A confused young man went to a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist intently listened to his patient and then offered his insight.

"It appears to me you have trouble making decisions. Would you agree?"

The young man pondered for a moment and then responded, "Well, yes and no."

Many people struggle with making decisions. Whether the issue is personal or professional, the inability to decide on a course of action can ruin relationships or careers.

"Inability to make decisions is one of the principal reasons executives fail," said leadership guru John Maxwell. "Deficiency in decision-making ranks much higher than lack of specific knowledge or technical know-how as an indicator of leadership failure."

Remember the time-tested adage: Not to make a decision is a decision. Or as the always entertaining Yogi Berra put it, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it."

To make better decisions, or to teach employees to do so, try this counterintuitive approach: Assume that whatever decision you make will be wrong. If you have a choice between several options, just ask yourself which alternative you would regret most.

This will help you identify the option that, even if wrong, would cause you the fewest problems. You may not arrive at the perfect answer, but you'll at least identify the decision you can live with most comfortably.

Here's a perfect example. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower struggled mightily with the timing for D-Day because he could not make up his mind about the best moment for the attack. The strategy had been planned for years, but it came down to the weather conditions. The airborne attack needed a full moon and the Navy needed low tide.

He had teams of meteorologists advising him who determined that June 5 would be disastrous because of a looming storm. The weight of the decision was enormous for the more than 150,000 Allied troops involved.

Finally, he came to a decision to postpone the operations for a day. "No matter what the weather looks like, we have to go ahead now. Waiting any longer could be even more dangerous. So let's move it."

As the history books tell us, the June 6, 1944, attack marked a historic shift in World War II.

Few of us will ever face such a momentous decision. But for many day-to-day problems, we must recognize that there is a point at which we need to take a leap of faith, because there comes a point after that when the right decision becomes the wrong decision because it was made too late.

Consider these basic strategies for making good decisions most of the time:

-- List the pros and cons. This is a time-honored practice, but it's still useful. Document the reasons for and against each option. Don't make it an election -- one strong factor on the "yes" side can outweigh a dozen items on the "no" side. Sort out the issues and determine which way the facts and your emotions point.

-- Take other people's reactions and needs into account. You might not make everyone happy, but you want people to know you didn't ignore their feelings. Warning: What's popular isn't always right, and what's right isn't always popular!

-- Visualize the work. Develop a step-by-step list of what you'll actually need to do to reach your objective, and then picture yourself doing it. Will you be happy (or at least satisfied) along the way?

-- Start with a small step. Before implementing a decision, try working on one specific aspect of it. Can you do a good job? Or do you suddenly notice problems you hadn't anticipated? A test run can tell you a lot about whether or not a course of action is right for you.

-- Don't waste time. Take action once you're confident you've acquired the information you need.

-- Be decisive. Stick to your decision once you've made it. Change it only if the situation shifts. Take responsibility for your decisions.

-- Rely on your values. It is so much easier to make decisions when you have values that help you set guidelines for your decision-making.

You will occasionally second-guess yourself, and you might make a bad decision from time to time. But Robert H. Schuller's sage advice will help you: "Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass."

Mackay's Moral: A good decision is the best thing you'll ever make.

I could fill volumes about chance meetings that have changed people’s lives, led to jobs, business opportunities, partnerships, new ideas, etc. -- all because people sought other people with similar interests.

Every time I’m in a line, on a plane, at a sporting event, wherever, I introduce myself. I’ve met some of my best customers on a plane, resulting in millions of dollars in business. You got to always have your antennae up.

I think this is one of the biggest mistakes people make. They don’t introduce themselves when they have an opportunity. It seems like no one talks to anyone anymore. Social media is a wonderful tool, but it shouldn’t be the only one in your toolbox. There is no substitute for personal interaction.

You’ve heard me expound on the notion that our lives basically change in two ways -- through the books we read and the people we meet. I hammer that message home every time I speak to a group. I also tell the audience that the people to your left, right, front and back, might be more important in building an effective network than any speaker you will hear over a lifetime. Your network will have a tremendous impact on your net worth.

I’m not the only one who thinks that way. Warren Buffet, the billionaire investment genius, claims, “If you improve your communication skills, I will guarantee you that you will earn 50 percent more money over your lifetime.”

When I speak, I share a time-tested exercise to help develop communication skills -- the two-minute drill. I did this drill for the first time in my hometown of Minneapolis in the early ’90s, with 1,000 people in the audience. Within two weeks, I received over 35 letters and cards telling me that thanks to the drill they were either doing business with the person they met or had a high probability of doing business with them. And I’d bet there were plenty of others who struck oil but didn’t bother to write. This exercise is meaningful because almost invariably my mail tells me that it really “jump starts” the habit of networking.

