Think twice!

Should I skip breakfast and have ten more minutes in bed? Do I wear the new shirt that I’ve just
bought or do I go for my old one? Decisions, decisions; they take up a lot of our thinking time.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed by decisions and it’s hardly surprising when you look at the
statistics. While a child makes around 3,000 decisions a day, as you get older, you make an
estimated 35,000. 1____ But apart from deciding what to eat, our heads get crammed with other
choices about school, friends and home. At times, it seems like the easiest option is to let
someone else make the decision for you whether you like it or not.

But I’m beginning to realise that you can learn how to make good decisions. There are ways to
filter your decisions and focus on the important ones. Do you know that Mark Zuckerberg, who
is the founder of Facebook, always wears a grey T-shirt? Why? Well, it means he can
concentrate on important decisions and not spend ages deciding what to wear. 2____ Although
it might be important to you to wear the right shirt, you could probably simplify your choices (and
still look good) and decide what’s really important.

There are times when we seem to have little control over the decisions we make. Picture this.
3____ Having thought of a reply and typed it in to your phone, you have your finger poised on
the send button. You touch the screen and it’s gone. You’ve acted without thinking it through
and for a split second it feels good. 4____ You soon realise that you’ve been a bit harsh and
caused more upset than you really wanted to … for yourself and others. A person reacting
emotionally often isn’t in the best position to judge a situation well.

So, how can you avoid making bad decisions? Ideally, take time to ‘sleep on it’ and consider the
consequences. Decisions made in a rush are often regretted later. Then try and work out why
you made such a decision. Were you influenced by a friend whose advice was short-sighted or
just wrong? 5____ It’s also good to ask yourself how you’re feeling while you’re making the
decision. Being aware of a sense of relief or excitement can be a good sign that you’re doing
the right thing. If you don’t feel anything then beware! 6____ And my final tip; don’t make a
decision on an empty stomach or when you’ve got ‘hanger’. Never heard of it? It’s that angry
feeling you get when you’re hungry. After eating, you will be much more in control of your
decision-making skills.

Despite all the advice out there, there will be times when you mess it up and make the wrong
decision but that shouldn’t stop you from being spontaneous and creative. The more decisions
you make, the better you get at them, and fingers crossed you won’t make the same mistake
twice!

Can’t decide? Just flip a coin

Flipping a coin is a tried and tested method of coming to a decision over something fairly minor:
such as what to watch on TV, who buys lunch, or whose turn it is to wash up. But what if you
were to make major life choices in the same way? Heads I do it, tails I don’t.

This is exactly what a study by Steven Levitt of the University of Chicago got people to do. He
says that very few studies have been done to find out whether people are good at making
important choices. 1____ Its aim was to assess whether change would play a role in making
people happier.

Participants were invited onto a website set up by Levitt and were asked to choose one of thirty
questions. 2____ Examples included leaving a job, breaking up a relationship or going back to
full-time education. The first two of these were in fact the most responded to questions in the
whole experiment. ‘Should I change my job?’ was the subject of 2,186 coin flips alone.

So how did it all work? The participants gave an assessment of their level of happiness on a
scale of one to ten. 3____ Heads meant go ahead and make the change; tails stick with the
status quo. Levitt followed up with each participant at two- and six-monthly intervals after the
initial experiment. He surveyed them to find out if they’d followed the result of the coin flip and
how happy they were with their choice. People the volunteers knew were also invited to give
feedback on their level of wellbeing before and after the experiment.

In total, the coin was flipped in the experiment over 22,000 times. Of course, not every question
answered was a life-changing one and not every participant acted on the result of the coin flip.
However, over half in the serious question category did. In Levitt’s summary of his findings he
states that the people who had made a change were ‘substantially happier’ than those who had
done nothing. 4____

What does this mean for the average person trying to navigate a complex world? Well, it isn’t an
invitation to leave every serious life decision to the flip of a coin. 5____ The fact the study group
were volunteers means that it wasn’t fully representative of the general population. Having them
self-assess their happiness level also leaves their conclusions open to interpretation.

However, what the experiment does show is how much help we need when faced with difficult
decisions. The thought of major change is both exhilarating and terrifying. Despite the countless
hours spent turning a decision over and over in our mind, the end result is often to do nothing.
6____ Also, research into regret shows that we are more likely to feel negative about inaction
than action. You regret what you don’t do, not what you do. So if Levitt’s work teaches us
anything, maybe it’s to take a leap into the unknown. It might just work out fine.