Unit 8 Decision Making

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Unit 8 Decision Making

• Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and
  nothing so futile.
• Bertrand Russell
• We can try to avoid making choices by doing
  nothing, but even that is a decision.
• Gary Collins

DEV050 Career Life Planning
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Unit 8 Learning Objectives

• At the end of this unit, you will be able to
• Discuss reasons why people have difficulty making
  decisions
• Assess progress in the eight step decision-making
  process
• Compare decision making styles
• Utilize a career decision making matrix to narrow
  your occupational prospects

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Unit 8 Decision Making

• Career decisions should draw from your
  personal convictions and the facts gathered in
  the exploration process.  Once a perspective is
  gained, decisions can allow you to focus on a
  direction closely tied to your interests, create
  a career objective, and target specific
  organizations for employment or continued
  education.

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Unit 8 Barriers

• If youre feeling stuck, it might help to think
  about the following
• Do I know what I value?
• Do I know what my priorities are?
• Do I have all the information I need to make the
  decision?
• Have I thought about the outcomes/consequences of
  the decision?
• Am I willing to take responsibility for the
  decision?
• Am I willing to take the risk?
• Am I willing to evaluate the outcome of the
  decision and make another if necessary?
• If the answer is no to one or more of the above,
  that is the area(s) where you may have a barrier
  and where you may need to work to remove the
  barrier.

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Unit 8 Barriers

• Reasons people have difficulty making decisions
• Fear of failing
• Fear of success/believing that others will expect
  always expect perfection following a success
• Unable to set priorities/dont know what to do
  first
• Not knowing where to get the information needed
  to help with the decision
• Hoping someone else will decide
• Having little experience in making decisions and
  feeling overwhelmed
• Not being willing to sacrifice immediate comfort
  for the long-term gain
• Fear that others will disapprove of the decision
• Believing decisions wont really matter, other
  circumstances will ultimately dictate the outcome

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Unit 8 Process

• Eight Part Decision-Making Process
• Become aware and committed ?
• Study your environment ?
• Study yourself ?
• Generate alternatives ?
• Gather information ?
• Make the decision
• Implement the decision
• Get feedback

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Unit 8 Styles

• Intuitive go with the gut feeling
• Planning - use a procedure with the goal of
  creating a satisfying end result a rational
  approach of weighing of the facts, using a
  balance of thinking and feeling
• Impulsive - little thought or examination, taking
  the first alternative
• Delaying - postponing thought action
• Fatalistic - letting something else decide,
  leaving it to fate
• Dependent - let someone else decide, following
  someone else's plans
• Agonizing - spend much time thought in
  gathering data analyzing alternatives only to
  get lost in the data
• Play-it-Safe - chooses the alternative with the
  perceived lowest level of risk "I like
  anthropology, but I can get a job in accounting."

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Unit 8 Styles

• The most effective style is planning, or
  vigilance.
• Planning/vigilance is characterized by
• producing alternatives
• collecting studying information
• evaluating risks consequences
• searching for assimilating new information
• reexamining alternatives
• implementing the decision
• having contingency plans in case the first choice
  develops risk that are too great

DEV050 Career Life Planning