"Once you say you are going to settle for second, that's what happens to you in life, I find."
-- John F. Kennedy

Our life consists of making decisions – big and small – on a regular basis. Some are easy to make, others require time, patience, ingenuity, and, at times, carry with them a lot of frustration. Have you ever found yourself compiling a very familiar list of PROs and CONs when faced with a particularly difficult decision? I remember doing it for our first overseas move. We spent at least a week deciding, writing out all the negatives and positives of the move, discussing advantages and disadvantages. Yet the process was not as helpful as we initially thought it would be. Eventually we made a decision – a right one as it later turned out – but we would have done it a lot faster and with a lot fewer doubts if we had known of this handy method I am about to share with you.

This particular technique is not based on PROs and CONs of making one choice over another. It's based on the end result. What would life be like if you took this road or that one? How would you feel? Would your choice help you live a more fulfilled life?

Many of you already know that to live a happy, fulfilled life means living according to the unique set of your own values. Whatever choice you make would have to support the values you hold dear. So:

(1) The first step in making a difficult decision easier would be to identify those values. Ask yourself:
What is important to me?
What can I not live without?
What makes my life meaningful?

(2) The second step would be to choose your ten most important values and rank them in the order of priority. Which value holds rank over others? Which ones are equally important and which ones are less so?

(3) The third step would be to imagine what would happen to those values if you made one choice over another. If we take moving overseas for an assignment as an example, where would you stand on honoring your values if you decided to take the job? Or, if you didn't?

To complete the process make a table with three columns, first one listing the values in order of priority, and the other two with headings of YES and NO (YES for moving overseas, and NO for not). Then – based on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the highest) -- assign numbers to each value. Consider how much that value will be honored if you say YES or NO. For instance, if the top three of your values are family, adventure, and success, your table may look something like this:

This means that by moving overseas you may honor your value of family less because you'll be seeing much less of your parents, siblings, etc. Yet at the same time you'll be honoring your value of adventure more because you'd be embarking on one. See how it works? In the end tally up the numbers for YES and NO and make your choice.

This works with different decisions including those that have more than two choices. The sums of your columns may be close or they may come out very far apart. Whatever the result, however, the objective is to help the decision making process by seeing how it will impact your whole life rather than by focusing simply on advantages and disadvantages.

Margarita Gokun Silver is a global nomad who was born in Russia, holds a US citizenship, and has been living in different countries for the past fifteen years.  She is the founder of the Global Coach Center, a coaching firm that specializes in coaching expatriates, multinational executives, and those involved in multicultural relationships, either at work or at home.  Margarita's passion is to help her clients succeed in today's diverse world and overcome the challenges of living in and working with other countries.

Margarita is a graduate of the Coaches Training Institute, one of the premier coaching schools in the US.  She is an NLP Practitioner and she also holds a Masters degree from Yale University.  Margarita currently lives in St. Petersburg, Russia but has also lived in Buenos Aires, Washington DC, Moscow, New York, Rome, Tashkent, and Warsaw.  For more information on Margarita and the Global Coach Center please visit www.GlobalCoachCenter.com.  You can also sign up for our free monthly e-zine -- Global Living -- a source of great tips and information for expatriates, global nomads, and internationally-minded . Reprinted with Permission.