I recently spoke at MIT in Cambridge and was asked a simple but important question that required a more complex answer than time allowed.
MIT is a high-performance, high-pressure environment where the pace of life is relentless for those lucky enough to be accepted. Stiff competition and lofty expectations test character, stamina, and strength of will. Decisions must be made. Sometimes those decisions result in second-guessing.
A woman student raised her hand and asked, “How do you handle worrying about past decisions?”
My short answer was, “They are uncontrollable — something you can’t change now — so there is no sense worrying about them.”
The longer, more thorough answer, starts with “It depends” and involves multiple insight questions:
- Why do you still worry about that past decision? Are you panicking, having doubts about future success, carrying emotional baggage? Or is it something else?
- How did you go about evaluating your original options and making that particular decision? Did you analyze your options, or did you make an impulsive, reactionary decision?
- Is part of your concern rooted in the second step of the 4-step cognitive journey of dealing with change? (note: These steps are explained below under ‘The impact of change’). In short, is this a panic reaction?
- Has your original decision involved a more difficult adjustment than you expected? Is there a significant gap between “expectations” and “realizations”? When those two things align, we feel content. When they are misaligned we feel disappointment and/or disillusionment.
- Was it a good decision at the time? Life’s lenses continually change prescriptions. Don’t beat yourself up today because you see things differently than back when you made the original decision.
Enthusiasm & Time
Any time we make a decision that involves a new responsibility or life situation, behaviorally we go through three distinct steps that matrix the Y and X axes of Enthusiasm and Time. Those three stages of emotion are:
- The New Toy stage.
- The Learning stage.
- The Effectiveness stage.
In the New Toy stage, enthusiasm is high because everything is fresh and exciting.
The Learning stage creates a dip in enthusiasm because hopes and dreams are suddenly replaced the reality of hard work and accountable expectations. The new reality sets in; and suddenly we realize the honeymoon of New Toy happiness is over. Here we face a sizable challenge. Often we have creeping self-doubt. It is here — at the bottom of emotional trough created by declining enthusiasm — that many are tempted to abort the mission, quit or de-commit. This is when we second-guess ourselves and wonder if the choice we made is the right one.
But when we stick to our plan, and apply a sustained work ethic that incorporates new insight and skills, we see progress. This progress re-energizes our confidence. Enthusiasm perks back up. A better attitude accelerates back up the enthusiasm curve, leaving behind quickly fading questions of self-doubt.
But if we wallow in depths of the frustrations during the Learning stage, and don’t advance out of it, our grim attitude makes us wonder, “What if?”
The impact of change
Change forces our mind to circle a four-step wheel, which starts with the evolutionary need for the change to come about. Once the change is made — and it becomes “official” — our mind shifts to step two, the Panic stage. This is an emotional place, our “Uh-oh” stage. Sometimes this emotional doubt is called “buyer’s remorse.” Now that the change has occurred, we suddenly wonder if we made the right choice.
If your decision-process was sound, you should leave this panic-driven self-doubt behind, and advance to stage three — the Acceptance stage. Here we replace emotion with logic, and logic is a better place to be. Once here, we are free to advance to the final phase, which is Flourishing under the new reality.
How to make a sound decision
When faced with an important decision, do yourself a favor and remember these tricks:
- Throw out the emotion. Manage by fact. Emotion clouds critical thinking. Get rid of it.
- Sell your options to yourself — hard — from both angles. Why should you do it? Why should you not? Sell yourself as hard as you can on both sides of the decision.
- Seek and value opinions from trusted, unbiased advisors. Ask them to sell you the same way: Sell you on why you should do it; and why you shouldn’t.
- Recognize that success is very predictable. Three things: Knowledge, Skills, & Attributes, determine high performance. When the challenge is matched by the talent, sustained high performance will result. When you evaluate your option or options, can you learn what you need to learn, develop the necessary skills to excel, and do you have the intestinal fortitude (the will) to pay the price? If not, you will face an uphill climb to sustained excellence.
If it proves to be a bad decision
- Your first loss is your best loss. Have the guts to cut the cord. If you do, it is allowed to bother you for three days. After that? Never again. Move on. Life it too short to revisit ancient history.
- IMPORTANT: Make sure that what you clearly need to do is run to something (specific), and that you are not simply running from an uncomfortable situation. You must know what you are ‘running to’.
- Don’t beat yourself up too much over something that cannot be changed. “Baggage” is a horrible burden and major inconvenience to keep lugging through life. If you learned something from the original decision you made, hold onto that — and forget the rest. Kick the clutter out of your Worry Circle.
Uncontrollable things in life — and musing about changing the past is certainly a big one — are rarely worth revisiting. Channel your energies on making better decisions today. Keep your head clear, your heart happy, and pride in self strong.
Life will get a whole lot easier.