Throw Away Your Review Mirror

Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move - Andy Stanley – (Zondervan)

I knew right from the start that I was going appreciate the thoughts and advice that Andy Stanley puts forth in his new book, Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets: 5 Questions to Help You Determine Your Next Move. Stanley starts with a story about seeking advice from his father in which his Dad responded to a question, with a question.

While often that can be an annoying habit, it is one that I can totally relate to. I can’t tell you the number of times that my wife, my children or a business colleague has come to me asking for guidance and my response has come in the form of a question. More often than not, I know exactly what the right answer is, but I almost never serve up that answer. The reason is simple, I can tell you what I would do in the circumstance, but the answer would be the right one for me, which is not necessarily the case for the person seeking answers.

If you took the advice, and it didn’t work out, then it would be my fault. Not that I am afraid to take responsibility for my actions, I just don’t want to take responsibility for your actions, or often your inaction. Instead, Stanley’s Dad, walked him through a process, with a series of questions that helped to guide him to the right answer, for him.

In Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, Andy Stanley boils things down to a series of five basic questions to use to help guide you through life and to live a life with fewer regrets.

1. "Am I being honest with myself, really?"

2. "What story do I want to tell?"

3. "Is there a tension that needs my attention?"

4. "What is the wise thing to do?"

5. "What does love require of me?"

I think we all have at least some regrets in our lives; things we would have done different, decisions we wish we had made differently, choices we would not make if we could get a do over. I often use the analogy of living life looking in the rearview mirror, seeing things that are behind us.

What Stanley lays out for us in Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, is a process that will help not eliminate those regrets, but certainly help us reduce them. Think of it as an opportunity to toss out our rearview mirror mentality.