Perception, reality and Decision Making

The video and the artist are phenomenal; they inspired me to write and share this article on how people make decision based on their perception Vs reality.

In the past, I always wondered: "why at work we often had different readings for the same situations?" ; when I proposed an excellent solution to fix any problem, others thought that it will lead to a disaster ... I realized later that we do not have the same perception!!!

In fact, our reactions are directly related to how we interpret the situation; this perception is directly influenced by our values, our beliefs, our emotions, our culture, our past experiences, our knowledge...

“Perception” can be defined as what you feel and interpret through your belief filters. In other words, when you trust something and you do not care whether what you believe is true or not, you have a perception

Your perception makes you believe things that may or may not be true. Your perception narrows your perspective to a very limited box of reality.

I would like to share two examples:

1-   In some organizations, you always have to say “yes” to your manager, it’s a cultural belief.

2-   In the past, I thought that all beggars are poor and has no money, until the day I discovered that it was only the shortest way for some of them to make money - it’s a past experiences belief.

Our perception defines our actions, reactions and decisions that are why it is imperative to balance the data, and weigh all arguments, then take action and make the decision.

It brings me back to the “big data”, we can never produce a solution for a phenomenon without having an overview on all the elements and the statistics in connection with the situation.

The idea I want to share is that “ just because you perceive something to be true doesn’t make it true”. We need to start expanding our beliefs to take the best decisions . Don’t limit our self by creating immutable beliefs.

#MohamedELFEZZAZI