Day 57 (Fifty-seven) of 365 days
Think rightly about a decision and making a sound decision. The virtue of good judgment is developed through experience both good and bad, as well as a reflection on those decisions. It’s important for us to make decisions, as well as reflect on and learn from them.
Our judgment is either good or bad. Good judgment results in success and happiness, while bad judgment results in experience. But it’s not always that we have to learn something from our bad judgment to gain experience. To continue to make good judgments, you have to act on experience. In short, you have to learn.
But what do we get if we don’t follow those steps, if we don’t use judgment? What if we just make a random decision and go with it? We might have a desired result, and may not. And then what! The obvious answer is that it will be very difficult. Not impossible, but all you have to go is a way that doesn’t work without any reasonable way of improving your next attempt. That is a way to learn, but it is a very slow way to do so.
The reason it is important to consider what you are doing before you take action, is so that you can compare what you thought you’d get to what you got, and try to determine which aspects of your decision weren’t properly assessed. Knowing how to change your analysis going forward is what will lead to better judgments going forward.
Good judgment includes prioritizing, meeting deadlines, and carefully planning, which are tools that enable us to effectively cope in difficult and stressful situations.
Making decisions that fail to consider the future can lead to a high level of stress when we have to rush deadlines and deal with pressing problems.
