We are continuing our #thisisforyou campaign and our promise to share a range of coaching tools for you to try, this week our third coaching tool is “Decisional Balance – motivation to act“

Decisions – we make them all the time, some small less significant, some bigger decisions that have a high level of impact on our lives and perhaps the lives of those around us. How do you decide the best answer to suit you, the answer that will help you to achieve the aims and plans you have for your life? Often we talk things through with a trusted friend or colleague, we may spend time writing a list of pro’s and cons and as coaches we believe that reflecting, thinking and talking an issue or decision through can often bring greater awareness and clarity.

We often use tools in our coaching to support our clients to think through their options. This is one tool we may use and is specifically focused on decision making and we hope this tool will be something you will find useful when and if you have a significant or perhaps not so significant decision to make – please do let us know how you get on with it.

“Decisional Balance – motivation to act“

Define the action you want to make a decision about and fill in the sections below.

CONSIDER – In order to be motivated to act:

1. The pleasure in NOT taking the action must be exceeded by the pleasure in taking action (you have to see more pleasure in taking action, than doing nothing)

2. The pain in NOT taking action must exceed the pain in taking action (doing nothing is more painful than taking action)

3. It’s also important to consider the balance through a concept of ‘delayed gratification’. Make an assessment of your comments in each of the boxes – are they short, medium or long term?

4. In striving for challenging goals we sometimes need to sacrifice CERTAIN short-term pleasure for POTENTIAL longer-term gain – and that will only happen if we attach enough value to the pleasure in taking action.

Decisional Balance

Reference: Adapted from Epicurean Motivation

Our coaching is all about helping our clients to succeed and achieve in all they set out to do. We want our clients to be at their best and feel at their best. We help our clients to clarify their vision, decide what success looks like and work out a plan to get there. Remember to get in touch if you’d like to further explore the ideas that you generate.

We hope you enjoy this tool.

Jenny & Emma

Jenny Pollock & Emma Shute are the Founders and Coaches with Women to Work. We offer one to one coaching, group coaching workshops, and bespoke programmes for women’s development within organisations.