?
- What, specifically, isn’t working now?
- What is working? (That likely doesn’t need to be changed.)
- What past experiences (or the past experiences of others) can I draw on?
- What’s realistically achievable?
Questions For Intuition Types
- What is my ideal vision of the future?
- What trends or patterns can I (or others) see?
- What ideas can I come up with (or can we brainstorm)?
- Is there a new, creative, innovative alternative?
Questions For Thinking Types
- What is the objective analysis of the issue?
- What assumptions am I making? Are they logical and objective?
- Which ideas are the most logical and thought through?
- What are the pros and cons of the best ideas?
Questions for Feeling Types
- How does the issue impact on me and others?
- Who needs to be involved?
- How do I get a buy-in from other people?
- What do people agree on?
- How do I feel about this decision?
The Decision Making Process
To make a thoroughly considered decision, here's some good steps to follow in order:
- Ask yourself the Sensing Type questions.
- Ask yourself the Intuition Type questions.
- Move on to the Thinking and Feeling questions.
But here’s the difficult bit — you need to spend the same amount of time on all four sets of questions to fully consider all aspects.
It can be helpful to time yourself with a stop watch or your phone's timer for each of the categories to prevent yourself from skimming over anything. Otherwise you'll hurry through the questions relating to the less preferred parts of your personality — and those are the exact areas that you may need to pay attention to.
John Hackston is a chartered psychologist and Head of Thought Leadership at The Myers-Briggs Company where he leads the company’s Oxford-based research team. He is a frequent commentator on the effects of personality type on work and life, and has authored numerous studies, published papers in peer-reviewed journals, presented at conferences for organizations such as The British Association for Psychological Type, and has written on various type-related subjects in top outlets such as Harvard Business Review.
Check out our Growth Goals By MBTI and How To Set Up Your Workspace By MBTI for more!
Features image by Ivan Samkov/PEXELS.
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