by Lisa Kentgen
An unexpected outcome of this exploration was that Jordan continued at times to physically feel a tingling in his neck. This became a reminder that he could hold onto. It helped Jordan when he was exasperated with Thomas. It also helped him approach his wife differently, with more compassion, when he was upset and felt she wasn’t supporting his parenting efforts.
This tingling, the memory of the experience, gave Jordan a sense of expansiveness. It gave him hope that he could make different choices when handling difficult emotional situations. Importantly, by paying attention to the physical experience, Jordan had a memory that could not have been conjured up by the rational, analytical mind. Future tingling was evocative of the awareness of his vulnerability in allowing himself to be so touched by his love for his son. This is a great example of how focusing on what is happening right now—and making more room for all your experience—allows for deep understanding that your problem-solving brain cannot envision.
A lovely follow-up occurred several months after this session. Jordan found himself stressed and irritable on a weekend away with his wife and son. Noticing this, his son asked him if he’d like to take a time-out to help him feel better. Jordan, deeply moved, took his son’s advice and spent time in his workshop, which was a special place for him. He also asked his son to join him in this place where he usually spent time alone to recharge himself. The hour they spent together will be a lasting memory for Jordan—and maybe for Thomas, too.
Part III
Choosing
Chapter 9
How to Make
Better Decisions
Liberty, taking the word in its concrete sense,
consists in the ability to choose.
Simone Weil
Every day you make countless choices as part of the routine management of your life. You pay bills, practice self-care, clean your home, shop, make social plans, return emails, and plan for your future. In your relationships, you negotiate who does what in the day-to-day management of living. If you have the financial means to have others help manage life’s details, you have relationships with them around how these things get done.
In modern life, you have more choice than ever before. Does so much choice put you in a better position to skillfully make decisions? Do more options create a sense of greater volition? Probably not. Having too many options can actually hamper good decision-making. Generally, the more options available, the more psychic energy it takes to choose, and the less satisfying decision-making becomes.
Many decisions are made entirely outside of conscious awareness. Even when conscious, we aren’t so good at identifying what actually influences our decision-making. As more choices are available, we are less likely to consciously make decisions. Because we are inundated with advertising and so much choice, now—maybe more than ever— it is essential to become a more intentional decision-maker. Conscious choosing requires that we learn to tune out options that are distractions.
Psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky conducted groundbreaking research in the way that decisions are made and found that we are often biased and irrational. One common decision-making bias is the default bias. When people have a high cognitive load, or a lot going on, they choose the status quo or what is familiar. Since our lives are more hectic and distracting than ever, this isn’t promising for making intentional decisions. Choosing what is familiar is a fine choice if consciously chosen. However, returning to the status quo by default is often an avoidance of practicing intentional choice.
Bring Greater Awareness to the Act of Choosing
Choose to choose. If you fall back on the familiar, make it a conscious decision. Choosing to choose means accepting the responsibility of making decisions that help you take meaningful action toward your aspirations and in alignment with your values.
Making wise decisions requires two things: consciously reducing the amount of choice to be made and, importantly, practicing intentional choosing.
Your current choices shape your future choices. The decisions that will likely shape your life for the better require active engagement and sometimes tough choices. Be an active participant in the decisions that shape your life. Give thought to what decisions are worthy of your time and effort. Establish practices to help you arrive at decisions that reflect what is most meaningful.
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Anne, a young creative and aspiring urban designer, often came to sessions looking like she just woke up. She was nearly paralyzed by an inability to make decisions. Anne wanted to move beyond semi-interesting part-time jobs toward developing a name for herself in her profession but was unclear how to move forward. She was unclear about many things.
Routine decisions threatened to overwhelm Anne. For example, while sitting with her morning coffee she thought about whether to drop off laundry on the way to work or wait until her day off. If she dropped it off on the way to work, should she also go to the food co-op? She then had difficulty sequencing the two activities. Planning when and what to eat that day could also overwhelm her. How would she find the time to buy and prepare healthy meals? Every consideration was a complication that morphed into a sticky ball of confusion.
Because she often felt overwhelmed, Anne typically avoided making decisions until she could no longer put them off. As a result, she was in a constant state of catch-up and disorganization. Her indecisiveness made her feel badly about herself. In addition to chronic anxiety she was becoming depressed, which worsened her existing organizational challenges as well as the cycle of fear around making decisions.
I asked Anne to create a list of a dozen or so decisions she encountered on a typical day, without giving it much thought. Then, take the list and create a hierarchy in terms of their importance as well as their urgency. Anne returned the following week with a diagram with dozens of items listed. In addition to the main list in the center, there were many items scrawled in the margins. Looking at this pictorial representation of her thought process, I had a felt understanding of Anne’s experience of confusion. For example, there was no distinction of whether changing her cat’s brand of food was more important or immediate than taking steps to pursue a new job.
