Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Photo by Felix Russell-Saw on Unsplash

Decisions are something we all struggle with. Large or small, present or future, for us or for others, personal or professional, tactical or strategic. They come in all shapes, sizes and forms.

Each decision presents an opportunity for us to shape who we are becoming. Decision A will etch one pathway and decision B will etch a different neural pathway in our brain.

Definition of “Decide” is to conclude, judge, resolve, choose. The root word cis and its variants cid and -cide come from a Latin root which means ‘cut’ or ‘kill.’ A decision, for instance, is a ‘cutting off’ of all possibilities except for one. This feels sad. For one door you decide to walk through, you close off EVERY other door. Hence no matter how exciting the possibility and choice you made is, there is some grief associated in every decision, especially if it is a personal decision.

When are we faced with a decision dilemma? Its when our heart wants one thing and one mind wants another. As Dan and Chip explain the their book “Switch” that heart is like an elephant and the mind like its rider. You have to align them in one direction to make a move forward. It’s the aligning that leaves us huffing and puffing. Sometimes decision making feels like a game of whack-a-mole. You kill one doubt and another arises and then another and then another.

Types of Decision:

1. Habitual: 40–70% of our actions are habitual. We don’t consciously decide whether to act in certain ways. We just do. Example: brushing our teeth, shower, dressing up, morning tea. These habits were consciously chosen at one point and then practiced over a long time. You might be thinking that habits are not decisions — well they are. You see, our brains are constantly optimizing. So when they see same decision being made over and over, they just make those neural pathways short and strong such that next time the decision happens before we “think”. (Of course there is separate philosophical debate about “true free will”, but I won’t go there.)
2. Subconscious: These decisions are not from consciously chosen habits but from subconscious ones. These are mostly our coping mechanisms against things life threw at us and we chose these ways to cope with what we knew best at the time. For example: emotional eating, smoking, surfing internet, cursing, over-working etc. We are aware of the action, but we do not consciously decide whether to take it. Also these decisions rule most of our life. So next time you find yourself doing something you do not like, you will have to slow down and interrupt your habitual or subconscious decision making.
3. Conscious: These are the active / conscious / energy consuming decisions, we take. Example, where to live, what product to build, where to take the next job, what to write in a blog. It takes a lot of energy and given we have limited energy, hence limited decision making power.
   — To make these decisions, I always suggest to categorize the choices by what values they honor. And then pick the ones that will honor the values you are most desiring to honor on a daily basis currently in your life.
   — As Jeff Bezos suggests, look at if the decision is reversible or irreversible and accordingly fret about it. Updating your LinkedIn profile is a reversible decision, so go ahead, write something and you can edit it tomorrow. Joining a job is also kind of reversible, albeit much higher cost of reversal. There are very few irreversible decisions in life, example having a baby.
   — Always make the toughest decisions in the morning, when you have the most energy. Never make a very important decision at night, when you are tired from the day.

Some observations about decision making process:

• As you are trying to decide, it is an uncomfortable place. Your brain wants to take you to comfort asap. So sometimes, it tricks you into seeing only 2 options aka black and white thinking. These are the cognitive distortions you will have to fight back, as sometimes it’s the 3rd option that you cannot see, that might really serve you.
• More you make one type of decision, more you rig yourself to make the same type of decision again. Our eating habits are the best example of this. More we eat certain kinds of food, more we are going to keep choosing them over other options next time. So if you are thinking “argh let me just do this one time, next time I will do differently”, your brain just did an eye roll on you.
• As much as possible pre-decide for your start of the day (e.g. what to wear to work or what breakfast to eat) and for mundane things so you have most energy left to tackle the actual hard stuff.

I am deciding to call this one done for now. This is a reversible decision as I can edit it tomorrow.

Happy deciding!

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