Decisions, Decisions! What kind of Decision Maker Are You?

Personality Test: Are You a Maximizer or a Satisfier?

A Maximizer will seek and accept only the best.

A Satisfier will settle for something good enough and will not worry about the possibility that there might be something better.

Are you somewhere in between?  Read each statement below and decide if it is true or false for you.

1. Even though I’m pretty satisfied with my life, I often imagine how it could be better.

2. At a restaurant I have a difficult time deciding which dinner item to select, and after dinner I find myself wondering if I would have liked something else better.

3. I like to multitask online, and I always check out the links my friends post. I don’t want to miss anything interesting.

4. I wait until the last minute at gift-giving times because I want to make sure that I’ve gotten the best possible gift for each person.

5. I like to check out all my options when I shop for myself, including online sales and multiple stores, but when I get home I still wonder if I’ve gotten the best deal.

6. My friends always ask me my opinion on restaurants, movies, etc. I keep lists of the things I love.

7. I’d rather write an email or text than talk to someone on the phone because I want to make sure I have time to select the right words to convey my meaning.

8. Making major purchases for our family is difficult for me due to the number of choices and my desire to
get the highest quality and stay within our budget.

9. I set high standards for myself in most everything I do.

10. I often question my choices, wondering if I should have decided differently.

Now, count the number of “true” answers and the number of “false” answers.  If you answered “true” on 7 or more statements, then you are on the Maximizer end of the scale.  If you answered “false” on 7 or more statements, then you are on the Satisfier end of the scale.

There are no right or wrong answers, but being somewhere in between is likely the healthiest. People with high Maximizer tendencies may find themselves feeling less satisfied in life, less optimistic, or even fighting depression from time to time. People with high Satisfier tendencies could benefit from slowing down and being more careful when making decisions, taking into account how their decisions will affect others.

The point of this is to remind you that as a mother, you make hundreds, possibly thousands of decisions everyday. We often forget how important each one can be. Decisions like trying to decide what form of childcare to use or the best place to take your child for a surgery often feel like they require most of our attention, and justly so. How many extra curricular activities to allow your child to be involved in, deciding what home schooling curriculum to use, deciding how to reduce your debt to make your paychecks last longer, etc. These are all times of decisions when we should definitely tend toward being a Maximizer. Just don’t forget that the less important decisions you make, the ones you don’t put as much time into, affect others who may have a different mind about the level of importance than you do. Try convincing a child to wear yellow when they feel like they really NEED to wear pink. Try convincing your child to just wear flip flops with their shorts when they feel like they really NEED to wear their cowboy boots. Try painting your child’s room green when they really preferred the plain brown walls instead. Skip Meet the Teacher night because you have already met the teacher 5 times, thinking it won’t matter to your child. Some of the less critical decisions you make, matter too!

(Personality Test comes from Jean Blackmer’s book MomSense - A Common-Sense Guide to Confident Mothering and may be purchased through http://www.mops.org/.