Decision Making

There are many decisions that we make each day that have guaranteed outcomes and yet still we make the wrong choice, the costly choice.

That’s a bit like having the opportunity to go back in time and still betting on the wrong horse in a race you had already seen.

The simplest way to improve your life is to make better decisions. I’m not talking about those difficult decisions like whether or not to get married, or which stock to invest in, or which career to embark on, which candidate to employ or even where to go on holiday. These decisions have so many variables outside of our control that we’d do well to make a good choice.

I’m talking about the hundreds of little easy decisions we make each day where the outcome is guaranteed. The decision to eat healthy food over junk food. The decision to prioritise sleep. The decision to exercise. The decision to avoid doom-scrolling. Every day we make loads of these little decisions and in many cases we make take the costly option. Some of us make the costly choice more often than we make the beneficial choice.

I didn’t set out to improve my decision making. I set out to improve my mental and physical health, my energy, in the most sustainable and gentle way. As I got better and better at executing the tasks that improved my mental and physical health my decision making improved.

The decision to improve ones mental and physical health is in itself a good decision. Regularly performing the tasks that lead to this goal of improved health is also good decision making. But what I hadn’t expected, and what felt like an unintended by-product was that my decision making would improve, almost effortlessly, in situations beyond this.

As I got better and more consistent with executing my morning routine my decision making process seemed to change. No longer was my brain making decisions based on the dopamine load. For most decisions my brain was now running a quick cost/benefit analysis and reaching a conclusion based on the outcome of that analysis. Healthy food Vs junk food used to be a visceral, emotional debate. Now it simply became a question of which will benefit me most. Doom scrolling became less and less. Sitting in quiet contemplation became my happy place. YouTube binges lost their appeal. Regular reading gained appeal. The desire for alcohol dwindled to a dying whisper.

There’s a incredible confidence that comes with knowing you are good at making good decisions. Better choices, by definition lead to better outcomes. You enter this wonderful virtuous cycle of good choices, good outcomes, increased confidence and belief in your ability to make good choices leading to further good choices…