Are you lucky?

Almost all my friends complain / compliment that I am lucky!! This got me thinking, is there anything called luck? Why would someone be lucky or unlucky? How do you decide to become lucky? How can you avoid being unlucky?

The more I analyzed the more I believed, you being lucky is decided by the collective decisions you have taken over time. If you can learn to make timely and well-considered decisions, then you can often lead to well-deserved success or simply put just get lucky. However, if you make poor decisions, you risks failure.

So it all boils down to good decision making. Here are some steps to help you making good decision.

Identify the Problem Area - You need to first clearly identify the problem at hand, it could be incorporating change request in the project or which cell phone you should buy.

Collect Information - Collect as much information as possible for given problem, the information gathered should give you insights about possible causes and possible solutions.

Validate the Information - Ensure that the information gathered come from trustworthy sources and is as accurate as possible.

Brain Storm for Solutions - Come up with all the possible valid solutions, while doing so don't merit the solutions, just list them.

Evaluate Solutions - Write down the solutions with pros and cons for each of them. Narrow down to the option which best addresses the problem, the deciding factors should be the cost, benefits and consequences.

Bounce Off Others - Once you have reached a decision, no harm in bouncing off others, learning from others experience is quickest. There is always a chance that they might throw a light on some of the consequences which you might have missed.

Important tips

• Avoid snap decisions.
• Move fast on the reversible ones and slowly on the non-reversible.
• Do your decision making on paper.
• Make notes and keep your ideas visible so you can consider all the relevant information in making this decision.

This might seem simple steps and should be integral part of any decision making, but believe me I have seen people not doing it for lots of important decisions and end up believing they were a little unlucky.

So hope now you know how I get lucky!!

~Later