Article: Look at the positives and negative outcomes that could come from a decision you’re making. You can either do it mentally if you need to make a quick decision, or you can write down a pros and cons list to determine what’s best for you to do. Weigh your options to see which choice will give you the best possible outcome. For example, if someone offers you an alcoholic drink and you’re too young, the rewards may be hanging out with them and having a free drink, but the risks are you could get in trouble with the law. The best and most common-sense decision is to say no to the drink. Sometimes, your gut reaction may be the best for you to do. Whenever you’re faced with a decision, take notice of what your first instinct or answer is. Think about what good or bad consequences could come from the decision, and if the decision seems like the best one, then make it. For example, if someone offers you an alcoholic drink and you’re underage, your first thought is usually that you shouldn’t drink because you’d get in trouble if you get caught. You may notice that it seems easier to give advice to a friend than it is to tell yourself the same thing. When you’re faced with a tough decision, mentally take a step back and pretend that you’re watching someone else in your situation. Think about what you would tell them based on what’s the smartest or best decision for them. If the decision is something you wouldn’t tell a friend to do, then you shouldn’t make it either. For example, if you found a jacket at school that isn’t yours but you want to keep, think about what you would tell a friend if they found the jacket. You would most likely tell them to return it to a lost and found, so you should make the same decision. It’s okay if you don’t know what to do if you’re faced with a tough decision. Reach out to a parent/guardian, guidance counselor, or a friend you trust and tell them the situation you’re facing. Talk through your possible decisions with them so you can get their input since they may have more life experience and could have faced a similar choice at some point.  For example, you could ask, “Mom, I’m having trouble knowing what’s the right decision to make. Could we talk about it?” Only get feedback from people who are a good influence on you, since someone who makes poor decisions may not give feedback that’s common sense. Everybody makes mistakes and decisions they regret, but that doesn’t mean all is lost. If you recognize that you’ve made a poor decision, reflect on it and recognize what choice you should have made for the best outcome. If you ever have a similar decision in the future, make the better choice rather than the one you made the last time. For example, if you chose to wear sneakers to the beach and you got sand in your shoes, next time you go to the beach you’ll wear flip flops instead.
Question: What is a summary of what this article is about?
Compare the risks and rewards of a decision before choosing what to do. Trust your initial feelings so you don’t over-analyze things too much. Look at your situation from another perspective to think through it clearly. Ask someone you trust for feedback if you aren’t sure about your decision. Realize that it’s okay to make a wrong decision every now and then.

If you want to really reflect and understand yourself better, you're going to need to think about parts of yourself that you really don't like and admit to some things you might not want to admit to. You'll be naturally defensive about admitting these kinds of things to yourself, but if you're really going to understand how you work, then you're going to need to let go of that defensiveness. Even if you don't let those barriers down for other people, you at least have to let them down for yourself.  Becoming less defensive about your weaknesses can also mean opening yourself up to getting help from other people and making amends for past mistakes. If you're more open to discussion, criticism, and change, then other people can really help you understand and improve yourself. We lie to ourselves a lot more than we'd like to think about sometimes. We'll help ourselves to think that we made some questionable choices for noble or logical reasons, even when we were really just being vindictive or lazy. But hiding from the real reason behind our motives doesn't help us change and develop into better people. Remember: there's no point in lying to yourself. Even if you discover truths about yourself that you really don't like, this only give you the opportunity to take those problems head on instead of just pretending like they don't exist. Sometimes, especially when we do bad things, others will try to warn us against those behaviors. We also have a tendency not to listen. Sometimes this is good, because lots of people will say things about you just because they want to hurt you and their comment will have no basis in fact. But sometimes what they say is a good, outsider’s analysis of how you behave. Think about what people have said in the past and ask for some new opinions about your behavior.   For example, your sister might notice that you tend to exaggerate. But this is unintentional on your part, which can serve to show you that your perception of reality is a bit off. There’s a big difference between evaluating what they say about you and letting that opinion control your life and actions. You shouldn't tailor your behavior to suit other people unless it is having a significantly negative impact on your life (and even then, you might want to consider that your environment might be the problem, not your behavior). Make changes because you want to change, not because someone else tells you that you should. Giving advice will often give you a great opportunity to think through your own problems and reevaluate them from the outside. When looking at someone else’s situation, you will be more likely to think about situations and circumstances that you never thought of before.  You don’t even have to do this activity for real, although helping your friends, family, and even strangers is a nice thing to do. You can give advice to your older and younger selves, in the form of a letter. This will help you think through your past experiences and what you took away from them, as well as what is really important to you for the future. The best way to really get to know yourself, however, is to just experience life. Just like getting to know another person, understanding yourself takes time and you’ll learn far more through experiencing life than by interviewing yourself and taking tests. You can try:   Traveling. Traveling will put you in lots of different situations and test your ability to handle stress and adapt to change. You’ll come to a greater understanding of your happiness, priorities, and dreams than you ever could just sitting in your same old boring life. Getting more education. Education, real education, challenges us to think in new ways. Getting education will open your mind and lead you to think about things you’d never even considered. Your interests and how you feel about these new things you learn can reveal things about you. Letting go of expectations. Let go of other people’s expectations for you. Let go of your expectations for yourself. Let go of your expectations for what life should be like. When you do this, you’ll be more open to seeing what new experiences might make you happy and fulfilled. Life is a crazy roller-coaster and you're going to encounter a lot of things that scare you because they're new or different but don't close yourself to those experiences. They might make you happier than you've ever been.
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One-sentence summary --
Let go of your defensiveness. Be honest with yourself. Listen to what others say to and about you. Give advice. Take time and experience life.