Do you ever second-guess your choices and wonder why you made them?
We all make poor choices.
Spending all of your money on an SUV.
Getting into a relationship before falling in love.
Accepting a job for which you lack enthusiasm.
Producing goods that are unnecessary
Things happen (the above examples are all about me). However, the odd thing is that poor choices seldom seem to be poor choices at the time.
I've been reading about how two of the greatest investors of all time, Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger, make decisions.
I learned that Buffet and Munger had a learning technique centred on what you should avoid doing from Alice Schroeder's biography of Warren Buffett. They recognise errors and try to stay away from them. However, as Charlie Munger notes:
“Smart people do dumb things.”
You will always make mistakes. You may, however, try your best to refrain from making poor choices.
Additionally, you might make your own blunders by adopting other people's mistakes by learning from them. It will help you learn more quickly.
Avoid overthinking.
People with intelligence are much too focused on acting morally. They aspire to have the ideal life, profession, home, company, automobile, vacation, etc.
Analysis paralysis occurs when you place too much pressure on yourself to choose wisely.
I just had a conversation with a buddy about changing careers. I asked him to explain his thought process to me:
"My job used to be interesting, but I no longer like working for this firm. It's been four years since I started this work. Even though I've received two promotions, the job is still the same. I have thus been researching different businesses. But what if I choose a different location and it doesn't work out? I'll have to go right now. And my resume won't look good with that."
I didn't say anything.
"Just listening to myself talk makes me do something else: overthink it."
We both laughed uncontrollably. The same is true for excessive thinking. You have probably also been there.
You become immobilised if you overthink every choice you make. Nothing came of it. That's a poor result right there!
People waste their lives in this way.
Making yourself aware of your thought process is the only way to quit overthinking. My acquaintance realised how illogical his thought process was when I questioned him about it.
The future is out of your control. Stop thinking it, then.
Instead, try this: Make modest choices. Make decisions often.
Peter Bevelin's book Seeking Wisdom was just what I needed. It has to do with Charlie Munger's mentality. Avoiding errors is one of his methods for making decisions. However, there are several interpretations of that.
You may completely avoid making decisions out of fear of making blunders. You end up not making any decisions at all. As Munger puts it
“The difference between a good business and a bad business is that good businesses throw up one easy decision after another. The bad businesses throw up painful decisions time after time.”
That Munger quotation can be read in a variety of ways. I understand it to mean:
It's simple to make little judgments early on, before they grow to be major ones. Delays cause decisions to grow large and unpleasant.
For instance, I don't like the email service provider I use to distribute my newsletter. Their customer service is unreliable, there is poor interaction with my platform for online courses, and users have voiced complaints about not receiving my newsletter.
I've had this on my radar for more than a year and a half. My list was far shorter back then than it is now, by more than half. Moreover, I just took one online course. I currently have three.
Changing providers is becoming more and more of a problem. It was simple if I had moved quickly. It's a tough procedure by this point.
It's the same in real life. A terrible relationship grows tougher to quit the longer you stay in it. Your employment also fits into this.
Better decisions are made as time passes.
You have a greater probability of making wiser choices if you make more and earlier judgments.
I frequently assert that there are only decisions and no good or incorrect ones. That's not exactly true. There is a difference in the calibre of our selections, of course. That is the subject of a different article.
The fact is that making no decision at all is also a decision. That's OK if it was a deliberate action. You give it some thought and determine that the wisest course of action is to do nothing.
I'm referring, however, to deferring action, as in "I'll put it off till another time."
You always have choices to choose, no matter what. We need to make more deliberate decisions early rather than fewer.
Since all you really need to live a wonderful life are a few wise decisions. What will you find to be best? You don't learn until after, you guessed it, you've decided.