Why do people make bad choices?

People make bad choices because of security, personal experience, observations, advice, personal preference and very little objectivity.

1. Security-(fear, lack, acceptance, tomorrow)

Most people make bad choices because they are afraid of something and hence make the safest choice which will not put them in a risk. It therefore comes as no surprise that security is one of the major reasons why people make bad choices. So it could be a bad choice in a partner, career, friends, or just the wrong turn in life. In security are such reasons as fear, lack, acceptance and tomorrow.

Please also visit our article “How Fear impacts your life”

2. Personal experience (back in the day, I have seen, my experience tells me, we used to, this is what always happens)

The future is progressive and when we keep holding on to past achievement as the only level of reference to the choices we make in life then wrong decisions are very much likely to happen. There is nothing wrong in relying on personal experience but however there is everything wrong in relying on personal experience alone. So you need to open up a bit more and see things a bit more clearer from a 365 degree approach.

3. Observation in other people’s lives (James did this, others failed)

Explaining the possibility of failure by referencing to someone else’ failure should not be a judgment of what you are capable of doing. Most people limit their decisions to what they observed in other people’s lives and forget that circumstances differ. There is nothing wrong in learning from other people but let it not be yard stick for your choices.

4. Advice from life experts (your friends, parents, books, TV, radio)

There is so much advice in our society, friends, parents, books, magazines, blogs, TV, and radio just to mention a few are all giving advice. As good as advice is you should be the final decision maker and make a choice that suits your circumstances.

5. Personal preferences (emotions, addictions, habits)

Emotions are good but when they stop being objective and we do things out of just how addicted we are to something or for selfish reasons then bad choices are highly to occur. We need to be self aware to be able to make the right decisions. Making decisions for the sake of it is not always the best in life, be a bit more objective.

This articles is from our Your Success 101 course, a curse on how to identify what it is that you really need to succeed y interrogating your personal life.