By Lydia Vidal. For years, deciding «well», making good decisions, was associated with being rational and leaving out emotions. Today we know that this is a myth: when parts of the brain that process emotion are damaged, people do not become more logical, they become blocked, find it hard to prioritise and get lost in the details.
Far from getting in the way, emotion is essential for decision-making, because without emotion there is no priority. And without priority there is no decision.
Conversation to give voice to reason and emotion
At EEC we work on a simple premise: the conversation is the space where we can give voice to both what we think and what we feel.
Through language, we can express both emotional experience and order thought: «I realise that I am angry and afraid of being wrong» and «All in all, looking at the information and the impact, the most coherent thing to do would be...».
When a person can name both - the rational and the emotional - he or she gains clarity, lowers the internal noise and decides from a more complete place. A coaching process creates precisely this kind of space: it legitimises what we feel, orders what we think and helps us to choose decisions that make sense for us and for our reality.
Self-awareness: knowing what happens to us when we make decisions
In other words, a coaching process generates self-awareness, and is the basis for decision making. Without self-awareness, we do not see whether we decide out of fear, out of inertia, out of a need to please or out of genuine commitment. We do not recognise our patterns. We don't listen to the body's signals that tell us «something doesn't fit here», even if on paper it looks perfect.
Critical thinking: decisions that have to do with you
The critical thinking is the other piece. In a context with AI, data and constant information, our value is no longer in «having all the answers», but in knowing how to filter what is fact and what is interpretation, what comes from outside (algorithms, culture, expectations) and what is genuinely ours; what decision makes sense at this moment, with these people and with these limits.
Critical thinking is not about being contrary, it is about asking ourselves
- «What am I guessing without realising it?»
- «What alternatives am I not contemplating?»
- «Is this decision about me or is it just about what I'm ‘supposed’ to do?»
In other words, critical thinking is about getting decisions right. not only because of the result, but because they are coherent with who we are, with our values and with the reality we inhabit.
Authenticity: there is only one person like you
When self-awareness and critical thinking are trained together, self-awareness and critical thinking authenticity. Being an authentic person is not always saying what we want or «doing what we feel like«, but living and deciding in a way that is coherent with who we honestly are inside, even if it sometimes means going against the tide.
Technology can go very fast. AI can augment what we do. But self-awareness, critical thinking and authenticity are the skills we need to remain us as the world changes and to be able to get our decision-making right. And that, for now, is not automatable.
