ITL113: How to Be More Decisive
In the Loop with Andy Andrews
Matt Lempert
4.9 • 614 Ratings
🗓️ 21 December 2013
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week’s episode, I address the difference between being decisive and impulsive.
More people fail at what they attempt because of an undecided heart than any other reason.
- They’ll talk to their friends.
- Then talk to their family.
- Finally, they’ll make a decision.
- Then they’ll ask if they should have waited longer to make a decision.
- Then they’ll take the decision back.
- Life then becomes an ongoing analysis.
The question you need to ask yourself before making a decision is…Is this a wise thing to do?
- This is one of the best questions in life and one of the best questions to teach your kids to ask.
- It reveals what is ahead of you.
- If you’re asking if something is wrong, you’re going to rationalize the situation and keep pushing the envelope on what is “technically” wrong.
Andy Stanley states that direction determines destination—not intention.
- Intention has no power.
- Imagine how I would sound if I said, “I can’t believe Polly is treating me this way after everything I intended to do.”
The difference between being impulsive and decisive is wisdom.
- An important piece of wisdom is seeking out divine guidance.
- I count on being divinely guided.
What is wisdom?
- A deep understanding of principle.
- 3/4 of a principle gets you nothing; you must understand all aspects of the principle.
Questions for Listeners
Do you have a question? Call in and your question might be featured on the show!
- Phone: 1-800-726-ANDY
- E-Mail: InTheLoop@AndyAndrews.com
- Facebook.com/AndyAndrews
- Twitter.com/AndyAndrews
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to In the Loop, a unique opportunity to see life from a different perspective with New York Times bestselling author, Andy Andrews. |
| 0:10.0 | Now here's your host. |
| 0:12.1 | Hello, everyone, and welcome to In the Loop with Andy Andrews. |
| 0:15.9 | I am your guest host, David Loy, back with Andy again this week. |
| 0:19.9 | Andy, thanks for joining us. I am glad to be here. |
| 0:22.4 | So, Robert still has the voice problems, huh? I'm wondering now. He's faking. He might just be faking. He might just |
| 0:30.4 | saying, I kind of like listening to you, David. I think he really just doesn't like doing the work. |
| 0:35.6 | Well, that might be it as well. He's a slacker. There you go. Glad you're here anyway. I'm happy to be here. We'll fill the void. We've got another great topic this week. This is a personal topic for me, actually, Andy, because one of the things that I've learned from your writings and from being around you for all these years is to have a decided heart and being |
| 0:55.6 | decisive and to do so without being impulsive. And what is the difference between all of those? |
| 1:03.0 | So we're going to dig into that a little bit further. But for you personally, what questions |
| 1:08.2 | do you ask yourself when you're deciding something before you do something? |
| 1:13.4 | What do you ask yourself? |
| 1:14.2 | Well, you know, the decided heart that you mentioned, that I really believe that more people |
| 1:19.2 | fail at what they attempt because of an undecided heart than for any other reason. |
| 1:26.9 | And you know what an undecided heart is. |
| 1:29.3 | We see people, they have something that they're trying to decide, and they'll talk to their |
| 1:35.1 | friends and talk to their family, and, you know, this goes on forever. And then finally they'll |
| 1:39.6 | decide, and they'll make the decision, and then they'll talk to their friends about whether |
| 1:43.5 | they should have made it or should have waited later. And then they'll make the decision and then they'll talk to their friends about whether they should have made it or should have waited later. |
| 1:46.3 | And then they'll take the decision back and then they'll talk to their family about whether they should have took it back or stayed with the first decision. |
| 1:53.9 | And life becomes this ongoing state of analysis, which, you know, the point of analysis is to come to a conclusion. |
| 2:02.5 | Right. |
... |
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