The Subtle Power of your Environment Influencing Your Habits (Habit Series 4/7)

Your surroundings may be impacting your habits more than you think and more than you want, so when you start controlling your setting, you can begin to have progress on the long-awaited changes in your life.

Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith said, “Most of us go through life unaware of how our environment shapes our behavior.”  When you have a conflict between the situation (having cookies in your kitchen in an accessible spot) and your willpower (choosing not to eat them), the environment overpowers your will every time. Those cookies have no chance, especially if they are chocolate chip walnut from Levain’s, the #1 bakery in NYC.  If they are hidden, you will likely not eat them.  Better yet, if they are not even in the house, you will not be tempted.  Physical and visual distance impacts your choices.  If you replace the sweets with fruit and keep them reachable, you will more likely grab that.  To eat healthier, stock your fridge with excellent options.  The key to changing your habits is organizing your environment in a way that makes it easy and sets you up for success. 

The power of the environment is further illustrated in Richard Thaler’s Nudge, he talks about the concept of choice architecture which is the process of organizing information on a page or arranging the items in a physical environment in such a way that influences decisions.  Anne Thorndike, a Physician at a Boston hospital designed a 6-month study to alter the cafeteria’s choice architecture.  Fridges next to cashiers only had soda so store managers added water and placed baskets of water next to food stations around the room.  Over the next 3 months, soda sales dropped by 11.4%, and water sales increased by 25.8%.  The presence of water changed people’s behavior. 

Your social situation also plays a role.  Jim Rohn said we become the combined average of the people we hang around the most.  Those people dominate the types of things we talk about and the activities that we do.  If we spend time with friends who enjoy going to bars, we can be more tempted to overdrink.  If we spend time with avid readers, we are more likely to be influenced in that direction by reading or talking about books. When we hang out with people where the norm is to have good habits, we will make better decisions with our time and set ourselves up for success. 

As French philosopher, Michel de Montaigne wrote - “The customs and practices of life in society sweep us along.”  Friends and family provide an invisible peer pressure force that pulls us in that direction.   Do you work at an office where staying until 5 is standard because people value family and personal development time?  You will be less likely to overwork and violate that shared expectation.  Join a group where your desired behavior is the norm.  I did when I connected to a philosophy group a few years ago where I met so many people who were just as jazzed about personal development as I am.  It felt fantastic to nerd out openly on topics that I would not have the opportunity to share with my other friend groups.  Successful businesswoman Kathy Ireland said there are two types of people – anchors and engines, anchors weigh you down while engines believe in you, support you, and propel you forward.  Who are the anchors and engines in your life? 

Professor Edwards Deming noted, “A bad system will beat a good person every time.”  Many of us become successful or not depending on the world around us and how we relate to it.  If somebody returns from rehab and is plugged into the same environment with the same triggers and social influences, they are likely to find change difficult.  Instead, habits are easy when they fit into your life, and the environment allows for it.  So, what environmental cues are steering your behavior either in the direction of beneficial change or throwing you off track?  Make a list of your environmental triggers that are either helping or hurting you to raise your awareness so you can take deliberate action.

Your physical and social environments may be having a much bigger impact on your choices than you initially thought.  If you want to have a healthy lifestyle, allow your physical environment to reflect your intentions.  If you are going to focus on growth and development, surround yourself with people who share your values.  Be intentional about your choices for the best habits to take root.

Quote of the day: “The key to behavioral change is to pass behavioral control to the environment.” -Author Paul Gibbons

Q: How can you set your physical and social environment up that would optimize your success?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog in this series 5/7 will focus on the importance of small steps towards habit change]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

Do you know how your environment impacts your decisions?

Your Personality Wiring is Impacting Your Habits (Habit Series 3/7)

The key to setting habits is to know yourself so you can customize your plan for change.  Not everybody is the same, what makes sense for some may not work for others, what seems like a hill to you may look like a mountain to me, so it is essential to experiment and find the approach that works best for you. 

