We asked people about the best decision they ever made. Here’s what they told us.

decision cloud
It’s quite a question: what’s the best decision you’ve ever made? We asked as our theme for autumn and we certainly weren’t disappointed by the answers from our Community Correspondents. Some were big life changes, like quitting your job to travel the world, others were more personal, like deciding to be honest about how you feel. But they all had one thing in common: they were incredibly brave.

The act of making decisions is intimately linked to our mental wellbeing. We know that making a good one could change our lives; we worry that making the wrong one could ruin everything. Some of us feel unable to make decisions when we feel unwell, others make poor decisions or lose the capacity to make decisions during periods of ill health.

But, there’s something really inspirational about reading about the best decisions that people are proud of. You wonder- did you know that decision would change your life when you made it? Or did you just go for it? Either way, it requires huge courage

It’s fascinating to look at the words that came up most often as part of this theme. The wordcloud above shows which words featured: the bigger the word, the more often it was used. You can see, that after the obvious ones like “decision”, “make” and “best”, which were part of the question, the most common words are “people” and “life”.  That says something really positive about what’s important when we make good decisions. These are the things that matter to us.

The next most common ones related to our needs and feelings: “”feel”, “mental health”,”found” ,”want”, “good” and “need”.

And the next group relates to time and making plans: “time” “decide” “choices” “plan” “first” and “work”.

Of course, this is a small sample and there’s nothing very scientific about it, but it reveals something about how we make the best decisions. First, we look at what is important to us. Then we explore our feelings and desires. Then we get to the rational side of things and get to work on planning and making it happen.

Maybe it won’t always lead to the best decisions, but that sounds like a great way to go about deciding.

You can read all of the #bestdecision blogs here

Giving up life as I knew it to become a travel photographer
Fuad Alakbarov

Telling people how I feel
Jim Jarsdel

Moving to Scotland
Ann Marie Sharpe

I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t made that decision
Robert Terry

Accepting that I have a mental health problem
John Dane

Returning to uni as a mature student
Emma Wilson

Making fewer decisions made me happier
Rosie McIntosh

 

 

 

 

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