We make a million decisions every day (at least that's what it feels like to me), but as we make each decision, is it possible to make it consciously, or do we make it unconsciously?
Are we deciding for now or for them?
Are we deciding for us, or for them?
It's possible to put structures in place so that when we make the decisions, we're bumped in the right direction for the longer term.
Let me give you an example, really simple…
I have a horrendous chocolate addiction, one that I've carried with me from when I was a boy. It's almost certainly affected my API-genetics. Sorry, Callum!
If I don't have chocolate in the house, I don't eat it. If I buy enough chocolate for the next month because it's on offer from Ocado and they deliver it to my door, I eat it all in the first 3 days. So, the choice for online shopping is not to buy any chocolate because that makes it harder for me to eat chocolate and therefore makes me better.
Another example.
This morning I was due to ride my bike. I was scheduled today to write an interval session that is a ‘test’ session for me. If I'm able to ride the interval session twice, two weeks in a row, it means I'm getting fitter and I have to move my targets up, but today I was tired because I've trained a lot this week and I also had a lot of stuff to do, and so I binned the session I pretended I would do it later, but it's likely that I won't, but it doesn't matter. I'm worth a day off.
The point there, though, is I decided not to ride my bike. I didn't decide not ride my bike anymore, I decided not to ride it today because what I'll be able to do is ride tomorrow and do the interval session, nail it for the second time in two weeks and move up.
If I try to force it today, it won't work. The other thing that the decision does is it will probably mean that I'll decide not to drink anything tonight in the little family party that we're having, not even a beer. That way, I'll sleep better tonight and be better able to run the session tomorrow.
The decisions that we make on a day-to-day basis, we want to do instinctively because we can't be arsed making the decisions, and we want it to be seamless, but it's worth taking a minute to decide, for when am I making this decision?
Is it for right now, or is it for later?
And is it for me, or is it for someone else's benefit, that doesn't matter as much?
Blog Post Number - 4455
Leave a comment