How Good is your Decision-Making ?

From selecting sauces at subway to selecting the right life partner, we have so many decisions to make throughout our life time. And the decisions we take everyday bridges our journey towards our goals and accomplishments.

However, most of the times, most of us take decisions not on the basis of intellect but on the basis of emotional quotient. And we justify our decisions with some arguments which we didn’t even took into consideration while taking those decisions.

Let’s consider some examples from everyday life.

1. Selection of Deodorant

• Case : You went to buy a deodorant from a convenience store and you bought, let’s say, Axe from the store.
• Question : Why that very brand (that specific fragrance) and not other ?

Wait. Take some time. Do you ever (read : always) think before picking that selected deodorant and tossing it into your shopping basket ?

No.

Because Before we realize, we have already made a decision, and then we end up providing rational arguments to support our decision.

• Argument : Because that very brand suits you. It suits your pocket. Because the fragrance lasts for a long time.

Although most of the times, we don’t weigh any pros and cons of selecting that brand or that fragrance at the time of selection, but we tend to justify our decision based on arguments which begins to form in our thoughts only after taking that decision and when we are challenged to think for our decision.

• Real Reason : You selected that brand, maybe, because of the impact of advertisement of that brand on your subconscious mind. Or you selected because it was completely irrational and you didn’t want to waste minutes in selecting your deodorant.

But when we are challenged to answer our decision, we often tend to support the decisions by converting our irrational arguments into rational ones.

2. Going to bookstore to buy a book

• Case : You need to step out from your home to walk to a book store and buy the book. However, you ended up ordering online.
• Question : Why you ordered online and not from the book store ?
• Argument : You can get discount by ordering online. What if the book is not available at the store ?
• Real Reason : You were lazy enough to walk to the bookstore and after already taking a decision to buy online, you are forming rational arguments in our mind to support our claim.

To support the claim, there is a concept of Bounded Rationality which is as follow:

Bounded rationality is the idea that in decision-making, rationality of individuals is limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the finite amount of time they have to make a decision.

How can we improve our decision making skills ?

• Expanding the horizon of knowledge and information about the specific process related to the decision
• Outweighing pros and cons of the particular decision
• Taking time and preparing a constructive flow chart before taking decision. By repeating and compounding it again and again, it can be mastered to take in split seconds
• Thinking of rational arguments before making decision and not vice-versa
• Challenging yourself and your decisions

Let me know your thoughts on the same and how often are you able to relate to this in your day to day life.