Better Choices, Better Decisions, Better Living by Auenson Frank C.;

Author:Auenson, Frank C.; [Auenson, Frank C.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction/Self Improvement
Publisher: Total Publishing

Making Wise Choices

“Your statistical track record for decision-making is somewhat concerning.”

-Jennifer Lynn Barnes, All In

We make hundreds of decisions every day, whether its consciously or unconsciously and we seem to do pretty good most days. Or do we? most of our decision making is unconscious, as David Eagleman wrote in ‘Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain.’ Even when you think you are in control; you are actually on auto pilot.

Our brains learn to adapt and take on learning patterns and follow routines in order to save time and energy. We are creatures of habit and are bound to be making the same poor choices and decisions over and over again. Even when the circumstances are different.

We accept most of what we hear because it is easier than having to change our minds when making choices. How many times have you responded with “I don’t know” or “you decide” when asked a question like “what’s for dinner?”

We worry that our answers won’t be the accepted one so we would rather leave it to the other person to decide and simply go along with it.

Before we get into making wise choices and decisions, let’s look at the 4 biases that keep us from making the right choices and decisions:

1. Self-serving Bias- We tend to believe our successes are due to who we are and when we fail, we blame an external source, whether it be something or someone. We must be vulnerable enough to learn from our mistakes but also have the ability to maintain strong self-esteem and admit to our mistakes.

2. Cognitive Fluency- is the experienced ease of ongoing conceptual, or perceptual cognitive processes. Experiencing such fluency has profound influences on many judgments and inferences. In other words, we make judgments quite frequently throughout our day, whether conscious or unconscious. These judgments are made through the ease with which we process information to have understanding.

3. Sunk Cost Fallacy- Here is where we are all guilty when it comes to choices and decision making. We invest so much into something that we are afraid to let it go even when we know it is a complete loss.

Why is that? Because we are reluctant to walk away, whether we have invested time, money, and/or emotions, we become stuck, trying to salvage whatever it is that we are so invested in. We allow these losses to cloud our ability to make better choices moving forward. We are simply stuck in the past by our experiences.

4. Confirmation bias- Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning which requires far less cognitive effort. For this reason, we usually stick with the notion of what we know, rather than search out contradictory confirmation.

So, what does all this mean? Are our decision-making skills that flawed? Is this why we make such bad choices from time to time? Well yes and no.

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