Introduction
The report will critically analyze a personal decision I made last year, and discuss how I could have made a better decision. It will also provide an alternate decision that I could have made, and analyze the outcomes. The Gibbs Reflective Cycle (Wood, 2010) will be used as a method to critically reflect upon my personal decision.
Sometimes as a student, it becomes difficult to move on public transport; especially with the high expenses and weather conditions that come with it. Many students started looking for new or used cars that might get them from one place to another. I was one of those students, and I looked for a small affordable car, nothing too fancy. I called several friends and started asking for advice about what car I should buy, several names came up. Honda, Fiat and Toyota were the names on top of the list, but at the end I shortlisted the decision down to two cars; the Honda Jazz and the Toyota Yaris. Both cars were available for around the same price, and provided a good road experience, and that is why the decision became very complicated for me. It was hard for me to make such a decision, and I did not want to rush into anything, because I knew that once I got this car, it would be my permanent car for at least a few years.
Analysis
When I started inquiring about both the models that I had shortlisted as my favorite ones, I realized that making this decision will not be easy. But after a lot of thinking I decided to go with the Honda Jazz. It was a non programmed complex decision (Fitzgerald, 2013) for me, because I had no previous experience of buying a car, and this was going to be my first car. A non programmed complex decision is one that the decision maker is making for the first time, and has no previous experience of making such a decision. I had never made such a decision before, which is why choosing a car was very difficult for me. Both cars seemed the same to me, but I knew that expert help is required for me to get the best car. There were several reasons why I went for the Honda Jazz. Many of my friends told me about Honda being the best car and I took their advice, but I had an intuition (Bowie, 2008) that Honda would be better for me, and this intuition played a major role in my decision. The first most important reason that I looked at was the fuel consumption, which was vastly superior for the Honda Jazz. Honda Jazz has a fuel consumption of 4.5 liters per 100 kilometers, while Toyota Yaris has a fuel consumption rate of 6.3 liters per 100 kilometers. As a student, fuel consumption was very important for me because I needed to spend a specific amount on fuel per month; that is why my emphasis was on fuel consumption. Another thing that I realized was that Honda Jazz had an electric piston while Toyota Yaris had a normal piston. After some research I realized that the electric piston is good for the car, and will last much longer than the normal piston.
Parking was another major issue for me. That is why the cars design was an important factor for me when it came to deciding which car I wanted. The Honda Jazz has a more compact design compared to the Toyota Yaris, which is somewhat bulky. Parking is very expensive where I live, so I had to keep that in mind when deciding about which car I wanted to buy; thus the Honda Jazz was the automatic decision.
The environment is a very important factor for me, and I care about how the car I use is effecting the environment. This is why I went through a lot to find out how the two cars effect the environment. The Honda Jazz has a greenhouse rating of 8.5, while the Toyota Yaris has a rating of 7.5. Similarly, The Jazz and Yaris both had the same air
