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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.
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... 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
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.
RELATED IDEAS
The act of writing forces you to organize your brain.
Vague feelings become structured and measured. And rereading what you write reveals your own logic (or lack thereof). It also reveals new perspectives you hadn’t considered.
- 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 information.
- Look at previous mistakes so you learn from them.
- Check in with yourself and ensure that the environment isn’t influencing your decisions unnecessarily.
- Take care of yourself. You are unlikely to make the best decisions when tired or unwell.
- Make time to think. The multitasking and distraction deluge to which we’re subjected every day can undermine good decision-making.
- Analyze well. Not getting the outcome you wanted doesn’t necessarily mean the decision was bad.
Being able to make decisions when you know you have imperfect data is so critical. I was always taught that “A good decision now is better than a perfect decision in two days.” Many people I know in business recoil at that statement. Many colleagues in graduate school had come from places where they were analysts at a company and their job was to analyze and analyze and analyze. They couldn’t believe somebody would say that you should actually encourage people to make a decision with imperfect information — but I firmly believe you should. I think that’s really important for leaders to incorporate. It’s something that the White House has to do all the time. It’s great to analyze things but at some stage you’re just spinning your wheels.