Wise Decisions

Chapter 1Health Ignites Wisdom in Decision‐Making

How, when, and why are the best decisions made? What does “making a good decision” even mean? What are the key characteristics? And, as the title of this chapter suggests, in what way does our multidimensional health play a critical role in our ability to make wise decisions, a capacity that stems directly from something we'll call your personalized Y.O.D.A.? Y.O.D.A. stands for Your Own Decision Advisor.

The central theme of this chapter is that our holistic health—mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual—is the vital starting point for sound, thoughtful, and measured decision‐making. The headline: We simply cannot take in, consider, and thoughtfully process multiple streams of relevant information, both tangible and intangible, when we are anxious, depressed, sleep deprived, sedentary, isolated, and self‐medicating with wine and M&Ms!

An uneven mind‐body state like any of these only narrows the aperture through which we can fully see and think through life decisions of all shapes and sizes. And when we're running on fumes, letting self‐care slip to the bottom of the to‐do list, and not integrating our highest values and beliefs into the recipe, our decision‐making capacity is inherently limited. This limitation holds whether the issue at hand is small (like “What shall I have for breakfast?”) or large (like “Is it worth the family upheaval to move to another city for a more prestigious and better‐paying job?”). The scenario ...