One thing you can do is cast a wide net to get exposed to many ideas and then drill down on what you want to implement.  For example, you may spend time exploring all of your worst habits, then pick 1-3 to do some deeper reflection and double down on changes you want to make with those.  It is like deciding you want to be a better listener, you may briefly explore 10 books, but choose 2-3 to learn everything from and extrapolate main points, drown out the rest, and be intentional about applying those insights.

Before you jump into implementing habit changes, it could be helpful to explore your natural dispositions.  Here are a few variables to consider: 

1. Factor in your personality style.  Some people may have specific traits that are more conducive to particular approaches.  For example, you may be high in openness, and can more easily experiment with changes to satisfy your curiosity.   You may be high in consciousnesses and may want to follow the habit with a rigid structure instead of a more flexible approach. Are you somebody that can make the change by yourself, or would you do much better with a partner?  For example, we all know we should work out, but some choose to pay a personal trainer because we are more inclined to follow through when there is somebody else holding us accountable.

Beware of the information-action fallacy, which is the assumption that new information will lead to new action. You can read all the books on weight loss, but it does not mean you will enact any of the learnings, we are all human and need help, and some of us find it essential to the process. Executive Coach Marshall Goldsmith knows just how hard it is to change, that is why he checks in with his accountable buddy at the end of every day to reflect on his intentions.

2. Consider different approaches.  Some people prefer a phased approach v. an absolute approach.  With the former, you decide you want to give up coffee so, initially, you have coffee some days and decaf others, then after a while, you will have decaf coffee, and then decaf green tea until you break your coffee connection.  With the latter, you may think it is better to stop cold turkey. 

Indeed, not everybody is wired the same way.  Some people think it is helpful to change a lot of big habits all at once.  In his book Reverse Heart Disease, Cardiologist Dean Ornish shares a study that shows what can happen with dramatic lifestyle changes.  Some of his patients found it easier to say goodbye to all of their bad habits and embrace new ones and, in less than a month, they saw dramatic health benefits.  This is more the exception. Other research shows that when people tried one new behavior in one area, many of them were more successful than the people who tried to change a few new behaviors in many areas. This is especially true when it relates to what Charles Dughigg labels a keystone habit, that one thing you change which has a ripple effect on so many other things, which become easier to change. What approach compliments your personality?

3. Understand your response to change.  When you are first thinking about going for a run, it can cause nervousness, but after a while, you get used to it, and it becomes quite familiar.  Changes can be painful and uncomfortable initially, but eventually enjoyable.  The discomfort is only temporary because humans are incredible at adapting.  How well do you know your comfort level with the cycle of change? What’s your approach to dealing with change?

We all have natural dispositions that we can tap into to help with lasting behavior change.  When we consider our personality styles, strategic approaches, and comfort level with the change cycle, we can chart the best course of action that works for us.

Quote of the day: “People do not decide their futures, they decide their habits, and their habits decide their futures.”  -F.M. Alexander

Q:  What are your best and worst habits?  How do you maintain the good ones and how might you experiment with discarding the bad ones? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you! 

[The next blog in this series 4/7 will focus on the impact of the environment on habit change]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with people to cultivate habits that serve them, contact me to explore this topic further.

How does your personality influence your decisions

Use Your Head and Heart for the Best Decision-Making (Decision Series 5/8)

How wise are you at making decisions?  In choosing, do you rely more on cognition or intuition?  While some people would advocate for the evidence-based, logical approach, others would endorse the way of emotions and gut instinct.  Who’s right?

Let’s take a closer look at each:

For some people, rationality is the easy answer.  When entangled in a decision, they may make a long list of pros and cons, weigh their choices against a pre-determined set of criteria, evaluate their options objectively, step back, and decide.  After all, isn’t the Prometheus gift of reason precisely what separates humans from other animals, so shouldn’t we rely on that?

Plato has a great metaphor of the mind; he compares it to a charioteer controlling horses, which are representative of our emotions.  The best people or the Philosopher Kings in his time were the ones who kept the tightest reigns on their emotional horses, which can be impulsive and impetuous beasts that lead us astray.  Simply distilled, reason is good, emotions not so much.