At this point I wondered if, in addition to psychotherapy, Anne needed cognitive remediation. It turned out to be unnecessary. By placing her awareness on the inner turmoil and confusion that arose during the act of choosing, Anne got some relief from the pressure to choose. With less pressure, she was able to select just one or two decisions to focus upon. With less fear and pain in approaching making decisions she could more effectively explore her relationship to choice.
With practice narrowing her focus, Anne got snippets of clarity about her preferences and priorities. Importantly, she recognized how difficult it was for her to emotionally let go of any possibility because of painful self-doubt. She believed there was a right choice and didn’t trust herself to make it. By shifting the focus to her self-doubt and fear of closing doors, Anne saw that she did have preferences but had little faith in her ability to effectively pursue them. As Anne continued to take small steps in making decisions, she gradually felt able to test out and own her decisions. She felt empowered to recognize her budding clarity on what she wanted from work, from herself, and from relationships. Knowing her priorities, she could now take meaningful steps toward them.
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You likely aren’t incapacitated by everyday decisions. But what would it be like for you to create a hierarchical representation of your choices? Do you know which decisions are most central and timely in relation to what you find most meaningful? Do you spend too much time engaged in activities you did not consciously choose? Do you feel as if the obligations of your current lifestyle leave little room to choose differently or to change course? These are important questions to explore.
Exercise: Create a Decision-Making Hierarchy
This exercise will help you reflect upon where you place your time and energy in decisions
now, and what changes could be made to better align them with your core values and aspirations.
On one piece of paper, make a list of the decisions you have made in the past week. It might help to first write down on a separate piece of paper all that you can think of. Include both mundane choices as well as more complex decisions, like those related to longer-term goals. Include choices that you want to make even if you have not yet made them. Then take the list and rank them in order of importance. Put the decisions that are related to your core values and long-term goals on top. If you are not clear, that’s OK. The purpose of the exercise is to help get clarity.
Reflect upon the hierarchy you have created. Ask yourself questions in relation to this decision-making tree. Which decisions, if any, are challenging for you? Which are easy? Which are you delaying or avoiding? Which aren’t important but still urgent? Which ones could you do away with? Which decisions matter to you but aren’t related to your core values? Do any of these choices seem big and weighty? If so, what is your approach to them? Toward which of these decisions do you think you are more intentional? Where do you think you can make inroads into being more intentional?
Simplify the Decisions You Need to Make
Your time and energy are important assets. They are finite. Don’t waste them.
Shape your life by simplifying your decisions. Consciously reduce the number of choices you make. Save your resources for navigating decisions that will make a lasting impact. Hone your decision-making skills on choices that will enrich you. Routinize aspects of your day by consciously making choices in advance. Doing so helps declutter the day-to-day management of your life.
Routinize decisions by becoming a minimalist most of the time. For example, consciously choose in advance what you wear and eat during the work week, how and when you exercise, and what you do for other forms of self-care. This way, you can better prioritize making other choices, especially challenging ones, while still implementing prior choices around healthy living. Enjoy spontaneity and new experiences when you have the time, energy, and quality of presence to appreciate them!
A few years back I simplified my clothing choices, making more careful decisions in what I bought, kept, and wore. This required time and thought up-front but ultimately ended up saving a tremendous amount of time. Before this I didn’t always exercise conscious choice in buying clothes. I shopped haphazardly, picking up what appealed to me without consideration of how it functioned in my life. I didn’t know all that I had and some of my clothes went unworn. This didn’t align with my value of living simply.
Practicing more conscious decision-making in buying clothing has saved time in thinking about what to wear and time spent in stores. Shopping less, I feel less pulled by material things. Now when I buy clothes, they generally need to meet the criteria of comfort, quality, style that reflects me, and generally fits in with what I already have. I still occasionally spontaneously shop and buy things that are outside my typical style, especially when I travel abroad. But now when I do, I make sure to wear it. As a result of more intentionally choosing my clothes, I now like them more and think about them less.
To reduce the number of decisions you need to make throughout your day, it can be helpful to begin your day with a one-minute reflection on what choices, if any, you want to focus on that day. Be specific if you can. Of course, unexpected and urgent things may come up that need attention. But having clarity approaching your day helps you stay on track. A less cluttered mind helps you to be more responsive to whatever arises that needs your attention, and to set limits around it.
To practice intentional decision-making, simplify your life in ways other than routinizing decisions. Live within your means and have a healthy relationship with money. Debt that doesn’t grow in value or add to your life in meaningful ways decreases your long-term freedom to choose.
