Many years ago, I was offered my first career-level job at the end of my senior year of college. I asked the recruiter if I could have a day to make sure it was the right decision, and they agreed.
This isn’t the biggest decision I’ve ever made, but it was the first of several times that I used a method recommended to me to determine if it was the right decision.
For 24 hours, I pretended that I had accepted the job. I walked around thinking about my new position, the transition, and the setting (it was in another city). I went to bed with this decision, and I woke up with it.
I found this to be incredibly helpful. Yes, it wasn’t the only method I used–I wrote down a pro/con list and I talked to a few friends and my parents, just like other big decisions in my life–but it really helped to “make” the decision and ultimately see if it resulted in excitement, dread, or other feelings.
I’ve used this method for other big decisions: buying a condo, going full-time at Stonemaier Games, moving in with a girlfriend, buying a car, etc. Again, it’s not the only method I use, but it really seems to help my frame of reference.
I ended up not accepting the job. In some ways, I don’t truly know if this was the “right” decision–I didn’t have any other offers, so maybe I should have taken it!
But that’s the thing about many decisions like this: I can’t truly live out both paths before choosing one of them. The best I can do is pretend for a day that I’ve taken a path and see how it feels.
Have you ever used this method for making a big decision? What’s the last big decision you made, and what methods did you use to make it?