I’m amazed by people who think fast on their feet. Long after a difficult encounter, I come up with the most brilliant response, but I’m a dollar short and a day late. I’m left thinking, “Why didn’t I think of that in the heat of the moment?”
In our last post we looked at rapid decision-making. We saw how it features in the Marines’ curriculum and training. We also saw how it played out in the life of Abraham, the father of the faith, in his encounter with God and the angels. Rapid decision-making is the mental agility to calmly act swiftly and decisively in a high-stakes environment by:
- unhesitatingly analyzing a situation
- discriminating between critical and non-critical factors
- developing and carrying out a plan that you can defend.
It comes from the knowledge that in certain situations, hesitation and delay will cost you more than you are willing to pay. In order to be unsinkable, you apply AITO in the image below (see this post by the same title: IGNITE Personal Transformation Challenge – Day 31 – You are Unsinkable! – Further The Faith).
Rapid Decision-Making in Your Life
You can apply principles from the Marines and from Abraham’s life to your life to improve your rapid decision-making capacity
- You Take Initiative:
Taking initiative entails thoughtful, proactive engagement, demonstrating leadership and a willingness to move forward with a clear purpose and often a well-defined strategy. People who take initiative don’t want to be prompted. It is driven by a desire for improvement and a calculated approach to achieving it. Trust that you are being led and take the initiative.
Taking initiative is not an excuse to be impetuous, the latter of which is a passive reaction marked by rashness and a lack of deliberation. It’s about acting on a whim or an immediate emotional response, often disregarding potential negative repercussions or the need for careful planning. The key differentiator is the presence or absence of a deliberate, analytical phase before action is taken. Initiative marks effective leadership and problem-solving, while impetuousness can lead to avoidable errors and missed opportunities.
Who do you know you need to be to be true to yourself? What are you being called to?
2. You Take Immediate Action: Abraham’s immediate “running” to meet his guests and his swift instructions for their comfort demonstrate a profound sense of initiative and a lack of hesitation. His Identity drives his actions. He is a blessing and therefore hospitable and very generous.
If you don’t know who you are, you hesitate.
If you don’t know who you are, you doubt.
If you don’t know who you are, you delay.
If you don’t know who you are, you wait for permission.
If you don’t know who you are, you mistrust.
If you don’t know who you are, you compare.
If you don’t know who you are, you complain.
If you don’t know who you are, you criticize.
If you don’t know who you are, you seek distraction.
When you know who you are you act decisively even when it’s harder than the alternatives and less convenient. You do what needs to be done to keep consistency between your actions and your identity. Needless to say, you do all this with utmost respect for others and a deep awareness of your boundaries. Don’t trample other people’s spaces and property in the name of taking initiative.
3. You Assess and Allocate Resources: Despite the unexpected nature of the visit, Abraham quickly assesses the needs of his guests (rest, water, food) and immediately allocates resources (Sarah, his servant, a calf) to meet those needs. Keep tabs on your resources and frequently determine what assets are available and how best to employ them to achieve the mission. Remember to trust that you also have access to supernatural resources that you can tap into, including ideas, strategies, and angelic assistance.
4. You Commit to a Course of Action: Once Abraham decides to offer hospitality, he commits fully to that course of action, ensuring the meal is prepared “hastily.” There is no wavering or second-guessing. Just as the USMC trains its leaders to do, commit to a chosen course of action once a decision is made, understanding that indecision can be more detrimental than a less-than-perfect plan executed with conviction.
5. You Understand Intuitively: Use your common sense first. Abraham doesn’t need a detailed planning process to decide to offer water and food. Abraham knows his guests are weary. He takes care of those natural immediate needs first. Anticipate needs based on your past experiences and endeavor to meet needs of others before the individuals realize or voice them.
- Trust that you are where you are for a reason and have been strategically placed there physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, etc.
- You are sent or placed where you are with a purpose.
- You are more equipped than you realize. You have more and can do more than you know.
- Start with what comes first. Get that out of the way, making room for the next idea or action.
- Seize fleeting opportunities. Some of my most brilliant ideas lasted just a few seconds when they first flash onto the screen of my mind.
- Don’t spend your time overthinking your action in the moment. Spend it practicing when stakes are low. Make at least one rapid decision every day and evaluate that. Use the results as preparation for tomorrow’s practice.
The goal is to move beyond conscious deliberation to a state of intuitive action, where the correct decision emerges almost automatically. Yesterday, my son and I went to get street tacos. While waiting, my eyes landed on a couple. I felt the prompt to pray over them. Hesitant at first, I determined that if he looked at me, I would do it. He hadn’t looked at me in over five minutes. Within a minute of my determination, he looked at me, looked away and wiped his mouth, and then looked at me again.
I could easily have talked myself out of it and none would have been the wiser. But I’m developing my identity as a 1 Cor 14:1 minister. I eagerly desire the spiritual gift of prophecy whereby I bring strength, courage, and comfort to people. I trust that Holy Spirit has sent me there for more than tacos and that He would highlight exactly whom to approach. By the time I walked away just a couple of minutes later, tears were welling up in their eyes and they had had an encounter with heaven. As had I!
What are you being called to do? These principles will help you function effectively under pressure. Rapidly assessing, deciding, and acting is not an innate trait. It is a skill meticulously honed through relentless training and a culture that values initiative and accountability. Furthermore, rapid decision-making is contagious. Remember how Abraham’s servant caught the rapid decision-making bug and hastened to dress the calf that his master picked, my desire is to contaminate you to what you are being called to do. Please leave a comment on any aspect of this post and the questions I’ve interspersed in it. What resonates and what could use clarification?