The problem with rationality is that it can be faulty.  In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman discovered cognitive biases, showing that humans systematically make choices that defy clear logic. He explains, “When humans are left to their own devices, they are apt to engage in several fallacies and systematic errors.”  To be better at decision-making, we need to be aware of these biases and seek workarounds.

In Favor of Emotions 

Those who love to be steered by their emotions in deciding would say that it is the superior method.  Our emotions are wise, especially when we have a good relationship with them.  We can recognize when we are in a bad mood and might lash out at others who are simply trying to help, or when we are feeling overconfident and might take more risks.  We have gut instincts, and when we listen to them, they can guide us carefully and diligently.  We already know the answer or at least one version of it because it is the accumulation of our memories and experiences, revealed unconsciously at speed.  So much of what we believe and do is driven by the unconscious; it is rooted in emotions that we sometimes cannot articulate, yet strongly feel.

In Johan Lehrer’s How We Decide, he recounts a story of Michael Riley, a radar operator in the British Navy during the Persian Gulf War.  On his second day, he picked up a blip on his screen, which could have been an incoming Iraqi missile or an American Fighter Jet, even though the two signals looked identical.  In seconds, he had to decide to receive a potential strike or destroy his fellow brothers.  He fired two missiles and single-handedly saved the battleship.  Initially, he could not explain why he felt confident that it was enemy fire.  It was not until years later that he discovered how he did it – that he unconsciously picked up a subtle discrepancy in the timing of the radar signal.  When we listen to our gut, we are rightly guided.  As explained by John-Dylan Haynes, a Cognitive Neuroscientist at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience in Berlin, “the unconscious brain is intelligent enough to select the best options.” 

While our emotions can be inexplicably powerful, there is a problem when we solely rely on them to guide our decisions.  This old saying rings true: “Don’t make permanent decisions based on temporary emotions.”  When we are overwhelmed by passions, it can cloud our abilities to make clear decisions.  Believe it or not, most managers are not good at even recognizing their emotions, let alone not being consumed by them.  TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that only 36% of us can accurately identify our emotions as they happen.  If we are unaware of our feelings or cannot properly label them, we may not be able to use them to our advantage.

Reaching the nexus of thought and feeling

The secret to good decision-making is to harness the power of both our cognitive and instinctual forces.  The world is a complex place, especially for any one-purpose solution, so how we decide should depend on what we are thinking about and in what context.  

You can cycle back and forth between cognition and emotions.  For example, we may start with cognition to analyze data, make a pro and con list, assign weight to each aspect, analyze charts and patterns, and then use the emotional and intuitive side to see what feels right.  After the passage of some time, we can step back into the rational mode and see how those feelings impact the way we are looking at the decision.  Finally, after some more thinking, we can check back in with our hearts. This neurological see-sawing can be most effective because usually when one side of the brain is activated, the other side is turned off so it forces us to have a more comprehensive consideration. For example, you may just be thinking logically when you want to fire your employee because sales are down dramatically and you need to cut costs. But how can you tap into the emotional side and be thinking about the person’s livelihood? If you decide the layoff is the right way to go, you can be sure to let the person go with grace and compassion and provide support as the person journeys to their next endeavor.

We have wisdom deep inside of us that we can access to guide our decisions when it most counts. 

Quotes of the day: "The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions." -Donald Calne, Canadian Neurologist

"Emotions have taught mankind to reason." -Luc de Clapiers, Marquis de Vauvenargues, French Moralist and Writer

Q: In making a decision, do you allow more of your emotions or reasoning to guide you?  What process do you put in place to cycle between the two to get all their benefits?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 6/8 will focus on exploring systems for better decision-making]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you utilize both sides of the brain for the best decision-making?

The Art Of Using Creativity In Your Decision-Making (Decision Series 4/8)

We make thousands of decisions each day, and we are always looking for an edge, a specific way to improve our decision-making abilities so we can have more life satisfaction.  

