There are only two things that determine the general direction of our lives: luck and the quality of the decisions we make. The former is a random variable, while the latter is a factor in which we can control and improve the direction of life.

Before making a decision: clarify the misunderstanding of thinking

In essence, any decision is a prediction of the future.

However, many people have two serious thinking misunderstandings in the decision-making process: one is "result-oriented", and the other is "hindsight deviation" (Zhuge Liang afterwards).

"result-oriented" means that people will judge decisions according to the quality of the results.In every field, it is often the result that determines the quality of the decision.

You bought a stock and the stock price quadrupled-great decision! You bought a stock and almost lost it all-- bad decision!

You start to work out, and after two months, you lose weight and gain muscle-a great decision! However, if your shoulder is dislocated in the first two days of workout, it's a bad decision!

There are many factors that affect the results. to put it simply, in addition to the quality of decision-making controlled by individuals, there is also the random parameter of "luck".

Due to the intervention of luck, the decisions you make (which may have multiple results) will produce actual results. Based on the combination of decision quality and results, four results can be obtained:

• Good decision + good result is deserved.

• Good decision + bad result is bad luck

• Bad decision + good result is bad luck.

• Bad decisions + bad results are self-inflicted.

If you fall into the misunderstanding of "result-oriented" thinking, you will understand shit luck as your own brilliant decision-making, thus using the wrong decision-making method.

It's not easy to give up the idea that good things happen to me, but it's worth it in the long run.

A slight change in the attitude of ignoring luck can have a huge impact on your way of life. These small changes, like compound interest, can pay off handsomely for your future decisions.

Another misunderstanding of thinking, "hindsight deviation", is a fallacy caused by memory.

We will constantly narrate the whole event according to the logic that can be justified after it happened, and modify our memory according to the rationality of the narrative. This is what we often call "Zhuge Liang after the event".

When you make a decision, there are some things you know and some things you don't know. And of all the possible outcomes, what really happens must be what you don't know.

But in hindsight, when you know that it really happened, you will feel like "it is so" or "I knew it". The actual results distort your memory of the decision-making process.

If there's anything worse than regret "should have known" for the rest of your life, it's to regret and hear someone say "I told you so" at the same time.

In order to correct the hindrance of "rearview deviation" to improve our decision-making level, we should faithfully record our own ideas, the factors to be considered, and the prediction of possible future results as a tool to assist memory in the process of major decision-making. Then when looking back after the results come out, there is an objective and clear record without having to struggle with your own memory.

A simple "six-step decision-making method"

Our life is a process of constantly making decisions. What we need is to master a good decision-making framework, which can improve our decision-making level and the most favorable range of the overall decision-making results in probability, rather than pursuing the best result of a particular decision. No one can guarantee this.

Duke divided the decision-making framework into six main steps

1. To find a reasonable set of possible outcomes, list as many possibilities as possible.

2. Determine preferences by comparing the returns from each result-how much do you like or dislike each result in terms of value orientation?

3. Evaluate the probability of each outcome (probabilistic thinking).

4. Evaluate the relative likelihood that candidate decisions will produce results you like or dislike.

5. Consider other candidate decisions and repeat step 1 color-step 4.

6. Compare these decision options.

The result is good or bad and the degree of it depends on your goal and value orientation.

No matter what decision you make, you will always expect some results and reject others. Almost every result will give you both gains and losses. These gains and losses are returns, and they determine preferences, because you obviously prefer gains to losses.

In a set of possible outcomes, the returns of some results will give you something you value, and these returns constitute the positive side of a decision.

The rewards of some results can cause you to lose something you value, and these returns constitute the negative side of a decision. Most decisions have both positive and negative aspects.

Step 2 is to judge the "return".You can measure returns by anything you like: money, time, happiness, health, the happiness of others, health or wealth, and social currency.

When you judge whether a decision is good or bad, you are asking whether its positive potential can offset its negative risks. Measuring the quality of decisions needs to be able to compare whether your benefits are worth the risk.

Step 3 estimate the "probability" of each outcome, including both a summary and analysis of the information you already have and the recognition of any important information that needs to be further collected.

There is no information, but you don't know anything. Complete information means that you know everything. For most things that need to be estimated, you don't go to the extremes of no information or complete information, but somewhere in the middle.

It is of great significance to make informed guesses. The more you are willing to guess, the more you will think about and apply your knowledge. In addition, you will start to think about what you can find that will bring you closer to the answer.

Step 4 requires a weighted average of all possible results listed in step 1 based on returns and probability to get the expected value from this optional direction, which is a mathematical quantification of whether you like or dislike the option.

