The trick with making choices is to decide the criteria upon which the choice will be made. If you can do this, it makes decision-making a lot easier. It also makes things like negotiations easier. If both parties, or all the parties involved can state the criteria that they have for making decisions, you can then actually measure the advantages of one choice over the other.
I want to go to Either the Czech Republic or to Hungary. What are my criteria for deciding? One could be the quality of accommodations and food. Another might be the interest of the history. Another could be availability of boat tours, or mountain hiking opportunities. Once you’ve got your criteria down, you can evaluate each destination based on those criteria and see how they come out. If you have enough criteria, they will never come out even.
Most people probably don’t know the criteria they are using to make a decision. It’s a more intuitive process. People say “personal preferences,” but they do not think specifically about what those preferences are based on.
Sometimes you look at all your criteria and one choice is better on some, and the other choice is better on others, and you still can’t decide. Then you might just go with a hunch or a feeling or you might flip a coin because really, either choice will be fine with you.
I suppose you might ask where the criteria come from. We could get back to personal preferences, but those aren’t the road block they might seem to be. Most preferences come from a lifetime of choices and activities. Maybe food is important to you, or physical activities are more important. In either case these are things you’ve been doing all your life, so they are preferences based on a history.
It’s generally a complex calculus based on a person’s experience, knowledge and decision-making skills. It can be so complex that it might not be possible to parse out the criteria the decision was based on. Or a person may not be all that self-aware, and so they can’t really identify what they are thinking about when them make a choice. They just do it.