One way to improve our information strategy for better decision-making is to get creative about the problem.  Here’s how:

A. Challenge the limitations.  Matthew Confer, VP of Strategy at Abilitie offers a tip before deciding to challenge the constraints.  He argues that too many teams jump into solving a problem without first considering it.  He recommends starting by thinking about what barriers are holding you back and then see what is possible. At Sandford, students in an entrepreneur class were given $5 and a challenge to turn it into the most money possible and then present their ideas in the following class.  The winning team did not even use 1 cent; they sold the rights to their presentation to a company in town who were happy to pitch to Stanford students to recruit them post-graduation.  They challenged the constraints of that 5 bucks and maximized the real opportunity, the presentation.  Next time you are deciding, how can you question the limitations before you even begin?

B. Reframe the decision.  Sometimes a tweak in the wording of the question can jolt a new way of thinking.  Going from, “What can I do to cause the outcome I want,” to “What are the best and worst outcomes I can expect” can lead you down a more creative path.  You can also think “AND” not “OR.”  If you are contemplating a career shift, you might keep your current job AND volunteer a few hours somewhere else to gather more data before pivoting too hastily.

C. Consider the opposite.  This approach helps you think about the problem differently.  For example, if you are struggling to decide who to hire and are leaning toward one candidate, consider why that person is not the most appealing option.  If you are thinking about Iceland as your next place to visit, make a quick list of why this will be a bad idea and this step will lead you to more research in addressing those concerns, and ultimately more confidence in your decision.  

Another way to employ creativity for better decision-making is to find the sweet spot between widening and contracting your options.

A challenge with decision-making is that sometimes we can think in binary terms, especially when we are overwhelmed with emotion, our thinking becomes more rigid.  I get married or a breakup; I move to NYC or I stay in the suburbs.  When we expand our options to a manageable amount, it changes the problem and can enable us to decide more confidently.  To reach this end, we can think about the following: 

A. Create a Top 10 list of your best options.  Once generated, you can compare and contrast to spot patterns.  You can then narrow your choices to 2-3 by cobbling together the best features from the alternatives.

B. Crowdsource.  If you are trying to expand your choices, tap into the power of the collective.  In 2008, Starbucks created “mystarbucksidea.com,” a submission website where anybody could send their ideas.  About 10,000 ideas were submitted and 100 implemented, including a free beverage for every pound of coffee, unlimited brewed coffee, and free coffee on birthdays.  Sometimes when we are so close to the problem, we can be blinded by love and emotion, but when we invite outside views, we get ideas we could have never imagined.

C. Scrap your options.  You can throw out the current set of selections and create a new list.  Maybe you have an employee who is excellent with administration work but not socially friendly; binary thinking would be – fire her or deal with the mountain of paperwork, or keep her and deal with her social challenges.  You can throw those options out and come up with new ones.  What if we moved her away from interacting with others and just had her doing administration work and allowed the rest of the team to contribute one day at the front desk so they can be closer to the work by interacting with the customers?  What if you partnered her with somebody skilled with social interactions so she can learn from excellent examples. What other options are there to consider?

D. Contract options.  As the Paradox of Choice goes, the more alternatives we are given, the less satisfied we become with what we choose because we are aware of all the other opportunities we are forfeiting.  Once we have gone wide, we want to narrow down our options to a manageable amount – usually 3-5. 

To help with decision-making, you want to get creative about your strategy.  This may include challenging the constraints, reframing your options, or finding the sweet spot between widening and contracting your decisions. 

Quote of the day: “We are the creative force of our life, and through our own decisions rather than our conditions, if we carefully learn to do certain things, we can accomplish those goals” —Stephen Covey.

Q: How do you apply creativity in your decision-making? Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

The next blog in this series 5/8 will focus on the role of the mind and the heart in decision-making.

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you apply creativity to decision-making?

Enhance your decision-making with strategy (decision series 3/8)

When you are thinking about a big decision, how do you decide?  What information strategy do you use?  Once you have done all the work in clarifying your values, style, and optimal energy state, how do you utilize your external resources to be in a better position to choose? 

Here are tips to strengthen your information strategy:

1. Learn more about the things you do not know by tapping into the collective intelligence of others.

A. Talk to people in your network who made that exact decision.  If you are thinking about leaving a big corporate job to start your practice, find somebody who traveled that path, and learn those lessons.  People do some version of this all the time, think about right before you go to a restaurant, you will check the Yelp reviews and see how satisfied people were with the meals.  Approach it with humility, do not rely on what you think something will be like, ask a range of questions, such as what are my blindspots around this decision so you can get the information you have not considered.

