Welcome!

• Questions can go in the chat or spoken
• Paul Worsham – interests in personal development led to working on courses and books.
• Decisions you have…

The Challenge of Decision Making

• We all face a constant stream of decisions – big and small.
• Feeling indecisive can hinder progress and cause frustration.
• Decision fatigue can lead to poor choices and missed opportunities.

Frameworks for Deciding

• Decision-making frameworks promise a structured approach to analyzing options.
• These frameworks can help us think critically, identify potential biases, and prioritize our goals.
• By employing these tools, we may be able to make more informed and confident choices.
• Example: Pros and Cons (Benjamin Franklin), Cynefin Framework (to find the approach), Eisenhower matrix (urgent/important), Regret Minimization Framework, Whole Body Yes.

Common Biases for Deciding

• Cognitive biases are unconscious mental shortcuts that can lead to suboptimal choices.
• Common biases include confirmation bias, anchoring bias, and the sunk cost fallacy.
• Recognizing our biases empowers us to make more objective and rational decisions

Energy Bias

• Our brains seek to maintain balance, including ensuring we have a supply of energy to survive.
• The survival bias affects the decisions the brain pushes us (our conscious minds) to choose.
• The lowest-energy choice of action is in many cases (most cases?) not aligned with our goals, and the rules we follow.

“Energicial” influences

• We learn (and can adjust) substitutions our brains have for energy, such as money, time, and possession.
• Keeping ourselves rested, fueled, and having appropriate exercise can help our ability to decide.
• Using a form of “choice architecture”, we can adjust the choices our brains have, and lower the resistance to a higher-energy choice.

Discussion

• There are ways to adjust quickly:
  • “I have the energy”
  • “It’s just energy”
• You can train yourself, by learning via practice to observe situations
• Q&A