How to Make a Decision.

Did you know the average person makes roughly 35,000 semi-conscious decisions, every single day? With so much practice, you would think we would be total pros by now, but instead, we ‘um’ and we ‘ah‘, we delay and procrastinate, and then spend ages overthinking if maybe, just maybe, we should have chosen differently.

There are a whole heap of fancy decision-making tools out there, but life is short (plus, you have shows to watch), so let’s just skip the whole conjoint-analysis-decision-tree-matrix hoo-ha, and look at the fastest way we can start to make BETTER decisions.

Because, a well-lived life is really nothing more than than a succession of smart decisions.

MAKE IT EASY: The best way to limit the distraction of small, daily decisions is to automate them. It’s the reason Steve Jobs wore the exact same thing every day. Sure, you may care to automate getting dressed differently, (it’s called Fashion, Brenda. Look it up!), but by picking 5 work outfits and wearing them on rotation, it’s one less thing to think about. You might decide to eat salad for lunch every day. To always put the dishwasher on before you head to bed. To only check your email at the start and end of every day, (go on -I dare you!). Automation works especially great for your finances – deduct a monthly amount to save, get your bills paid by direct debit and once a week/month check your transactions to ensure they tally up and that you are keeping your finances in check. When it comes to building better habits, automation is the holy grail, because once something becomes automatic (saying no to dessert, walking every single day, switching off screens by 9pm), there is no need for self-discipline, its far less reliable cousin, and you can save your decision-making energy for the more important things in life.

MAKE IT FAST: It’s amazing how long we can spend agonising over some decisions, usually the ones where an outcome can’t be predicted – Which candidate will be better for the job? Will saying no to this, mean I never get another chance? Chocolate chip or Salted Caramel? The best antidote to overwhelm is forward momentum. So, once you have mulled over the pros and cons, weighed up the costs and benefits and juggled a few different options, set yourself a deadline. Commit to making a decision, in the next 15 minutes, and then move on with your life. Try and let go of the stress about whether it’s the right choice (is there such a thing?), and focus instead on the consequences of that choice going forward. Getting quicker/more decisive teaches you to trust yourself and comes with the added benefit of making you appear more trustworthy to others.

MAKE IT OBJECTIVELY: It is often way easier to give advice than to receive it. So, instead of asking, ‘What should I do?’ try framing the question as if it’s your best friend or trusted colleague asking for your advice. A study published in Psychological Science confirmed that looking at a situation from a third party’s point of view helps you think more impartially than if you focus solely on yourself.

MAKE IT LESS COMPLICATED: The paradox of choice is that while we think more choice is best, often less is more. Studies have shown that when people were offered too many alternative ways to invest for their retirement, they became less likely to invest at all. It seems all that information overload puts greater demands on our thought processing skills and can lead to total decision paralysis. Try not to overthink it – ‘Satisficers‘, the people who tend to choose the first options that meets their preset threshold of requirements, tend to be a lot happier than ‘Maximisers‘ who are forever analysing every possible option in their quest to choose the BEST.

MAKE IT FEARLESSLY: It’s easy to get scared about the consequences of our actions, but the good news is they are rarely as bad as we fear they might be. People routinely overestimate the impact of decision outcomes and studies have proven we are pretty rubbish at forecasting how future events will affect us. So, if you are teetering on the edge, wondering if you should GO FOR IT!, the feedback says you (probably) SHOULD! Stanford psychologist, Dr. Lewis Terman’s study of a group of people over their lifetimes, showed that people tend to regret the things they didn’t do, far more than the things they did. Strive for the path of least regret and you will have a lot less to whinge about in your rocking chair.

MAKE IT AUTHENTICALLY: When you make a decision and it feels good, it is likely that it aligns with your core values . The actual sh*t that really matters to you. Core values will vary from person to person, but drilling down and deciding what yours are, makes decision making a whole lot easier. For example, if you value family over career, then deciding to skip the promotion for more quality time with your kids becomes a lot easier. Working out and writing down what your core values are, has been proven to come with a fat sack of benefits (healthier, happier, less stressed, more empathetic) so decision, or no decision it will be a terrific help either way. Read this to get yourself started.

MAKE IT FLIPPANTLY: Flip a coin and bingo, choice closure is yours. Pizza or Burrito? The pink shirt or the green? Black Mirror or Billions? Let fate take the wheel! This even works for the big, scary, life-changing choices. Because, if you get heads and are tempted to throw again, that tells you everything you need to know.

MAKE IT WIDE AWAKE & ON A FULL STOMACH: Before you decide, it might be a good idea to get a good night’s sleep and to eat something. Lack of sleep (5hrs or less) has been shown to make people overly optimistic and prone to rashness. Being hungry has a similar effect, with Scientists at the University of Gothenberg discovering that ghrelin, a hormone that is released when you are hungry, makes you more impulsive, less rational and has a negative effect on decision making capabilities.

Not that I have ever needed a reason for a snack and a lie down, mind you!

This GET HAPPIER post is brought to you by someone whose pretty sure one of her core values is cheese.