In an interview, Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert shared with Shankar Vedantam of Hidden Brain that some people might dismiss this approach due to the “illusion of diversity,” which is the idea that we think we are utterly unique, that other people's experiences might tell us a little bit about ourselves, but not very much.  Gilbert disagrees with this assertion because we are more similar than we think.  This concept of surrogation, seeing how others like something, and allowing that to guide us can be a constructive way to decide.  Even spending time on internet searches can yield powerful results.  According to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, 58% of tricky clinical diagnostic cases could be solved using internet search and surrogation.  If your dilemma is more common, the chances increase. It could be good to aggregate the opinions of people who have made the decision you are pondering as a guide for what is right for you.

B. Tap extended networks.  Chip and Dan Heath offer this method - send an email to 5 people in your circle who are not close friends or colleagues.  Describe your dilemma and ask if they know anyone who might have some insights.  The goal is to enter different systems since most of your friends and close colleagues probably know each other and have linked associations.  Plus, you probably already know what they know through your conversations so you want to explore those weak ties for fresh ideas.

C. Seek contrarian perspectives.  When approaching a decision, we tend to pick something and then find additional information to support it, which is known as confirmation bias.  Based on one study in the book Decisive, when doctors were sure of their diagnosis, they were wrong 40% of the time.  In another study, when university students believed that they had a 1% chance of being wrong, they were wrong 27% of the time.  We have a false sense of certainty because we avoid evidence that challenges our entrenched beliefs. 

A great way to avoid confirmation bias is to seek outside opinions from people who bring different perspectives to weigh your options more objectively and spot your subjective or irrational tendencies.  Who do you know that you trust and is an entirely different thinker than you or somebody who could occupy a devil’s advocate role to tell you why your leading decision is wrong?  In her study of Silicon Valley firms, Kathy Eisenhardt found that the CEOs who made the quickest, most effective strategic decisions had a senior counselor who knew the industry well and could provide trustworthy guidance.  When asking those experts for advice on your choices, do not just ask them, “What do you think?” or “Do you like my idea?” How about asking disconfirming questions: “What’s the biggest obstacle you see to what I’m trying to do?” “If I fail, what would be the cause?”

D. Triangulate responses.  A chief enemy of good decisions is the lack of sufficient perspectives on a problem. 

Maybe you are considering taking your business into the European markets, how about getting three area experts committed to their right answers, and having them make their case.  You can listen to the discussion, triangulate their responses, glean lessons, and make more comprehensive decisions.  The quality of your synthesis can determine the quality of your decision-making. 

When it comes to decision-making, there are things we do not know (known unknowns), and then there are things that we do not know what we do not know (unknown unknowns).  When we can spend some time seeking out other resources, both in and out of our network, it can help us learn more about the challenge and make decisions more easily.

Quote of the day: "Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach." -Tony Robbins 

Q: When was the last time you sought out people in and out of your network to help with a big decision?  How did it go?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog 4/8 will focus on utilizing creative strategies for better decision-making.]

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

What’s your strategy for making sound decisions?

To Make Better Decisions, Start With Knowing Yourself (Decision Series 2/8)

How confident are you in your decision-making skills?  Which principles guide you most when choosing?

Part of the struggle that we have in making decisions is that we do not know much about ourselves.  By taking time to explore our values, decision-making style, and optimal state for making choices, we will be much better at deciding with satisfaction. 

Getting clarity about ourselves in these areas can make decisions easier:

1. Know your values.  What is your vision for life?  Have you put in the work to carefully articulate your value system?  How can those decisions get you closer to what you want more of and away from what you want less of?  For example, if you know you value having a career and are planning to start a family, how can you still be able to work part of the time because that will fulfill you and make you an even better parent?  The best decisions reflect our values, and when they are aligned, choices are more comfortable.  When we are caught up in a decision, we may have our emotions pulling us in multiple directions.  Successful people know how to stick to their values and trust their guidance during stressful events fraught with fear and doubt.

