Stop Listing Pros and Cons. Do This Instead.

We've all done it. Two columns on a piece of paper — or in our heads at 2am — weighing one option against the other. Hoping the right answer will somehow emerge from the tally.

It rarely does. Because the pros and cons list is measuring the wrong thing.

Here's what I mean.

Last week I was in Florida helping my daughter Amanda with her four young children while her husband traveled for work. It was my first time back since Dave and I decided to move there in November.

Other visits, moving had been an idea. This time the decision was made. And that changed how I experienced the week. Suddenly Florida wasn't a place I was visiting — it was becoming my life.

That shift stirred up a question I couldn't quite shake: was I making the right decision?

I found myself thinking about Saratoga Springs, NY—a small city that I love. I had a second home there for ten years. Lived downtown. Walked everywhere — restaurants, parks, the library, concerts. A walkability score of 9.8 out of 10. Hard to beat.

Would I be happier there?

This is the kind of question that can quietly unravel a decision if you let it. So instead of pushing it away, I asked myself what a meaningful life in Saratoga would look like — and what came up surprised me.

I imagined helping a mother with her young children. Not as a babysitter, but as someone who could lift enough of the daily burden that she could spend more time enjoying her kids. Have some breathing room. Be present instead of just surviving.

That’s when I realized this is exactly what I want to do for Amanda.

If I'm going to show up for anyone that way, it's for her. With this realization, something released. The Saratoga question didn't get answered so much as it lost its grip. I wasn't choosing between two places anymore. I was choosing between two versions of my life — and one of them had Amanda in it in a way that mattered deeply.

The alternative to the pros and cons list:

Ask yourself two questions:

What does the life I want look like? Which choice moves me closer to the person I'm becoming?

Those questions don't measure options against each other. They measure options against you — your values, your vision, your direction. And that's where real clarity lives.

This is what the 5 Great Decisions framework is built around. Not a better pros and cons list — a different way of listening. To the signals your values are already sending. To the vision of your future self that already knows the answer.

Try it with a decision you're facing right now.

Skip the two columns. Instead, ask: what kind of person do I want to become — and what would that person choose?

The answer might surprise you.

The 5 Great Decisions framework helps you develop the practice of noticing — not through willpower or discipline, but through a deepening attention to what matters most.