Modern society allows you far more choices than your ancestors had. One of the consequences is that proper decision making has become more important than ever before. Unfortunately, many people make sudden, life-ruining decisions while others suffer constant crises due to consistently bad choices on a great number of small matters. Fortunately, you can learn to improve your decision-making ability.
Step 1
Learn your cognitive biases. The human brain is hard-wired to miscalculate certain kinds of risks, says author Maia Szalavitz, writing for Psychology Today magazine. Your brain evolved from making life-or-death decisions in a Stone Age environment, which is why many of people fear snakes more than cars, and why some people move out of Los Angeles for fear of being killed in an earthquake, but ignore requests from relatives to stop smoking.
Step 2
Put yourself in the most comfortable environment possible. Consider not only aspects of your external environment, such as air temperature, but also aspects of your internal environment. Make sure you are well-rested, well-fed and in as positive a state of mind as you can be when making decisions. A positive outlook can help you see options that you may miss in a negative frame of mind, says cognitive psychologist Mark Jung-Beeman.
Step 3
Brainstorm until you have a long list of possible courses of action. The biggest mistake most people make when making decisions is failure to consider a wide-enough range of options, says Michael Roberto, a professor of management at Bryant University.
Step 4
Assemble all available information you need to make the decision within the required time frame, but don't overload yourself with details. The pre-frontal cortex of the human brain, responsible for rationality, can handle four to nine bits of information simultaneously. Any more than that, and it begins to oversimplify the problem by focusing on irrelevant details, according to Jonah Lehrer, author of "How We Decide."
Step 5
Get angry, advises psychologist Wesley Moons of the University of California at Santa Barbara. Controlled anger helps people avoid paralysis in decision making, discriminate between strong and weak arguments, and eliminate information that is irrelevant to the decision.
Step 6
Choose the best alternative among your options by listening to both your intellect and your intuition. Jung-Beeman asserts that good decisions are often the result of both insight and rational analysis because the intuitive brain utilizes nonlinear rationality and takes advantage of unconscious mental resources. Learning the difference between intuition and emotion is a skill that must be developed with practice. When using your intellect, don't be afraid to play "devil's advocate" by intentionally making your strongest possible arguments both for and against any course of action.
Step 7
Monitor the results of your decision and use them to correct your course of action, if necessary and if possible under the circumstances.
Tips and Warnings
- Sometimes no decision at all is better than a bad decision; other times, it's the other way around. Try to learn the difference through trial and error when the stakes are low.
- Sometimes you will have to make a quick, unexpected decision with high stakes--in a traffic emergency, for example. In such cases, speed must take precedence over careful consideration.