If it aligns with your values and creates excitement, go for it!  If it does not, do not do it.  When deciding to do an event or to put something in his calendar, Derek Sivers has a simple rule – it is either hell yes or no, nothing in between.  Is there a rule you can use to make this type of decision easier?

2. Know your style.  When it comes to decision-making, are you a maximizer or satisficer?  Maximizers seek the ultimate benefit or highest utility; they aim to make the most intelligent decisions possible.  Satisficers, on the other hand, are looking to make choices that they are minimally comfortable with, perhaps determined by more modest criteria.  The concept was first proposed by U.S. Nobel Prize-winning economist Herbert Simon who combined satisfying and sufficing as a way of describing this form of decision-making.  For example, suppose you are looking to purchase a TV, you might spend significant time reviewing many other TVs, comparing price and quality until you find the absolute best one on the market, determined by a set of criteria.  In contrast, satisficers will review a few options within a given time and then decide because they got something they can enjoy, and that’s enough.

It may seem like maximizers are the way to go because they aim for the absolute best option, but the research points to the opposite.  Satisficers will be more content with their decision, even if it is not the best they could have hoped.  In contrast, maximizers experience pressure from the high expectations they impose; they are more prone to doubt because they fear that a better choice is always out there.  They envision their life if they had chosen a different path.  Using this framework, which style are you, and how is it serving you to bring peace to your decisions?

3. Know your optimal state for decision-making.  Our mood, energy, and willpower significantly impact decision-making and are heavily influenced by these crucial factors: sleep, exercise, and diet.

A. Sleep.  When you experience deep restorative sleep, you can tackle a problem with fresh eyes and have the clarity to make sound decisions; otherwise, if you are sleep-deprived, you could be moody, emotional, and reactive.  When making a decision, Jeff Bezos talked about prioritizing 8 hours of sleep to make better executive decisions otherwise he will be tired and grouchy.

B. Exercise.  The stress of a significant decision naturally produces cortisol, the chemical that triggers the fight-or-flight response.  Cortisol clouds our ability to think clearly and rationally.  When we find ourselves stressing about a decision, we can exercise to recharge and refresh the mind.  As little as 30 minutes is all it takes to get an excellent endorphin-fueled buzz and return to mental clarity.  Exercise also helps you get past that fight-or-flight state by putting the cortisol to practical use.  Research shows that long-term exercise improves the overall functioning of the brain regions responsible for decision-making.

C. Diet.  Similarly, your decisions are likely to be sounder after a meal.  In a study led by psychologists at Columbia Business School, researchers found that judges were significantly more likely to issue favorable rulings when they made their decisions first thing in the morning or right after lunch.  But the longer they waited to decide after they ate, the more likely the judges were to deny prisoners parole.  The reason is because the more decisions we have to make over the day, the worse we get at making decisions.  We are prone to taking shortcuts when we are tired or hungry.  For a judge, it’s easier to deny parole than to do the mental work of having to think about whether bail is justified, so they took the easy route, which was to default to a denial.  

If we want to make sensible decisions, we want to be at our best, but that time of day differs for everybody.  In the book, When by Daniel Pink, he argues that our energy levels and cognitive abilities are not the same throughout the day but change in dramatic and unpredictable ways.  Some people feel their best in the morning and should choose that time slot to tackle complex decisions while others’ energy levels dip in the afternoon, and that slot should be used to make small decisions when fatigue is greatest.  When our willpower is low, we fall back to our default setting; it is why we go for chips over carrots and why the judges denied parole.  You can manage your willpower better by sleeping well, exercising, and eating healthy.

Part of being an excellent decision-maker is knowing yourself, which can include your values, style of decision-making, and optimal state for choosing.

Quotes of the day: “When your values are clear to you, making decisions becomes easier.” -Roy E. Disney

"The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it." General Norman Schwarzkopf

Q: When do you make your best decisions?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 3/8 will focus on enhancing your decision-making with strategy] 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

You can get clear with how you decide

Why are some decisions just so hard? (Decision Series 1/8)

Throughout our lives, we will make our fair share of difficult decisions - what school to attend, career to pursue, who to marry, where to live, how many children to have? And there will be infinitely more smaller daily decisions – what takeout to order, what to wear to an important event, which gym to attend, how much time should be spent on watching tv or reading and so on.

