Every day we make choices that have the potential to change the course of our lives, whether it’s choosing what subjects to study in school or whether to start a YouTube channel or simply just asking that girl out on a date.

The choices we make every day have the potential to massively affect our happiness and to influence how our lives play out but we almost never stop and think about what goes into these choices or how we can get better at making them.

But before I go too far, let me first answer this question: What does it mean to make better choices in life?

This is an important question because there’s no objective criteria of what a good decision actually is. The thing with life is that you can actually make some terrible decisions and come out on the other side pretty “okay-ish”.

With that in mind, when I talk about good choices, I am essentially looking at the following: Choices that are intentional, conscious and more in line with my core values. Choices that lead me down the path to being able to materialise and achieve my goals.

Over the last few years of making various life choices, I found a series of questions that have been really helpful to ask myself whenever I’m struggling with a life choice or a difficult decision. These are the questions that I turn to and generally I usually get at an answer that nudges my decision towards something that’s a bit more intentional and a little bit conscious.

Question 1: In one year’s time what would I regret not having started today?

Often some of the most difficult choices in life are those that involve starting something new, for example working out is something that a lot of people postpone, they know that working out has immense benefits yet they procrastinate on getting going as the feel they could just always do it later in life but if they were to start today, in a year’s time would never regret having started today.

This questions was actually central to me starting trail running about 1,5 years ago. The thing was that I was getting fat and I knew I had to do some exercise of some sort. When I first started, everything was new and it was super tough but I knew that if I didn’t start and stick to it, I would continue to pack on the pounds and would look back and regret my decision.

When I first started, I could barely run 1,6km and now I’m able to wake up on a Saturday, put my running shoes on, take a 24km jog in the mountains and then carry on with my day with other normal people. The truth is that I wasn’t really expecting to make this much progress and growth, I just knew that I was gonna be glad I’ve had a year of running and losing weight. If you’re struggling with any kind of decision right now that involves starting something new or maybe even quitting something ask yourself will you, a year from now, wish that you had started a year ago?

Question 2: What is the risk of doing nothing now?

Often people think that risk is inherent to taking action forgetting that doing nothing and being okay with the status quo is the real risk.

This comes into play when we’re making choices in life about trying something new or doing something that looks like it may be a bit of a risk. e.g. quitting your job, asking that girl out, starting a new business…you get my drift.

Taking a new path of making new decisions never feels safe path but actually it’s worth asking ourselves, what are the risks of doing nothing, what is the worst that actually might happen?

Inaction does not actually have zero consequences, doing nothing is also a decision just like doing something is a decision.

Let me add a personal example: When I was 27, I quit my job to go play rugby in France. At the time a lot of people asked me why I would take such a risk but to me, what they didn’t realise was that from my perspective the real risk was staying at that job, scared to follow my dreams and thought of one day regretting not going with my heart.

Question 3: When I’m on my deathbed what will I regret having done or not having done?

This is really helpful because it nudges us towards doing the thing that feels a little bit more interesting.

The sorts of things that people regret are the things that they didn’t do rather than the things that they did do and so if you’ve got a choice for example to take a gap Year from University and travel around the world that’s probably something you’re not going to regret having done but you’ll probably regret not having done it if that makes sense.

There is an article that I read often about the top five regrets of the dying here is what they are:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself not the life others expected of me
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard on stuff I didn’t care about
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings
4. I wish I’d stayed in touch with my friends
5. I wish I’d let myself be happier

I read this not to depress myself but as a reminder that regret is something that always comes too late and that I must get busy with the business of living, while I’m still alive.

These regret are my personal reminder of the brevity of life and the need to mitigate against the risk that I might have regrets when I’m on my deathbed.

Question 4: How certain am I about this decision and how certain do I need to be to make this decision

One of my mottos in life is “I might be wrong but I’m never in doubt”. A lot of people tend to over analyse everything and overthink things, for example the decision to go to France was probably one of the simplest I have ever made. I knew that such opportunities don’t come around everyday and I weighed it up against the fact that if it all failed, I could always come home and apply for another job.

The takeaway here is do your calculations but also realise that you don’t need to have 100% certainty because if you wait for 100% certainty you’re just going to end up wasting your life, never making any decisions because there will never ever be a point in your life where all the robots are green.

Question 6: Will this energise me or will this drain me?

This is a great question because there are things and people that either drain us of our energy or energise us. I use this question to decide whether or not to say yes to an event or something that I get invited to. I like to put myself at the event or imagine a conversation with certain people, then I ask myself if this was happening right now would it energise me or would it drain me?

Things that energise me are broadly doing work related stuff, running in the mountains and having dinner with friends.

Things that drain me are normally having meetings about stuff that I’m not particularly interested in, talking to people who don’t form their own opinions about things or even doing work related stuff where it’s not particularly interesting but I’m doing it for the money.

It’s important that you find out which things energise you and do more of those as well as find out what drains you and stop doing those things.

There you go. This is the framework that I use to make decisions in my life. Let me know what you think or if there is anything that I might have missed out on.