How to make good decisions — the SWOT matrix.

Adulthood can be difficult. It’s not only eating sweets whenever you want or watching TV after bedtime but mostly it’s making a lot of decisions. Some of them are easy — what to cook for a dinner or how to spend the afternoon. Unfortunately, we live in difficult times and now we have more and more difficult decisions to make — should I change the job? Take a mortgage and buy an apartment? Should I invest in something to protect my money against inflation? There is no universal rule to make those decisions easier. And each person has their own problems and factors to take into account. Recently, many of my friends approach me for some advice, but I can’t make decisions instead of them. But what I can do is show them a tool that helps me for many years in making tough decisions — the SWOT matrix. And now I want to show it also to you!

How it works

The SWOT matrix is a super simple tool — you don’t need any special equipment to use it. All you need is a big card of paper and a pen. Later on, you have to split the card into 4 sections: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats connected with your decision. (Yeah, the name of the method was created from 1st letter of each word). After that, I start the timer for 30 minutes and try to put into each section as many items as I can imagine. Without any additional considerations or analysis — just write down all your thoughts. Strengths and weaknesses are mostly internal — my skills, possessions, special powers, limitations, etc. Opportunities and threats are about external factors — like the current market, technical change, the geopolitical situation, government decisions, etc. When the decision to make is really difficult I am giving myself a few additional hours of days to add items to the list when needed. What is important — all of them have to be written down. Having them in mind is not enough — it’s easier to forget about something and harder to visualize all factors. When all sections are fulfilled — it’s time for the analysis!

Analyze data on the matrix

The first step for me in analyses is to check if all items on the list are true and applicable. If I added something stupid during gathering ideas — it’s time to remove it from the card. Later on, I am asking some super important questions:

• Looking at my strengths and opportunities — what I can do to make the most of my strengths and maximize profits from opportunities?
• Looking at strengths and threats — what I can do to minimize risks connected with threats?
• Looking at weaknesses and opportunities — what I can do to minimize the chances that my weaknesses will block using the opportunities?
• Looking at weaknesses and threats — what is the worst scenario when my weaknesses will maximize threats? How to block it? Can I avoid this scenario?

Answering all of them and planning actions to maximize the benefits and minimize problems always creates in my head a decision. And after that, I mostly know which direction I should follow. When I just learned the method it was the end of my analysis. But after some months I started adding a new step — listening to my intuition. After making the decision I am asking myself — how do I feel about it? When I feel it’s OK, then great. But when I am still not fully convinced or deeply in my heart think that the decision should be the opposite I am coming back to the matrix. Maybe there is something I missed in my factors? Or something is much more important for me than I thought initially? Even if you are a super analytical person, don’t ignore this step. Maybe after a second look, you’ll make the same decision. But our intuition and subconscious are more powerful than most of us believe.

What I really like is that the SWOT method always helps me organize thoughts, create a full picture and make a decision. Of course, after some time I can find it incorrect — some factors may change, some threats or opportunities don’t happen, etc. But thanks to SWOT I know I made the best decision I could base on the factors I knew. We can predict the future — but thanks to SWOT we can ensure we made the best decision we could in the given circumstances.

Final thoughts

Of course, the SWOT matrix is a super simple tool and can not be enough for all your use cases. However, it helped me a lot in making difficult decisions. I love its simplicity and how organized my thoughts are after this exercise. So — next time you have a difficult decision to make just give it a try. I hope, it will help you!