Hasta La Ideas

Have you ever wondered why some decisions seem easier to make than others? Even when people appear to know what they want, making the decision to go in one direction or another can be complex. Sometimes having too many choices can hinder you. You might feel anxious because you don’t want to make the wrong choice and feel the accompanying regret. Whatever the reasons are that make deciding so difficult, there are some steps you can take to make the process at arriving at the best choice a little easier.

Remain neutral

Decisions are not always as straight forward as they may theoretically appear. The process of making a particular selection can be tricky because your feelings can play a role what you end up choosing. Dr. Jennifer Lerner, Director of Harvard Laboratory for Decision Science, conducts research on how one’s feelings can affect one’s perception of risk and how emotions influence one’s judgement and ability to make decisions. Though it may seem that having a negative emotion, like anger, would cloud your outlook and therefore influence you to make a more negative decision, Dr. Lerner’s research appears to indicate the opposite.

Anger makes you optimistic and makes you perceive less risk than if you were in a neutral state, and it makes you take more risks. So for example, you’re more likely to choose a gamble over a sure thing when you’re angry. Anger does a lot of other things, as well. It makes you think more heuristically rather than systematically. It automatically activates relative left frontal hemisphere, which is associated with approach. So when you’re mad, it predisposes you toward believing things are going to work out your way, believing that you have some sense of control. It gives you a sense of certainty, makes you take more risks, perceive less risk, think less deeply, a whole series of choices.

Dr. Lerner also found that people who were feeling sad tended to spend more money when shopping than if they weren’t feeling any strong emotion at all. That said, you wouldn’t want to be feeling any emotional extreme as you are at the moment of deciding what action to take. Instead, consider engaging in activities that would get you back to a neutral state. For each person, that activity can vary so take a minute to think about the types of things that help to regulate your emotions (or keep them in check).

Seek an objective opinion

A public declaration can sometimes help you attain important goals you have set for yourself. You’ll often get encouragement from others to keep making progress. In a similar way, seeking the opinion of a non-biased, trusted advisor, friend, or colleague can give you a different perspective or validate your position. You may want to pick one or two people that you’ll consult with so that you don’t get stuck in the process. When too many people are involved, then it becomes a decision by committee. This would likely make the process take longer than necessary, so be strategic about the number of people you seek for counsel.

Analyze the potential outcomes

All decisions have consequences and it helps to know what they are (or could be) no matter which choice you make. Assess the pros and cons of each one and determine if the benefits outweigh the risks. Using a pro vs. con list can help you pinpoint the various aspects of each decision and help you to arrive at the best choice for you. You might also want to “road test” your options (when possible) and live as though you’ve already made a selection so that you see the possible outcomes. Doing this can also help you to solidify your intended goal (change careers, relocate, make a major purchase) and give purpose to the entire process.

Come up with Plan B

As you think through the possible directions you could go in, you’re likely to come up with some options that might qualify as your “Plan B” should you need an alternate option to fall back on. Knowing that you have a secondary plan should put your mind at ease in the event that you need to change course or if something unexpected occurs.

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When you’re faced with several choices, it can be difficult to actually decide which one to select. Your brain can become cluttered with worry and you can get trapped in what seems like an episode of The Twilight Zone, where nothing is what it seems. You may even start doubting yourself when you do make a decision and begin thinking that you should have made a different selection. Or, you may end up not making a decision at all.

A recent article in The New York Times described it this way:

Although it has long been the common wisdom in our country that there is no such thing as too many choices, as psychologists and economists study the issue, they are concluding that an overload of options may actually paralyze people or push them into decisions that are against their own best interest.

When your choices are limited, you’re likely to make a better and quicker decision. Why? Because when there’s less to choose from, the process of figuring out what to do speeds up. You’ll be able to quickly compare apples to apples because there are fewer apples, and when you’re calmer you tend to make the best decision based on the information you have.

Of course, in the modern world, we do have a lot of choices. But, we also have a simple tool — a list — that can help us pick a direction a little easier. When you think of making a list, you might think of a collection of tasks you need to take care of or things you plan to get at the grocery store. But, creating a list also can help you make a decisions about almost anything. A pro vs. con list has one specialty (just like the punter on a football team). Its main job is to help you compare the advantages and disadvantages of two (or more) scenarios or points of view. One of the main benefits of using this type of list is you get all your thoughts out of your head (no matter what they are) in a structured way.

Other benefits of a pro vs. con list

• Helps you think things through. More than just helping you get your thoughts on paper (or in your smart phone or tablet), a pro vs. con list really lets you think about the best and worst consequences of a particular direction. And, you’ll also be thinking about the things that are most important to you. Sometimes, your thoughts will pour right out of your head and, other times, you may need to put your list down and come back to it later.
• Chance to test drive your ideas. If you need to set down your list and spend some time gathering the pros and the cons, take a day and live as though you have already made your decision one way. Live with the what ifs of that choice. The next day, act as though you made your decision another way. Try out all your options to see how they feel based on the benefits and potential pitfalls for each one. Capture your feelings and experiences on your list. See how comfortable you feel with each decision.
• Can be used for large and small decisions. You can use a pro vs. con list as a starting point to making very important decisions (when to have a baby, whether to move to location A or B, what college to attend, who would be the best life-long partner), but it can also help you with day-to-day decisions, like what you should wear today or have for lunch. When you’re feeling stressed and overwhelmed, even the most basic decisions can appear daunting. Formally collecting your thoughts can help you regain a sense of calm and move you from the crossroads to a more clearly defined destination point.

Ways to construct a pro vs. con list

• Paper and pencil. The nice thing about using paper and pencil (or a large flip pad and a marker) is you probably already have these items in your home or office. They’re easy to use and you can get started quickly on making your pro vs. con list. Simply create two columns (draw a line vertically down a sheet of paper) and add the headings “Pro” and “Con.” Or, you could purchase a pre-printed notepad if that is your style.
• Mobile or web-based apps. If you’d prefer a digital option, there are (not surprisingly) several decent ones available beyond opening a Word document and making your own.

  ProConLists.com is a free, web-based app that lets you create a pro vs. con list without having to download anything to your computer. The site also allows you to name, describe, categorize your decision making project, and to rate each pro and con on a rational and emotional scale. It will also calculate the results (via pie chart percentages), though you will need to sign up to see them. You can also share your list with others and view their feedback.

  Smart phone applications like Pro Con (iPhone, $0.99) and Pros and Cons (Android, free) are similar to each other and can all help you to get to a final decision.

• Mindmap your way to a decision. A mindmap is often used to brainstorm ideas, but it’s also a useful tool (sort of an pro vs. con list on steroids) to help you look at almost every detail of a particular situation.

Closing thoughts

Decisions can be tricky to make because we want to get them right. We don’t want to risk failing or making a poor decision. Instead of fretting, be organized with your decision making and vet the possible directions you could choose by writing down the good, bad, and ugly aspects of each. Consider seeking out the objective advice of one or two people you trust. And, add a deadline to the process so you don’t re-hash options repeatedly and unnecessarily.

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