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3 Reasons Why You Make Terrible Decisions (And How to Stop)
Good and Bad Decisions
Decisions are a cost-benefit analysis of risking something small for the opportunity to gain something big.
- Good decisions can be: Exercising, meditating for 10 minutes daily, finding the courage and striking up a conversation with someone, applying for jobs that you may or may not get.
- Bad decisions can be: lying or pretending to someone, driving unsafely, sending angry text messages, or staying up late drinking before an important meeting or exam in the morning.
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Every Decision In Life Becomes a Trade-Off
... and boils down to what we give up to attain something. Our mindsets are inclined towards pleasure and resistive towards pain. We normally like to think in terms of gaining, success, and acceptance.
We forget that there are always two sides of the coin and loss, failure and rejection come hand in hand whether we like it or not.
Trade-offs and Life Values
Trade-offs are not something as simple as flipping a coin. Our values guide us towards what we want in life, and it is not the same for all. Example: Buying a house has a trade-off of mortgage for the next ten or more years. This is subjective and depends on what we value in life.
Indecisive people suffer because they don’t know their inner values and what they care about.
Our Emotions Hijack Our Objectivity
Humans are not good at impartially evaluating the risks and rewards of any decision.
Our ‘thinking’ brain loses out to our ‘feeling’ brain, that is our natural cravings, desires and urges. We can curb this by being self-aware and thinking through any important decision.
Temporal Discounting
It is a quirk which makes us value the present opportunity more than a future opportunity. This is known as ‘Present Bias’ in psychology.
Example: If offered a choice between getting $100 now or $150 after a year, we are more likely to take up the money offered right now.
Our Minds Are Bad At Compounding Stuff
If we practice something (learning a new language for example) for just 30 minutes a day, we normally do not realize or understand that by practising daily for 365 days, we are better in that activity 3778 per cent or about 38 times.
If we are practising the same skill every other day, we do it for 180 days, that is half the effort and improve by 611 per cent or about 6 times. Missing out on just one day of practice has vast compounding effects by the end of the year.
Status Distorts Our Perceptions
Our perceptions and emotions get skewed when we are in the presence of extreme beauty, power and wealth.
People of status and power are constantly bending reality around us and creating a ‘Halo Effect’, making us feel that they are smarter, more amusing and charismatic than they really are. This affects our judgement and decision making.
How To Make Better Decisions
- Write down your thoughts. This helps in being objective and map out your decisions. This also brings clarity to the mind.
- Override your anxiety by doing what is required, even though it may be inconvenient or unpleasant.
3. Understand what our weaknesses are. Then hack or alter your routine to ensure the weak spots do not diminish your productivity or decision making. - Change your environmental settings and reduce junk information consumption. You could stop meeting toxic people and remove Facebook from your phone.
No Decision Is A Decision Too
Running away from decisions and being indecisive is also a decision. Action becomes your friend here, and it is good to get out of the comfort zone and take risks, instead of being in a mental paralysis.
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Make Better Choices
- Seek good information. Be skeptic and never just assume that what you’re being told is always true.
- Avoid common pitfalls, like making decisions without enough time or in...
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Mike Whitaker
All Decisions Are Not Created Equal
- Small decisions: Impact you for a day, such as what you wear and what you eat.
- Medium decisions: Impact your life for a year or so, such as deciding to go back to school or take on a roommate.
- Big decisions: These are made once or twice a year, and successful people use their goals to navigate to the right choice.
Decision making using goals
Successful people have 4 strategies that help them clearly define what they want:
- They keep 5 prime goals and stay focused on them.
- They identify the top priority and give it favorable treatment when making decisions.
- They look for goal and decision overlap, treating this decision with more care.
- They appreciate momentum, identifying the benefits of continuing to move in the right direction.
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Turn Small Decisions Into Routines
Decision-making works like a muscle: as you use it over the course of the day, it gets too exhausted to function effectively.
One way to avoid this is to eliminate smaller decisions by t...
Make Big Decisions In The Morning
Save small decisions for after work (when decision fatigue kicks in) and to tackle complex decisions in the morning, when your mind is fresh.
A similar strategy is to do some of the smaller things the night before to get a head start on the next day.
Pay Attention To Your Emotions
...and you'll able to look at decisions as objectively and rationally as possible.
Strong decision-makers know that a bad mood can make them lash out or stray from their moral compass just as easily as a good mood can make them overconfident and impulsive.
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