Here’s how the drill works: I ask the audience to look around and ask someone they don’t know to be their partner. When the whistle blows, they have two minutes to tell that person everything about themselves that they regard as worth telling. A total of two minutes for background, achievement, hopes, dreams, goals, hobbies, marriage, children, frustrations over the hometown team’s latest trade -- everything they can think of.

When the two minutes are up, the whistle blows again, and it’s the other person’s turn. It’s amazing what you can learn about another person in just two minutes.

I’ll be out of their lives and back home on my deck before the day is over. But the person they just met might be in their lives forever.

Get out and get to know people all around you. Volunteer work. Political clubs. Hobby groups. Service clubs. Church groups. Industry associations. Extension courses. The internet. The outernet ... whatever.

By doing your own two-minute drill once a day, you’ll meet at least 365 new contacts in just a year’s time. Isn’t that worth a two-minute investment each day?

In football, if you mess up the two-minute drill, there is a very good chance you'll lose the game. In networking, if you mess up the two-minute drill, there is a very good chance you will miss a major opportunity.

I learned this first-hand on a flight. I was on my way to do a speech, and I wasn't as prepared as I wanted to be, so I planned on using the time on the plane to make revisions instead of networking. So, when the woman next to me tried to strike up a conversation, I smiled and told her I was working on deadline. Finally, about 10 minutes before we were to land, I finished my work. I put away my briefcase, and offered my hand to introduce myself and really looked at my seatmate for the first time.

She looked familiar. She looked very familiar. She looked a lot like Diane Sawyer of ABC News. In fact ... she was Diane Sawyer.

I missed my “Primetime” with Diane Sawyer. It may be a while before I get another chance. Maybe never.

Mackay’s Moral: When you expand your network, you expand your opportunities.

Procrastination is a thief. It robs you of the one commodity that you just can’t buy back: time. It throws off schedules. It replaces accomplishment with inaction. It turns dreams into nightmares.

When faced with a task that you just don't want to do, many of us simply put it off until tomorrow. That’s why tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. And one of these days becomes none of these days.

Putting off an unpleasant task until tomorrow simply gives you more time for your imagination to make a mountain out of a possible molehill ... more time for anxiety to sap your self-confidence.

Most of us can relate to occasional bouts of procrastination -- the phone call you have been dreading to place, the project that you just can’t get excited about, the meeting that you should have scheduled two weeks ago. But why can’t we just get in gear?

Thomas A. Harris, in his famous book "I'm OK, You're OK," wrote there are three things that give people the “wantivation” to change: They must hurt sufficiently, they must experience despair or boredom, or they must suddenly discover they can change.

Dr. Gail Saltz, author of “Becoming Real: Defeating the Stories We Tell Ourselves That Hold Us Back,” says that 20 percent of Americans are considered “chronic procrastinators.” But it’s not about laziness, it’s about fear, she says. Among the reasons:

-- Fear of failure. Are you so paralyzed by the fear of failure that you’d rather just not try at all?

-- Fear of success. Do you think that if you succeed at something then the bar will be set so high that you will never reach it again? Or are you afraid that you don’t deserve success?

-- A need to be defiant. Is life generally a battle for control? Are you taking a passive-aggressive approach to control by procrastinating?

-- A thrill-seeker procrastinator. Are you trying to avoid the boredom of daily tasks? Does boredom terrify you? Do you need to create a crisis to keep things interesting?

Understanding procrastination will help you break the paralyzing habit of putting off what you need to do. Then you can begin to make the changes that will help you tackle your work with more determination.

Start prioritizing so you won’t get overwhelmed. Create to-do lists and figure out what’s important. As the old saying goes, “Well begun is half done.” Knowing what you need to do is not enough. You need to plan to track your progress.

Then do just one step. Gather some preliminary information, call one person or figure out what tools you need. Once you’ve completed that task, give yourself permission to do something else. In many cases, once you’ve begun, you’ll be more inclined to keep on working. Even if you aren't, you’ll be one step closer to success when you come back to the task later.

I find it helpful to set a deadline, even when the project isn’t time-sensitive. That way, there’s nothing hanging over my head that is cluttering up the rest of my workload. I also write down my to-do list so that I can focus on one item at a time.

Procrastination is a problem at all levels. Charles M. Schwab, who founded Bethlehem Steel Company in 1904, was a master of his schedule. He made it a practice of investing five minutes each day analyzing the problems he should tackle the next day. He would write down those tasks in the order of priority.

When he arrived at his office the next morning, he would start with the top issue on his list and move on in order. “This is the most practical lesson I’ve ever learned,” he claimed, and shared this example to prove his point: “I had put off a phone call for nine months, so I decided to list it as my No. 1 task on my next day’s agenda. That call netted a $2 million order.”

I’m not sure what that would translate to in today’s economy, but I’d be happy with a $2 million order any day! Make the call!

Mackay’s Moral: Overcoming procrastination helps your to-do list become your all-done list.