One area that improves as our mental health improves is our impulse control. This is key in decision-making because our emotions, if not properly controlled can make us choose things that we otherwise would not.
Everybody reaches a fork-in-the-road moment at various times in their lives. Some decisions are easy and have only a few options. Others, may have several options and require deeper thinking before deciding.
Plenty of decisions don’t require much thought. (Daily Decisions)
- What will I wear?
- What will I eat?
- Will I go to work today?
- What will I drive?
- Should I pray? (The answer is yes!)
Other decisions require a great deal of thought. (Life-Changing Decisions)
- Where will I live?
- What kind of job will I choose?
- How many children do I want?
- Who should I marry?
Between those that require little to no thought and those that require much thought is a category that falls in the middle. Depending on the decision, one may need to act quickly or intentionally delay to think it through.
It could be a decision whether or not to purchase a new car, how to spend some extra money you earned, or how to handle a work situation.
In these cases, an emotional urge can build up to make us want to act quickly for various reasons. When purchasing a new car one may be impulsive because they are anticipating having that new vehicle. When deciding how to spend money, we may impulsively choose something we want over something we need. And, in the case of a work situation, we may impulsively act and end up making things worse.
In these situations, intentionally deciding to delay making a decision can be a good indicator of strong mental health. My ability to resist impulsive decisions has developed as I have grown older. It has not been an easy journey. There have been many decisions I wish I could go back and change or think through more thoroughly. What happens is our emotions and tendency towards selfishness make us feel as if a decision must be made in the moment and we do not consider the value in delaying.
There is great wisdom and value in intentionally delaying a decision even if only for 24 hours. In some situations, more time, resources, and information may be needed to make the best decision. All I know is that in cases where I have intentionally delayed making a decision I have always come out on the other end with more confidence in my choice.
There is a lot of truth to the cliche, “Just sleep on it.” It is amazing how God has created our bodies so that a good night’s sleep can calm and clear the mind to make better decisions.
I encourage you the next time you have a decision that is not life-or-death or a daily normative decision, engage in an intentional delay to grant yourself more time to think it over. Reducing impulse control and learning to be more calculated is a great way to grow one’s mental health.
