Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work

by Chip Heath

the “confirmation bias,” is the second villain of decision making.

When people have the opportunity to collect information from the world, they are more likely to select information that supports their preexisting attitudes, beliefs, and actions.

This brings us to the third villain of decision making: short-term emotion.

the fourth villain of decision making is overconfidence.

You encounter a choice. But narrow framing makes you miss options. • You analyze your options. But the confirmation bias leads you to gather self-serving information. • You make a choice. But short-term emotion will often tempt you to make the wrong one. • Then you live with it. But you’ll often be overconfident about how the future will unfold.

Actually, there are 18 things that God would be very happy if you chose. You’re not cornered into becoming a priest or not. You’re not cornered into marrying this woman or not. There are 6 billion people in the world. You’re telling me that God looked at you and said, “There is only 1 thing you can do in your life, I know it and you have to guess it or else”? Could it be that you are putting your constraints on God?

5. How do we escape a narrow frame? Think about opportunity cost.

Or try the Vanishing Options Test: What if your current options disappeared?

7. It’s easier to spot a narrow frame from the outside—watch for it as a decision adviser. “Whether or not” decisions should set off warning bells.

One rule of thumb is to keep searching for options until you fall in love at least twice.

Psychologists have identified two contrasting mindsets that affect our motivation and our receptiveness to new opportunities: a “prevention focus,” which orients us toward avoiding negative outcomes, and a “promotion focus,” which orients us toward pursuing positive outcomes.

If we can do both, seeking out options that minimize harm AND maximize opportunity, we are more likely to uncover our full spectrum of choices.

Your dilemma sparks the search. But there’s a lot to be gained by taking the results of your search and recording them for future use—to turn a reactive search into a proactive set of guidelines.