A friend of mine shared some wisdom with me when we were driving to Malbun, Liechtenstein this year. I joined him one morning to run some errands down at the capital. He is currently working as a managing director at Hilti for MENA region and I have always known him as a spectacular individual.

I had an urge to ask him to what made him so calm working in an important role in Hilti, I made it as casual as possible….it helps especially when your driving uphill through narrow roads. “So Bruno…. how did you learn to be so calm all these years, I have never seen you lose your cool in any situation?!” Although his son and I used to wreck the house most of the time when we were younger, like I mentioned, I knew him for more than 20 years now. He said “Wajd, I never make a big decision in my life before I sleep on it”.

I found that interesting where we do make decisions every day, some are big and some are small, but most of the time we need to make decisions that will affect our lives. The idea of letting things settle first and see the big picture before jumping into a conclusion is crucial. Now it doesn’t mean that every decision requires you to sleep on it obviously, but decisions like setting goals, buying a house, changing your career…etc, anything that requires an investment in time or money, needs to be studied before you can decide yes or no.

Nothing should be rushed even when you have that gut feeling telling you to go for it. I remember getting that a lot when I want to buy furniture or something for the house, then again I need to run it by my boss (my wife).

Studies proved that when you sleep on it, you tend to remember the positive outcomes of your decision more than negative outcomes, therefore depending on the decision, you might require more time to think about it.

I found that to be extremely useful and I try to use this method more often. It helped me in different scenarios in the past two months. I noticed that I can make better and accurate decisions rather than quick fixes, which never really lasts for long before the problem comes back again.

Give it a try, does it work for you?