Use The Military Decision Making Process to Hack Your Life
I’m sure it has happened to you. Life happens and you face down a major decision that is going to have long lasting ramifications for the present and the future. You sit down and you turn the options over and over in your mind. Maybe you lose some sleep. Maybe you get an extra wrinkle or two as you try to ensure that the right decision is made. Even after you’ve already made the decision you look back and wonder if there is some sort of lifehack that could make the process of thinking through major decisions easier and more predictable.
You are in luck. For a long time the United States Army has recognized the value of having a formal and predictable method for analyzing a mission (problem), thinking through it from every angle, and then creating and executing a well-planned and well-resourced mission order. An Army staff that is well-versed in MDMP can use the process for everything from planning troop morale days to executing exceedingly complex missions in combat.
This formal method of decision making helps ensure that multiple options get put on the table, that all the planning factors are considered, and that positive and negative repercussions of certain decisions are all weighed prior to executing a mission. If that sounds like it would be a helpful framework for making major life decisions, I would agree.
