A632.9.3.RB - Role of Emotion in Decision Making

There have been many decisions that I made over my lifetime that have been emotionally based that come out either for the better or for the worse for me in the end.  In my younger day I must admit that my emotions got the better of me when making decisions and yes I definitely made some bad ones because I let my emotions get the best of me in some situations.  However, I can say with a good amount of self-assurance that I have come a long way from those days and I have learned to not let my emotions get the best of me these days.

A situation where I was very confident in the outcome was when I was tasked with writing the Verification manual for the financial aid department at all three campuses at ERAU.  I have to admit I was very nervous at first because I wanted to make sure that I did the best job I knew how to.  I also wanted to make sure that I covered most scenarios that the counselors would come across so that they would feel self-confident about completing verifications.

I worked every day for 2 weeks making sure that each step was clear and concise and worked through any issues that I felt that they might encounter.  When I was done I gave the manual to a couple of the counselors to review and see if they felt it flowed and made sense.  When they were done they had nothing but praise but the manual because it was clearly written and covered most of the situations that they would come across.  I felt very good when they told me.  I was proud, confident, and excited that all my hard work paid off.  The decisions I made were the right ones because the end product was exactly what our department needed to move us in the right direction with a process that was easy to follow.

A situation where I was not very confident in the outcome was when I first started training for the operations center when it was in Kentucky.  I had never had any trouble speaking in front of people but this was my first time actually being in front a  group talking about financial aid and my director was going to be there which made me more nervous.  I got off to a rough start when I started my presentation but by the end of it I felt I did a good job. 

I asked my director for feedback and he told me to be more confident and sure about myself in my delivery and to slow down when I spoke.  I took everything that he said to heart and though I was disappointed, worried that I would fail, and nervous that I would not do well I feel that when I worked on it I would be better at it.  I had to train again the next day so I felt a bit more confident in my delivery. 

This situation was a good turnaround for me because of dealing with my confidence in training I am now very comfortable in front of any size group when it comes to teaching and I learn something new each time I travel out to our operations center.