Many people think that there are only two sides of things, right and wrong, and that there is no intermediate state, which is an important obstacle to becoming a good decision maker. This "intermediate state" is the probability or possibility of something happening. You need to guess boldly and aim at the bull's-eye like an arrow, but other parts of the arrow cluster may also allow you to score.

When making decisions, our goal is to choose the one that is most conducive to achieving our ideals on the basis of being willing to take certain risks (if there is no good option, then our goal is to choose the one with the least damage).

How to improve the accuracy of guessing?

How to improve the accuracy of these "informed guesses" and make our guesses closer to the bull's-eye?

The tool given to us by Duke is to consider both "internal perspective" and "external perspective".

The inner perspective refers to looking at the world from one's own point of view, belief and experience.We are not very good at discovering what we do not know, and we are not very good at judging whether our beliefs are wrong. We are overconfident in what we think we know. To some extent, many common cognitive biases are the products of internal perspective.

External perspective refers to how others view your situation, or the real situation of the world, other than your own point of view.To make up for the inner perspective, it is necessary to get rid of the influence of your own experience and learn as much as possible about other people's views and the true face of the world, because they are where corrective information lies.

Your intuition serves the inner perspective. So is the sixth sense. Both intuition and sixth sense are influenced by your wish to come true. External perspective is the "good medicine" to relieve this influence.

The value of understanding other people's opinions lies not only in that they know useful information that you do not know and that they can correct the inaccuracies of the information you know, but also that even if they have exactly the same information, they may put forward different views. The information is the same, but the conclusions may be very different.

The external perspective can correct the errors and deviations of the inner perspective, so we should start from the external perspective when looking at the problem.

Allowing different views to collide with each other and accepting that other people see things differently will bring you closer to objective facts. The closer you get to the objective facts, the less spam you will use in your decisions.

Three kinds of thinking in decision-making

1. Happiness Test: a barometer of long-term goals

In a broad sense, happiness is a barometer of whether a decision will affect the achievement of long-term goals.

When you find that potential gains or losses (in terms of happiness) are negligible, it shows that the decision belongs to the low-impact type and can speed up the decision-making process.

There is a type of decision that, no matter how you choose (eat chicken or fish, watch "ace impossible" or "princess bride", wear a gray suit or a blue suit), in the long run (or in the short term), the result will not have much impact on your happiness.

If what you're thinking about passes the happiness test, you can speed up your decision-making, because there's nothing to lose if you don't do it "just right."

Although many decisions do not significantly affect long-term well-being, a bad outcome still has a short-term cost: regret.

Regret (or fear of regret) will almost make you hesitant about any choice. After the bad result happens, almost everyone will regret it immediately. Worrying about regret can lead to "analytical paralysis" because you take it for granted that taking more time to make a decision is unlikely to get a bad outcome and is unlikely to make you feel the pain of regret that comes with it.

If you dwell on short-term feelings without considering the long-term effects (which is really important), you will be unable to make a decision for fear of regret. The price of fear of regret is time.

Repetitive choices help to play down regrets.

Repetitive choice means that you can make the same choice again after making a decision. This is especially useful when the choice comes up soon. You may really dislike what you ordered at lunch in the restaurant, but you'll have a chance to order again at dinner a few hours later. This helps to eliminate the pain of regret in the short term.

• The choice of university courses is a repetitive choice.

• Choosing a first date is a repetitive choice.

• The choice of driving route is a repetitive choice.

• Choosing which movie to watch is a repetitive choice.

Repeating decisions also gives you the opportunity to choose things you're not sure about, such as eating foods you haven't eaten or watching shows you haven't seen before, and you won't pay a heavy price for these attempts. For a small price, you can learn about your likes and dislikes, and you may find some surprises in it.

two。 But it doesn't hurt to try: the loss tends to make a quick decision at 00:00

"it doesn't hurt to try" is a useful mode of thinking that allows you to seize opportunities quickly.

The key feature of "try as well" is that the downside risk is limited, that is, there is not much loss (but there may be a lot of gain). When you are in a "no harm" situation, speeding up decision-making usually does not increase the likelihood of a worse outcome.

To determine whether the downside risks to a decision are limited, you can ask yourself the following two questions:

• What's the worst-case scenario?

• If the result is not satisfactory, will I face a worse situation than before the decision?

If the worst outcome is not so bad, or even if the result is not satisfactory, your situation will not be worse than before, this decision can be "just as bad". In other words, you can speed up decision-making because the cost of accuracy is limited.

You may think, "but try" is good, but in reality there is no such a good thing. However, once you pay attention to it, you will find that there are far more cases of "try as well" than you think.

You're applying to college. It is difficult to apply to your dream university, and your chances of being admitted are very low. Do you still want to apply? Assuming the application cost is not high, your situation will not get worse if you are not admitted, but if you are admitted, you will enter the dream university.

