Harry Potter on Personal Development:: Decision Making

“Sometimes making a decision is more important than making the best decision.”

Harry Potter is a very decisive person. When confronted with decisions he certainly doesn’t always make the best one but I would argue that by making one right away vs weighing it out in his mind for too long he tends to come out on top. One might say that Harry is a boy of action not reflection.

One such example comes in book 4 “The Goblet of Fire” when inside the maze he runs through a mist that turns the world upside down. It feels to him that if he lifts his foot off the ground he will surely fall into infinite nothingness, but deciding that his other option is to just do nothing until presented with a different solution he acts pulling one foot hard off the ground. The world is corrected and he proceeds into the maze.

I’m not suggesting that thinking before acting is foolish. JK Rowling does a great job of taking us through Harry’s decision making processes in which he almost always thinks out the problem. What I am suggesting is that once you have thought something out in the first moments determining your options it becomes wiser to act than to wait continuously hoping for different options or for one such option to become perfectly more clear.

So Harry Potter teaches us that analyzing a situation and making a quick decision can be done hand in hand to come to a good end. We avoid acting without thinking it through but also avoid endless and pointless debate as to the best decision.

Worry, hurry, and fear prevent us from following Harry’s example. Practice with your everyday simple problems and trials. Think through the logical options and then make a quick decision even when you are not able to determine which one is the best option!