When you have to make a hard decision, try the Coinflipping Strategy:

Decide what you hope the coin flip outcome will be.

To determine what I'm hoping, I employ the Wizard of Oz Strategy:

1. What does my brain say?

2. What does my heart say?

3. What do my guts say?

Then I go with the majority of my brain, heart, and courage.

Remember, any decision is better than indecision.

I also wrote about the Wizard of Oz Decision Strategy on Quora many moons ago:

http://www.quora.com/Startups/How-do-you-size-up-opportunity-cost-when-deciding-to-start-a-startup/answer/Adam-Rifkin

Flip a coin. http://pandawhale.com/post/35887/6-leadership-lessons-from-neuroscientists

Thank you Desiree Niemann for this idea. Original thread: http://www.facebook.com/desiree.niemann/posts/729107101862

makes sense!!

I find the coin ends up either going into the gutter or flying off somewhere never to be found again. ;-)

Thanks. I just did that.

"Need" or "Want" can be fleeting and transitory.

David Brooks had a good discussion regarding this when he was promoting his book, The Social Animal. Don't pay attention to the result so much as how you feel about the result of the toss.

No Country for old men!

Chip, David Brooks is right. It's not the result, it's your revealed preference to yourself of the outcome you'd rather have.