You're looking at the house. Unsurprisingly, you found the house you wanted under the guidance of a real estate agent, but the selling price was 20% higher than your highest bid. Are you still making an offer? You bid at your own price, the seller refused, and you have nothing to lose. But if the seller accepts it, you can buy the house you want at a low price.

Once you confirm that it doesn't hurt to try, you don't have to think too carefully about whether to seize the opportunity, but it still takes time to implement the decision.

Quickly decide whether to apply to a university with little chance of admission, but take the time to ensure the high quality of the application materials. Decide quickly whether to bid for the house you want, but take the time to make sure the offer is reasonable.

The faster you decide, the less likely it is that the opportunity will slip away. The sooner you seize the opportunity, the more likely you will find that you should decide on the upside potential.

3. Difficult to make decisions = easy to choose

You have a week's holiday next year, and you decide to take a long trip. You have narrowed your destination to two cities: Paris or Rome. (you can also replace the two destinations in this thought experiment with places you particularly like or want to go but have never been. )

Generally speaking, you will worry about this kind of decision. After all, deciding whether to go to Paris or Rome failed the happiness test. A holiday like this is sure to affect your happiness for a week, a month or even a year. Unless you often travel abroad, this is not a repetitive choice, but may be an once-in-a-lifetime choice. If the decision is wrong, the price will be very high.

We all face a lot of high-impact decisions like where to spend our holidays in Europe. You may be admitted to two favorite universities, you may find two great homes, or you may get two ideal jobs. Then you start to worry about how to choose, trying to figure out the subtle gap between two or more good choices.

Let's do a weird little thought experiment: what if you choose not between Paris and Rome, but between Paris and the salmon cannery? Do you feel difficult or anxious?

I think the answer is no.

This suggests that similar options are the reason for slowing decision-making.You won't find it difficult to choose between options with very different potential benefits, such as a week on vacation in Paris or a week in the "fish in the water" pile.

That's why you can and should speed up when it comes to such decisions.

What slows down decision-making, that is, multiple options with very close quality, is actually a sign of speed-since the two options have similar upside potential and downside risks, you can't go wrong anyway.

If you consider the decision in terms of the relative quality of the comparison options, you will be in a good position. Instead of spending a lot of time looking for nuances between options, re-examine your decision and ask yourself, "how wrong would I be if I chose randomly?" "

This question will make you think ahead and recognize that it is the potential of each option that affects the quality of decision-making, rather than which possible outcome happens to be produced. This question will show you that both options are great, so no matter which one you choose, you are less likely to make a big mistake.

Therefore, this kind of decision-making actually belongs to the hidden "but try just as well". Because the options are similar, you can try whatever you want, and you can't make a mistake any way you choose. This unlocks a powerful decision-making principle: it's easy to choose when it's hard to make a decision.

When you are struggling with similar options, you are usually wasting your time doing useless work.You spend a lot of time trying to figure out the slight difference between the two, and at best you can only see a small difference in potential benefits.

4. Breaking the deadlock: the only choice test

In his book the Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz points out that the more choices you have, the more difficult it is for you to choose, and the more time you spend on "analytical paralysis".

This is the paradox of choice: the more choices, the more anxiety.

If you choose between Paris and the salmon cannery, no one will have a problem. But what about Paris, Rome, Amsterdam, Santorin and Machu Picchu?

You can use the only choice test to break the deadlock.When making a decision, ask yourself, "if this is the only option, will I feel satisfied?" "

The only Choice Test can remove spam that prevents you from making a decision. You can only go to Paris, you feel satisfied; you can only go to Rome, you still feel satisfied. If so, you will be happy no matter how you choose.

This strategy of choosing what to order from the menu can be widely used in general decisions. To make any decision, take the time to distinguish between what you like and what you don't like. Then you can make a quick decision.

Classification, that is, finding "good" choices according to your value orientation and goals, is the greatest gain that decision time can bring you. Classification is not only the focus of decision-making, but also the value of slowing down.

When you complete the classification and pick out one or more good options, speeding up will not cause much loss. If the options are very close, you might as well choose at will. Spend more time picking among options that meet the criteria, and decisions are usually not much more accurate than random choices.

This is why it is so important to identify low-impact decisions, especially repetitive ones. This kind of low-risk decision gives you a chance to try. Trying will tell you what works and what doesn't, and it will help you figure out what you like. Through these attempts, you can get more information and get rewarded in a more accurate classification.

In the long run, you should look at all the big and small decisions in your life as managing a portfolio, and your goal is to make the overall return on the portfolio satisfactory.

Instead of sticking to the success or failure of each individual investment, because the role of luck in a single investment can not be accurately measured.