The first situation in which I felt extremely confident about the outcome was my decision to pursue my master’s degree after finishing my undergrad. I was confident in this decision because bachelor degrees seem to be losing a little bit of their value in the workplace and I wanted to have the best chances for after college as I pursued a career. I also kept in mind that I did not feel ready to be out in the real world and another two years could help me better prepare. On top of these things, I was offered a graduate assistant position on the Embry-Riddle Volleyball team, which, would take care of the finances for my degree so I couldn’t refuse the offer.

            According to professor Shiv of Stanford, “emotions play a crucial role in the decision making process” he states that they allow us to feel confident after the decision is made. In my case, there were some positive emotions that made my decision pretty easy and unquestioned. My excitement from the offer from my coach to provide the means for the degree made me excited and made me feel good that they wanted me to be a part of the staff. This excitement affected my decision undoubtedly. Another emotion that could have changed the outcome would be if say, I had not necessarily enjoyed my experience as an athlete and I had some hard feelings towards the school or team. This would have cause personal negative emotions that may have swayed me to choose against what logically is an awesome offer. Lastly the excitement emotion could also play a part in me making a bad decision. Say that because I was so happy and excited I did not take the time to think about everything and quickly committed. Come to find out  I had to provide for myself and because there is no payment for grad assistants besides tuition I could have been in a real tight spot.

            The second situation is something that comes up on a weekly basis for our coaching staff and me. Every time we prepare for an opponent, we scout them, by watching film, studying stats, and even speaking with other coaches. Sometimes, our reports are nothing fancy and we feel confident in our usual game strategy. There are other times were a team may do one thing particularly at a high level, or have one player who is dangerous because of her ability and we must tailor the game plan around this. As coaches, that is our job, that is what we love doing, to find a weakness in the opponent and exploit it. When we give a scout and game plan that is out of the norm our coaching staff is always confident (or at least we give off that vibe) while still being uncertain of the outcome. There are times that our game plan works and times when it doesn’t no matter how confident we are in it. 

            In such a decision we cannot let doubts enter and make us nervous or hesitant. If we are nervous and do not exhibit confidence in our game plan it will show and our players will not buy in. This is an emotion that could affect the outcome because it would give the wrong message to our team. Another emotion is fear, such as the fear of failure. This emotion can cause someone not to make a decision or avoid a decision with some risk. In our case we cannot be afraid to fail because then we are not coaching at our best.

            If we reflect on decisions we have made and the context of the situations in which we made them we can easily point out the effect that emotions have on decisions. “The heat of the moment” is a saying that goes true about decisions under emotional situations and we must be able to understand ourselves and our emotions in order to make the best decisions at all times.