The Science of Decision-Making: 5 Ways to Make the Right Decision Every Time
I have found myself repeatedly going back to a particular set of lines from a recent article I wrote on the importance of having faith to achieve the hardest things in life:
“Life is a series of small decisions that, when pieced together, reveal themselves in the habits we form and the behaviors we exhibit.
Everyone can make the right decision once, but making the right decisions consistently is what separates the good from the great, the successful from the world-changers. You need to make the right decisions when you are at your best, but also when you are at your worst.”
The thinking here is simple. Making the right decisions over and over holds the key to success.
Think about what you would be capable of if you made the right decision every single time.
If you always got out of bed when you were supposed to, always ate the right thing, always stuck to your gym schedule, always did work instead of procrastinated, always refrained from drunk-texting your ex, and always went to sleep at the proper time.
You would be freaking unstoppable.
But this stuff is complicated. You can take entire courses on it. It involves multiple parts of your brain. A battle of emotion vs. rational thinking. Animalistic vs. learned instincts.
But there are some simple things we can do to improve our decision-making and get a little closer to making the right decision every time. Here are five of them.
1. Focus on the big picture
“Our life is the sum total of all the decisions we make every day, and those decisions are determined by our priorities.” — Myles Munroe
When we have a decision to make, it is easy to think of that decision only in terms of its immediate consequence. If you don’t go to the gym today, you can just as easily go tomorrow. If you don’t work on your company that extra hour today, you can work two extra hours the next day. If you don’t make it home to see your family, there is always next weekend.
This allows us to regularly justify making poor decisions. We rationalize them because we perceive them as not having a major impact.
It is when we view our decisions in the greater context of what they reveal about ourselves that we fully realize their impact.
The decisions that you make reveal what you prioritize and what you value. Once we focus on that point, it becomes a lot more difficult to justify poor decisions.
Now, instead of just not going to the gym, you are saying that you do not value your health. Instead of just choosing not to work for an extra hour, you are saying that you do not value hard work. Instead of just choosing not to make that trip home, you are saying that you do not value family.
Focus on what your decisions say about your values and you will find it easier to make the right ones.
2. Know what you value
This way of thinking is only effective if we first know what we value. We all passively know what we value, but we need to take it a step further and actively state what our priorities and values are. We need to write them down and revisit them frequently.
If you value honesty, then you will always tell the truth. If you value credibility, then you will always do what you say you are going to do. If you value serving others, then you will always show up to volunteer on the weekends.
Before you can focus on what you value to make better decisions, you need to know what you value in the first place.
3. Recognize and overcome the sunk-cost bias
The sunk-cost bias is our tendency to continue down a losing or negative path because of the investment we have already made to get there. In short, it occurs when we allow prior decision-making to influence new decisions instead of thinking in the present moment.
You finish out a week of eating unhealthy because it’s already Wednesday and there is no use in changing now. You continue working on a company going nowhere because you’ve already been at it for four years. You stay in a major you hate because you are already a junior and it would be too much of a hassle to switch now.
The effect of the sunk-cost bias is that we often continue to make bad decisions based solely on previous decisions. The key to overcoming it? Focus on staying in the present when making decisions and forget about considering the past.
A 2013 study showed that practicing mindful meditation can mitigate the effects of the sunk-cost bias. Mindfulness through meditation allows us to overcome deep-rooted negative tendencies and ultimately make better decisions.
When making decisions, consider not your previous behavior but rather all of the factors in the present moment.
4. Create the necessary environment
When asking ourselves to make the right decision every time, we are often asking for extreme showings of willpower and an overcoming of our natural instincts. Under the right circumstances, this is difficult. Under the wrong circumstances, it is impossible.
Depend a little less on pure willpower by creating the right environment for you to make the right decisions.
I’ve written at length about the importance of controlling your environment before.
You know you shouldn’t be on your phone within a half-hour of going to bed, so instead of depending on your willpower, leave your phone outside of your room and buy an alarm clock.
Instead of depending on yourself to come home from work, grab your gym clothes, and have the initiative to get out of the door again, take your gym clothes with you to work.
And instead of depending on your ability to not snack at 11 PM, don’t buy the junk food in the first place.
This also extends to the people with whom you associate. Surround yourself with people who enforce your good decision-making and ditch the people that peer pressure you into bad decision-making.
5. Take immediate action with the 5 Second Rule
Mel Robbins pioneered the 5 Second Rule in this 2011 TEDx Talk. In Mel’s words, the rule states:
“If you have an impulse to act on a goal, you must physically move within 5 seconds or your brain will kill the idea.”
Mel’s theory is that, when we are faced with a decision that in which there is a disconnect between how we know we should act and how we feel like acting if our brain is left to think about it, how we feel will always win out.
Her solution? Don’t give your brain time to think. As soon as the thought to act enters your head, count down from five and act.
This applies to getting out of bed, starting a new company, or exploring that grand new idea. As soon as the thought hits you, act. Through action, we break old ways of thinking, old habits, old decision-making practices and form new ones.
Let’s recap. Shall we?
To put it simply, your life is a product of the decisions you make. While each individual decision may seem small, their collective impact is great. If you can simply make the right decision every time, you can build the life you imagine.
Focus on the big picture — remember that every decision you make is a reflection of who you are as a person.
Know what you value and then act on those values.
Practice mindfulness to overcome letting the past influence your decision-making.
Be purposeful about creating the right environment for you to make good decisions.
Take immediate action.
The life you could have, the person you could become, calls on you to make the right decisions, to start now, and continue every day. You owe yourself that life.
Don’t wait. Act.
