In this video Brendon Burchard explains why many decisions feel impossible because they involve value conflicts, which he calls decision dilemmas. Drawing on Rushworth Kidder’s book How Good People Make Tough Decisions, Burchard outlines four core dilemmas that make choices hard: (1) Individual versus Community, (2) Justice versus Mercy, (3) Truth versus Loyalty, and (4) Short‑Term versus Long‑Term. For each dilemma he provides concrete examples—such as leaving a job versus staying for coworkers, forgiving a wrongdoer versus seeking justice, speaking truth versus protecting a relationship, and opting for immediate gratification versus strategic future planning. He emphasizes that both sides of each dilemma can be logically justified, which is why they feel stuck. Recognizing the specific type of value conflict helps people move from impulsive, short‑term reactions to a more strategic, long‑term decision‑making mindset. Burchard also recommends Kidder’s book for deeper guidance and briefly promotes the Growth Day personal‑development app.
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We have completely cast aside the future for instant and immediate gratification. It's one of the dominant reasons people make terrible decisions in their life. However, though, sometimes short term makes sense, right? Short term, pleasure. Take that day off, take that break. We got to do those things. So again, you can argue both short term is good and long term. But you got to really think through them. And once you've thought through these, now you're in a strategic game. Rushworth Kidder, K I D D E R. He wrote a book called How Good People Make Tough Decisions. How Good People Make Tough Decisions. It's a book I recommend to all my clients. And what I loved about this book is he and I taught it differently, but I love how he framed it about how the hard decisions in our life are the ones where both decisions are right. You can justify both logically. Why is it when you draw that, you know, line down the page and you compare and contrast, you can make the case for both angles? That's where it's hard, right? And he said that there are four dilemmas. What, what I call value conflicts, or I think he actually used that phrase at some point too. A value conflict is the reason decision is hard is because these four reasons. And write this down, really powerful. Here's why your decision, it's hard based off of everything we talked about. If you still can't get there, it's. You're stuck in a value dilemma. That's what he called it, a values dilemma or a decision dilemma. The decision dilemma or the values dilemma is coming from four areas. Because, see, it is right either way when you face these dilemmas. Here's the dilemmas you talked about. The first decision dilemma is individual versus community. It's a choice where you're like, it's right for me to go do this for myself, but it's also right to stay and do this for them, right? Parents going through a divorce, right? It's right for me to want to go be happy and live my life and get out of this relationship. It also feels right to stay and take care of the kids. And we create this dilemma in our head, right? Or you know what? I want to go leave this job, but I love my co workers. I don't want to leave them. It's right for me to be a good, you know, steward here or good leader here. And so the decisions in our life, like when, when you leave your home or you leave your town, it's right for me as an individual to go to a new city, but it's also right to stay here and to care for my family or be around my friends. I don't want to leave them. Right? That's an individual choice versus a social choice. Community. Individual versus community. And sometimes that's a hard one, right? That's a really hard one. You have to recognize when your brain is there. It's like, oh, wait, which one right now deserves this prioritization? What's right for me as an individual versus what's right for the community? Next up, tough decisions. Oh, this one's. This one's the hardest one for me. Another dilemma is justice versus mercy. Justice versus mercy. To forgive a person and stay or to get justice and burn the house down and leave. Oh, my God. That's the hard one, right? Oh, this one is so difficult. To forgive is, you know, a spiritual or even a Christian ethic. You know, it's like, forgive the person but also want them to go to jail and suffer. Whoa, okay. Both feel right. When someone has wronged you, you can make the case for I should forgive them, but also, gosh, I hope they get run over, you know, so this is a big decision. It's really hard. Justice versus mercy. Third, truth versus loyalty. It's right to tell the truth, but it's also right to keep the confidence or the loyalty with another person. You know, it's like, okay, it's right to speak up for myself, but it's also right to be loyal and not hurt feelings. Ugh, These are hard, right? These are hard. Then last short term decision versus long term decision. This is why I started with point number one about strategic versus impulsive. Because most people make a short term decision because of discouragement and impulse and they forget the long term. Our culture now has really thrown out the long term. We've thrown out the long term thinking in business by making it quarterly earnings reports. We've thrown out the long term in politics by making our election cycles so fast and so vitriolic. We have thrown out long term thinking, which is why most Americans have never saved any money. We have completely cast aside the future for instant and immediate gratification. It's one of the dominant reasons people make terrible decisions in their life. It's that short term, right? Almost every addiction is a short term pleasure. Short term choice. Almost every negative emotional outburst was a short term feeling being expressed. And however, though sometimes short term makes sense, right? Short term pleasure, Take that day off, Take that break. We got to do those things. So again, you can argue both short term is good and long term. But you got to really think through them. And once you've thought through these, now you're in a strategic game. And I would say these are all really important. I know lots of people who didn't take a good job because they felt a loyalty to community to stay in their hometown. Matter of fact, where I grew up in Montana, I'd say most of my friends did not ever leave their town or their state because they had loyalty to community, even if their personal truth was saying adventure, try new things, go see the world even. And but you and I could. Both those are right. Right. Both those are right. That's where they call it a values conflict or a decision dilemma. I just want you to be aware of them and I wanted, I want you to read that book again. The book was called How Good People Make Tough, Tough Decisions by Rushworth Kidder. It's a really great way for you, if you're stuck, to know why you're stuck right beyond what we've talked about so far. Hey, it's Brendan. Thanks for watching this video. Please enjoy all the other videos on my channel and listen if you would love to have a daily exclusive life coaching audio from me. Make sure you go get signed up for Growth Day. If you didn't know, Growth Day is the world's number one personal growth activ app. And it's the app where you go and you get your mindset right. You set your goals, you track your habits, you take wellness challenges and you overall improve your life so you become more successful and joyous and happy. It's called Growth Day. It's an app. You can download it on your phone anywhere or just go to growthday.com and make sure you get it. Because every day I leave that exclusive life coaching audio to help you level up and advance your Life. Go to growthday.com and get signed up right now.