Are you more attracted to things than experiences? Notice if a lot of energy is directed toward bright, shiny objects which detract from choices that enrich your life. Bright shiny objects are anything that is compelling but, ultimately, empty because they don’t enrich you. They might be the latest technology apps, fashion trends, ideas, or people du jour. If you find yourself distracted by shiny objects, it may be because you have difficulty making and enacting decisions that add to your sense of yourself as authentic and your life as purposeful. Shiny objects shine even brighter when you experience self-doubt or uncertainty. Focus within, not outside yourself, to prioritize your choices.
Let your decisions reflect what is most important to you. Decide for yourself what you need to bring into your life. If your choices leave you unfulfilled, re-evaluate them. Be willing to get rid of things that clutter your mind, and life, and unnecessarily commit your time and resources.
Become a Student of How You Actually Make Decisions
How we think we make decisions and how decisions are actually made are often very different. For example, emotion plays a large, often underestimated and misunderstood, role in decision-making. The bad news is that decision-making is often biased and irrational. The good news is, as individuals, we can become students of our own biases. This will make us better decision-makers. Behavioral scientists and neurobiologists have documented a relatively long list of tendencies that get in the way of making effective decisions. This knowledge can empower us to do things differently.
Making decisions that align with your core values requires thinking outside the box as well as being open to challenging your current views. Cognitive biases, though they help you make decisions more efficiently, also thwart your capacity to think broadly and flexibly. For example, in addition to the status quo bias (preference for the familiar) mentioned earlier, we tend to agree with people who agree with us. We are better at seeing the error in another person’s thinking than our own. We prefer pleasant experiences in the present and avoid the pain or difficult things for later. And, when we make a bad decision, we try to rationalize it rather than learn from it. As you can imagine, these biases aren’t particularly helpful for complex decisions that require flexible and creative thinking.
At the same time, you can overcome bias through practicing intentional choice. You have the capacity to reflect on your relationship to making decisions: how you formulate them, implement them, and evaluate them. Become aware of what kind of decision-maker you are. Consciously making decisions is the best strategy for implementing effective action.
For years I had a style of comfortably following my intuition. When the decisions were weightier, either because they involved a large investment or mattered greatly to me, I generally took time to explore options and weigh them. Sometimes I overweighed them; afraid to choose. Probably my most difficult situations were when I had to find someone to partner with in implementing my decisions. An example of this was when I interviewed general contractors around a construction project. One of my biases (unfortunately unrecognized for a long time) was that when I enjoyed an interaction with someone, I would be less likely to gather the kind of information needed to make the best decision. This happened, at times, because I did not have enough information on hand. But more often it happened either because I got caught up in an enthusiastic conversation, or because of an unexplored belief that a good connection to the person meant she or he was the best person for the job. This bias, or underlying belief, impaired my capacity to evaluate who was best for the job beyond the initial connection.
Fortunately, this bias did not lead to catastrophic results. Sometimes it worked out well. But too often the process became more fraught then it needed to be. Once I practiced more intentional decision-making and became more skilled at identifying my own bias, I could be clearer on how to approach decisions that would lead to more effective work partnerships. Of course, connection remains an important consideration to me on projects that involve an ongoing relationship. But an over reliance on a good first impression no longer interferes with my ability to ask important ques
tions that help me arrive at the best choice.
How do you make decisions? Like most of us, you probably have ideas of how you make decisions that don’t jibe with reality. And, like most of us, you probably are more effective choosing in some areas and less effective in others.
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Paul, a young aspiring writer, came to New York City to find a writing community and develop his writing voice. One of his gifts as a writer was his attention to detail. Paul let writing develop organically without editing himself prematurely. He trusted his intuition and also sought feedback when he felt his work was far enough along to show others.
Paul’s writing style was in stark contrast to his interpersonal style. In social situations, he was filled with self-doubt and anxiety. Each conversation was weighty; every interaction was make or break. He overthought social interactions, believing there was a right and a wrong choice of what to say and how to behave. Unlike when writing, socially he constantly edited himself and imagined others were judging him. Paul’s painful self-judgment and overthinking, fueled by his biases, effectively shut down his capacity to be spontaneous in front of others.
In therapy, Paul explored how he made decisions in different areas of his life. His ability to allow thoughts to flow unimpeded while writing helped him feel creative and confident. What got in the way of allowing this same freedom in social situations? Framed in this way, Paul examined an underlying core belief that he was uninteresting; that he was unformed in terms of his identity. He believed everyone else had more conviction in their beliefs and more clarity about who they were. This comparison to others made him feel lonely and inadequate.