How You Decide

Michael Moody, Top Chicago Fitness Trainer

Luckily, most of us aren't faced with life and death decisions daily-like putting your dog to sleep. How do you make the best decision in this situation? Anyone who owns a dog knows the dread of this moment. Unfortunately, I must face this decision for my American Bulldog/Lab mix Dozer with Wobbler’s Disease-which affects his ability to walk.

Although an alternative gold bead surgery is available for dogs with Wobbler’s Disease, it is only 50% effective in the most advanced stages and may not help him walk again. This is the toughest decision I’ve ever made: Do I take the chance on the surgery and cause a limping dog more pain or end his misery with a veterinary shot?

After much debate and a night’s sleep (and clearing my head), I decide to put Dozer to sleep. I’m not sure if this is the best decision but it is the one I feel is most right. It seems that decisions like this require never-ending research until the perfect answer is found. At the end of the day, some decisions rely truly on a personal hunch.

Our experiences, good and bad, help us create this "gut instinct"-what we feel when we know something is wrong or right based on past experiences-and we tend to lean on it during these times. Nothing is perfect and if the book How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer is correct, our brain needs imperfect decisions. It needs us to fail sometimes and learn from our mistakes. It eventually helps us make those large decisions later in life-such as this or buying a house. I only hope that this hunch has been built on a lifetime of valued lessons.

Do we need gut instincts for all decisions? Probably not. You shouldn't need a night's sleep to decide on a jam at a supermarket. Although recognizing your emotion is important, sometimes your rationality does the trick.

While rationality helps you compare the important characteristics of a jam, it can overload the brain as well. Buying a couch is a great example. Size, color, and feel are important and overwhelming characteristics in this decision. While we consider every detail of this decision, at what point will our brain lose focus on what's most important to us? With this being said, our rationality demands parameters otherwise it may burn out or primarily value a detail less important to us (and lead us to regret).

The way to overcome this: self-observation. We need to understand ourselves before saying "yes" or "no". We need to think about thinking (metacognition) and cognitively process what we just did or why we must do it. What if it's wrong? Then, we review that thinking again and decide what we should do differently next time (without regret).

We can't choose the correct path right now for every decision we make. We can think about our most effective strategy of looking at who we are and how it shapes our future decisions. Whether moving every 3 months to a new, exciting city or taking a chance on a new job, make a decision without regret. Look at ourselves and then step forward with confidence.