Good decisions can save a lot of time and a lot of hardship. Plus good decisions offer a lot of recurring joy.Here's a good example. The church, where I serve as pastor, was able to build a facility a couple of years ago. Before that we were renting space. We pulled together a team of people to develop the layout and design. We started by visiting other church buildings to see what we liked and didn't like.  We took pictures of lodges because we wanted our building to have that kind of look.Why did we gather so many wise people and so much helpful information for our building?  Because we knew that we'd be stuck with that building for a long time...like...FOREVER.  So we didn't want to blow it. We didn't want to have to live with the fruit of sloppy planning.We were pleased with our work and the best thing is, when it was all built, we still liked what we designed. In fact, what inspired this post was my thinking about how much I still like the building. If we had it to do all over again I'd barely suggest any changes.

Good Decisions = No Regrets

We've had very few problems and many complements. It dawned on me that we are simply receiving back rewards for our hard work on the front end of the process. Spending time looking at all the angles in the beginning enabled us to live regret-free now. We don't constantly say to ourselves, "If only we had done this..." or "Now what are we going to do?" Plus we get to enjoy a great building that meets our needs and feels so welcoming to our community.What if we took our life decisions as seriously as we did that building? How much regret could we eliminate from our lives if we simply invested in making good decisions in the first place?

Avoid the fix/endure/move on Syndrome

What if you gathered wise people to instruct your relational decisions, or financial decisions, or career decisions? So often we go on a whim, or a feeling. We go on tradition, or what people expect from us. We base our decisions on trends or circumstances. Our decisions often feel good in the moment, but it's not always long before we start to see the downside to our decision-making.That's when you end up in that dreaded place of wondering if you should fix what's broken, endure what's broken, or cut your losses and move on. Do you realize how much emotional energy goes into all that? Good decisions can prevent it all.

Make Good Decisions This Year

As you approach a new year with new decisions, I want to encourage you to take the time you need to make well advised, well thought through decisions. As with my church's building, it's so nice to continually be thankful for our good decisions and not live in continual regret of bad decisions. I hope you will make the upfront investment of time as you approach your personal decisions this year. It will save you hours of headaches in days to come and hopefully offer a great deal of joy.Question: I'm sure you've got a story of how making good decisions or not affected your life. Would you care to briefly mention it below? Thanks.To help you in your relational decision-making this year, consider my new book, STUCK...how to mend and move on from broken relationships.