Indeed, our days can sometimes seem like they are filled with a constant stream of decisions.  A Columbia University survey conducted by Sheena Iyengar, a Professor of Business at Columbia found that we are bogged down by 70 conscious decisions a day. 

How do we handle all of those decisions, and more importantly, how satisfied will we be with our choices?  According to Dan and Chip Heath in their book Decisive, it is common for people to make decisions they regret.  When people decide to go to law school, there is a 44% chance that they will not recommend becoming lawyers.  When the Philadelphia school system examined teacher retention rates, they found that teachers were twice as likely as students to drop out.  Knowing that a lot of people regret their decisions speaks even more to the challenge of deciding well.    

Let’s explore 3 key reasons why decision-making is just so hard:

1. We lack a strong understanding of ourselves.  Believe it or not, many of us walk through life not knowing what is most important to us - is it love, money, family, learning, fun, exploration, or something else.  What are our core values?  Where do they come from?  Do we have those values because it is what we feel we SHOULD or MUST be emphasizing or it is because of what we genuinely want?

When we know our values, it becomes so much easier to make a decision that aligns with them. For example, you value family so when you are presented with a new position that involves a two-hour commute each way, you realize that your quality family time will drop significantly.  If your family value is non-negotiable, the decision becomes clear on whether to take the job.  When we make decisions that support our values, we experience less stress and more happiness. 

2. We have a faulty information strategy.  When you feel like you do not have enough information or are still really confused about a problem, what methods do you pursue to gather more data and broaden your horizons?  Believe it or not, people rarely consider more than two options when making a decision.  In a study led by Ohio State University Professor Paul Nutt, he examined 168 decisions of big organizations and found that 69% only had one alternative.  Two-option decisions lead to unfavorable results 52% of the time.  But when they considered more than two options, they had a favorable outcome of more than 66%.  When our information strategy includes only two choices, we feel trapped and fail to see all the possibilities genuinely available to us, and that can create struggle, stress, and lead to decisions in which we are not proud. 

We also do not want to overload ourselves with too many choices because then we would suffer from what Barry Schwartz labels a Paradox of Choice.  The more alternatives we are given, the less satisfied we become with what we choose because we are aware of all the other opportunities we are forfeiting.  For example, the American Scientist Sheena Iyengar looked at behavior in supermarkets and found that if there are too few choices, we do not like to shop there because we wonder if another place has more items.  If we have too many selections, we look but do not buy because we experience choice overload.  When it comes to low-level decisions like which cereal to buy, the right amount of items that the human mind likes to choose between is 3 and 6.  Of course, life is not a supermarket, especially when it comes to the monumental decisions we need to make so when do we know when we know enough? This question will be covered later in the series.

3. We lack decision-making systems to guide us.  Some people make decisions out of gut instinct, and while emotions can give strong direction, it may be an incomplete way of pulling the trigger because we could be blinded by short-term satisfaction over long-term value attainment.  Having processes and systems in place can help us take a more comprehensive approach.  Methods such as gaining psychological distance, conducting experiments, and running a pre-mortem will be explored later in the series to make better decisions.

Decisions are hard, and for a good reason; some of them can significantly alter our lives and happiness.  I must confess, I struggled with deciding how to organize this blog series, but once I took action, got clear in my values, utilized an effective information strategy, and relied on some of my trusty systems, things seemed to fall into place.  Here’s hoping that a little regret does not seep in later on.

Quote of the day: “Most of the problems in life are because of two reasons: we act without thinking, or we keep thinking without acting.” -anonymous

Q: What are some other challenges you notice with decision-making?  Comment and share below, we would love to hear from you!

[The next blog in this series 2/8 will focus on knowing yourself to make the best decisions.] 

As a leadership development and executive coach, I work with leaders to help them make hard decisions, contact me to explore this topic further.

How do you make tough decisions?