To celebrate the new year I have just published my book Happiness Design: How to Design Your Ideal Life and Make it Happen. It’s now available on Amazon.com (.co.uk, .it., .es, etc.)

The book is about happiness. More specifically it’s about designing happiness. In other words it’s about learning how to define, clarify, plan and realize your very own set of conditions that, when fulfilled, make you feel happy.

In the book I include step by step instructions on how to figure out what is important to you and leverage that knowledge to generate life plan options, pick the best and make it happen.

I introduce practical tools and techniques from the field of applied psychology including Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, Interpersonal Communications, TimeLine Therapy as well as more practical considerations coming from the field of change management and project planning.

I wrote this book the way I live my life: with passion. I hope it will inspire you to take your life’s design in your own hands and to live your ideal life on your own terms.  

You can get it for free on Amazon only from Wednesday 22nd of January to Saturday 25th of January  and again on Thursday February 13th via this link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HVI3VQO 
After this promotion it will be available for purchase any time via the same link. 

If you go for the free download option I would appreciate your constructive reviews to help position it on amazon.com.
Feel free to share the book with those you care about.

 Wishes of a happy and productive 2014!

In the previous post I have explained a technique to help you break a tie when facing a difficult decision. That technique may not be suited to those who require a more structured way to make decisions. This post, as promised, offers such a more analytical technique to help you make the right decision.

Let’s see how.

Building on your list of values (see earlier posts) identify the top five to ten or so criteria that you will use to assess your options.

Tip: Ideally you would want to use a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel to go through this as it makes the process easier. However you can also do it with paper and pencil with the help of a calculator.

Step 1. List the options you are considering in each row one below the other.

Step 2. Place your criteria next to each other column by column.

Now that you have your criteria and your options lined up it is time to bring them together and see what happens.

Step . 3 Distribute 100 points across your criteria.

Imagine having 100 coins and having to split them up so that every criteria gets a few. Try to avoid just dividing them up evenly (e.g. 20 points to each of the 5 criteria) as this reduced your ability to gain useful insights.

Step 4. Assess each option against each of your criteria

Start with the first option and score it from 0 (min) to 10 (max) against each criteria. In your Excel or paper grid this means placing a number from 0 to 10 in the cell where the option (row) meets the criteria (column). Work your way horizontally until you have gone through all the criteria for the option under assessment.

Step 5. Adjust the score to take into account the weight of each criteria

To do this, simply multiply the score in each cell in a given column for the weight of each criteria to which column it belongs. Example if option 1 vs. Criteria A scored 8 then you need to multiply 8 by how many points you had previously attributed to Criteria A (e.g. 20 out of 100). Result: 8x20=160.

Step 6. Repeat column by column until you have worked out all the weighted scores by cell.

Step 7. Sum up the totals row by row.

Now you are ready to reap the benefits of your analysis  by adding up the weighted scores cell by cell, row by row. This will give you the score of each option (row). At this point you are finally ready to rank options and determine which one carries a greater total score and therefore which one better fulfils overall your criteria.

And there you have it, staring at you in the face: the highest scoring option, the one that ranks top seems to be the one right for you.

Note: It may prove helpful to take into account the probabilities of each option to turn out the way you expect it to. If you do so assign a probability to each and multiply the option by this % value. Examples option 2 may have a higher score (say with a total of 450) but is only 60% likely to turn out as expected. So multiply 450 x 60%. This resulting value is the realistic score of your option.

Step 8. Review the results and pick your option.

Whatever the outcome of this process was: congratulations!

***

So is time for you to make decisions?

As the new year approaches this could be the right time. Decisions followed by actions that bring you closer to you desired outcomes.

As we have seen in the last post the first step to take on or move on is to make sure that you are aware of what really matters to you. 

Without a clear understanding of what you need and value any new project/task that you take on or that you are deciding to let go you are unlikely make the most of the experience.

It doesn't matter if you are at the start or at the end of a journey. It doesn't even matter if you are successful or not. What matters is that you have clarity about your needs and values. With this understanding in place you can fully access your potential and strength to deal with what is needed to succeed or to deal with failure constructively so that you can take the learning into your next challenges.

So how do you go about understanding your own needs and values? 

Needs and values are related. But what are needs and values? Needs are basic conditions that must be met to be fulfilled and are universal to all human beings. Values are more specific to each person and are about what they value in a certain sphere of life (professional, relational, health, leisure, etc.).

According to Human Needs psychology there are 6 basic human needs.
The need for Certainty (security, comfort, stability) which is balanced and challenged by the need for Variety (novelty, stimulus,  adventure).  The third is about need for Significance (feeling special and recognized) which is paired up with the need for Love/Connection (going beyond oneself and reaching out to others). Finally the last two goals are about Growth (focus on our personal development) and Contribution (focus on giving to others). 

We all need to satisfy these 6 fundamental needs if we are to experience fulfillment but typically we tend to focus and favor two out of the six. Those on which we focus and what we do to meet them shape what we do and what we don’t do. They influence our level of commitment and drive as well as limiting patterns and bad habits. In other words even negative or destructive behaviors have a positive intent as they are about trying to satisfy a certain need. As an example over-eating gives the illusion of satisfying needs of certainty and connection with one self. Aggressive behaviors are about generating the illusion of significance. When a behavior satisfies two or more needs intensely (say 8 or above on a 0 – 10 scale) we start to get addicted to it. 

These are well known emotional patterns but most people indulging in destructive behaviors don’t quite realize it. If they truly did they would open up to the possibility of finding empowering alternatives to satisfy those needs. There is a lot more to be said about this but this is not quite the aim of this post. Instead we will move to the next concept. 

At the next level up in this process of self-understanding we find personal values. They are the answer to a simple yet powerful question: What do I value in this aspect of my life?

Example: what do I value in my professional sphere? 
In my experience the word ‘value’ is quite loaded and for most people this word brings up concepts such as honor, religion, family or country. In the context of coaching and change values are much more practical and simply define the key criteria that you use (consciously or not) to assess opportunities and situations in different areas in your life. This is why the word criteria may be more helpful but the two can be used as synonyms.
Examples of random values/criteria linked to the professional area are: freedom, creativity, independence, recognition, collaboration, status, trust, routine, stretching targets, etc.

Whereas the needs are universal, the criteria are inherently personal. The best way to discover your values or criteria is to think and remember what you value(d) more in a certain area of your life. For example you may remember with joy a job where you felt you were being given latitude to be autonomous and creative.  This tells you that you probably value these things.

The trick, when defining your list of criteria, is not to be confined to your past experience but rather to open up to a full spectrum of possibilities. A brainstorming process where you list ten, twenty or even thirty values may be a good way to break through of limits imposed by what has been, instead of empowered by what could have been.

Once you have a long list of candidate criteria you may want to prioritize them so that you can come up with the top 5 or so. These criteria are a very useful tool for decision making because any option that you have can now be ranked in terms of how well it meets your criteria. If for whatever reason the options available aren’t particularly good then you may want to take a stab at considering and finding other options. 

These key criteria will always be linked to your top human needs. This is so because everything we do (or don’t), everything we want is conditioned by the drive to satisfy the needs. Take a look at your criteria to see if and how they support your needs, especially the top two or three of the six.

Now that you have a clearer understanding of your key needs and criteria and how they are connected you are in a much stronger position to take on or move on.  

In the next post I shall explain the concept of rules and how they are linked to values/criteria before pulling needs, values/criteria and rules together and how they can be used for deciding what to do about your project and challenges.

Stay tuned!