Making better decisions puts you on a clear path to succeed.
Our decisions not only affect our outcomes on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis; they shape the entire trajectory of our lives. For instance, if I had attended another university for college, several parts of my life today would be completely different. I would have an entirely different set of experiences, relationships, values — the list goes on.
You could even illustrate the gravity of decision-making mathematically. Let’s assume that on a yearly basis, you make 100 important decisions, and that on average, your decision leads to a positive outcome 60% of the time. Each good decision gives you 1 point and each bad one takes away 1 point. That’s a +60 and -40 every year, adding up to +20. If you improved your “batting average” by just 5%, it would lead to a +65 and -35 each year, bringing your net sum to +30. At face value, +30 isn’t very far from +20. But over a period of five, ten, twenty years, what would this advantage look like? Imagine as well if these net sums compounded every year. Decisions and their outcomes are never this simple of course, but what’s crucial is recognizing how much impact our decision-making ability has in the long run.
However, we must also acknowledge that mistakes are inevitable, and are lessons we need in order to learn and grow. It’s impossible to never make mistakes — we’re only human after all. But life is short. The average lifespan of a human is 72 years old, assuming no serious health complications occur, or God forbid, any terrible accidents. Many might not agree, but I think that life is too random and unpredictable to assume we have X number of years left to succeed. Wouldn’t you rather achieve your goals in 10 years instead of 20? This isn’t about rushing our lives. It’s about understanding the value of the time we have. We need to start making better decisions now, and ensure each decision is as optimal as possible.
Cultivating mental models can greatly help improve our decision-making ability. I came across the concept of mental models for the first time on the Farnam Street blog, a platform that delivers incredible value with regards to learning and making decisions.
“A mental model is simply a representation of how something works. We cannot keep all of the details of the world in our brains, so we use models to simplify the complex into understandable and organizable chunks.” — Shane Parrish, Farnam Street
In essence, mental models are frameworks in our mind that help us approach situations in different ways. Each mental model provides a unique perspective of a situation. The more models you have, the more viewpoints you can refer to before you act. When used right, you end up with a decision formed by sound logic and insight.
Side note: I plan on writing a series of posts where I break down my favorite mental models. Stay tuned!
One of my favorite mental models is Hanlon’s Razor, which says to “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” This mental model advocates for as much benefit of the doubt as possible in the face of frustrating or bothersome situations. Too often, we assume that people do harmful things to us on purpose and we end up failing to consider whether their actions were intended or not. Even I commit this mistake, whenever I react violently to other cars on the road. I let my emotions get the best of me during these times, and I’ve realized that I need to improve in this area. While it’s natural for us to look out for ourselves — especially because there really are terrible people out there — the truth is, not everyone is out to get you. People are flawed, and can be surprisingly ignorant of the perceptions of their actions.
Imagine this. You’re at work, and your lunch break just began. Work has been hell the whole morning and all you want to do is have a good meal. You go to your favorite fast-food place and wait in line for a while. When it’s almost your turn, someone cuts in front of you and talks to the cashier. In this situation, many of us would immediately feel angry and react violently by confronting this person. But it turns out, the person who cut in line was an elderly woman who was simply confused about where to line up. It was her first time in this particular restaurant and because of her bad eyesight, she could not read the signs that guide you where to fall in line. She made an innocent mistake, and had absolutely no intention of doing you any harm. Now, imagine how you would feel if you confronted this woman? I for one, would feel absolutely terrible and be riddled with guilt for the rest of the day. Fortunately, with Hanlon’s Razor kept in mind, we can become well-equipped to avoid unnecessary confrontation and conflict. And in the long term, we ease much of the tension inside us by learning how to see people not as malicious, but as imperfect beings.
While reading Shane Parrish’s book The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts, I discovered the story of Stanislav Petrov — the man who saved the world from World War III. His story is arguably one of the best illustrations of why optimal decision-making can make or break not just one person’s life, but the lives of countless others as well.
Stanislav Petrov was a Lieutenant Colonel who served in the Soviet Air Defence Forces from 1972 to 1984. He is most famous for his involvement in the 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident, which took place during a time of critically strained relations between the Soviet Union and the United States. Petrov was stationed at a bunker near Moscow, which housed the command center of the Soviet early warning satellites. He was tasked with observing the satellite early warning network and notifying higher command of any impending nuclear missile attacks.
The incident occurred in the middle of the night on September 26, 1983. Seemingly out of nowhere, the bunker’s computers reported that a ballistic missile was on its way towards the Soviet Union. But instead of judging this as an imminent threat, Petrov considered it a computer error and decided not to escalate any further measures. According to his explanation, he believed that if the United States was going to initiate a nuclear attack, it would likely involve hundreds of simultaneous missile launches, in order to prevent the Soviet Union from counterattacking.
Petrov was right about the report being an error. It was later proven that the false alarm was caused by a rare anomaly, in which the sunlight on high-altitude clouds aligned with their satellites’ orbit. According to the Soviet Union’s doctrine of mutual assured destruction, if inbound missiles had been detected by the early warning systems, the Soviet Nation would immediately retaliate with a nuclear counter-attack against the United States. If Petrov had elected to follow standard protocol and relay the report, this incident could very well have been the start of World War III. Millions of lives would have been lost, and modern civilization as we know it would be completely different. But thanks to his great decision-making ability, Petrov inadvertently made a choice that saved the entire world from ruin.
Getting better at making decisions isn’t just for success in your career. It could help you with your relationships; Hanlon’s Razor can help you save a lot of them. You can even aim to get better just for your own personal happiness. The point is that whatever it is we want to improve or achieve, hard work alone isn’t always enough. Rather than burning ourselves out by working non-stop, we can instead learn how to work smart and make better choices in our pivotal moments—and using mental models can help us get there. We don’t need to save millions of lives like Petrov did. We only need to enrich our own, and ideally of those around us.
Life is too short to waste. Learn how to decide well, and get to where you want to be without missing out on all that life has to offer.
