We all make decisions with our emotions. Learn which emotions have your best interests at heart and which are just passing experiences.

Then, go after what you REALLY want. If you have any question about whether or not something is what you really want, try this checklist. Here are ways to know that something isn’t what you really want. You’re pursuing it because:

You’re trying to win an argument.
It makes a good fantasy.
You can’t stand to admit that you’re wrong.
It’s what you’ve always done.
It’s what your parents/spouse/sibling/second cousin/long lost evil twin wants.
It merely represents something that you really want.
You’ve molded this identity that you want other people to believe and now you have to support it.
It’s a decision you made in the past and you have sunk so much time, energy and resources into it and now you can’t let go.

All of that is not what you really want.

Once you know what you want, find the people who have succeeded at it. Find five of them. Find out what they actually do, every day. Whatever each of those five people do every day, do that. Do it over and over again; do it every day.

Never start with compromise. Other people need to know where you really stand in order to know how they should react to you. There’s no better way to make a well-meaning but absolutely terrible decision than to be in a group where everyone starts with a compromise and as a result, nobody gets what they want.

You do have deep values, and if you don’t live according to them, your ego will start making up defenses. These defenses will harm everyone around you–eventually, they will literally turn into abuse or addiction. In order to make everyone else happy, you have to be happy. And that means you have to live according to your deep values; you have to go after what you really want.

When it comes to specific, important decisions, make decisions when you are well-fed and well-rested. Be willing to devote an entire day to making a really crucial decision.

If you allow yourself to be stuck in comparison mode, you will get paralyzed. Break down complex decisions into individual, yes or no questions. Slowly but surely, chip away at the decision that needs to be made until the answer emerges.

Finally, if you are deeply torn between option number one and option number two, pick option number three. There is no option number three, you say? Create it.