How do we really make most decisions throughout the course of our lives?
Most of us go through our lives thinking that we make decisions based on rational deductions determined by our core set of values. How often have we observed the unexpected actions of others and asked ourselves “What’s up with that?” or “What were they thinking?”. More germane is when we look back at our own actions and wonder “What was I thinking?” in moments when we display flashes of humility and insight. Modern psychology has revealed to us from the work of researchers such as Daniel Pink, Jonathan Haidt, Annie Duke and others that rather than use a rational examination of information to make a reasonable decisions, we tend to actually make decisions based on our preconceived notions based in intuitions and emotional inclinations. We then seek out information to rationalize this decision. In other words, we tend not to make most of our decisions, even common day-to-day ones such as what we eat for a meal or even when we spend time, based on what we know to be the best logical choice, but rather out of habit and/or impulse. In his book Willpower Doesn’t Work, Benjamin Hardy stated this succinctly when he described that “most people are disconnected from themselves, living in an addictive and reactive state triggered by a negative routine and environment.”
Are we stuck with our preconceptions and habits?
Our experiences for early childhood help create neural pathways throughout our brains and the resultant habits developed so as to take the cognitive load off of our conscious minds. When we first learned how to drive, we have to think about the seat belt and the steering wheel and even the route we take to and from home, et cetera. After a while these things become automated habit and we can focus on other details such as finding our way to a new location, finding ourr way to where we got a new job, etc. After the first few times of going to a particular place, such as our new place of work for example, that route then becomes routine and we then focus our cognitive energy on other items such as the events in the past or those anticipate for upcoming day. The brain’s ability to form habits is certainly adaptive and takes the immediate cognitive load off of our plate of immediate mental processing.
That said, if these habits are highly functional and tend to promote our well-being, then this turns out to be a very helpful thing. There is no guarantee, however, that they will be and there is nary a human being ever to live was not had bad habits of one sort or another. How may smokers want to quit smoking? When asked, most do. How many of us who overeat really want to eat healthy and lose weight? Most do. How many of us know that we should be going to the gym and working out getting more exercise but we don’t? I bet you can guess the answer. How many of us know we should be saving more money for the future but instead shopping possibly for things that into weeks we will never touch again? Most do not. Are we been stuck with these neural pathways once they’re formed? Not exactly, as we can change habits, but it does take some very deliberate action and some degree of initial willpower. Will power itself, is not enough and a little bit of understanding of how to adapt our environment for success is certainly necessary.
What does this have to do with science?
Researchers such as Daniel Pink have revealed to us that the data that science has acquired implies that many, if not most all, of our decisions are not made rationally but out of habit and instinct. New habits take on the average 66 days to form, give or take depending on how much is involved and how ingrained the old habit to be replaced is. There are however, techniques that are now very well-known that allow us to sculpt our habits in a very intentional way. To highlight the importance of this task let’s consider what Mahatma Gandhi was reported to have said about habits:
Our thoughts determine our words.
-Mahatma Ghadhi
Our words determine our actions.
Our actions determine our habits,
and our habits determine our destiny.
What does it mean to be intentional?
Living with intentionality has been of late a much discussed idea, often in the form of mindfulness activities of various types. Part of the idea is to be brutally honest in examining what is important to us and what our real values are and to deliberately strategize and shape our habits to reflect those. The need to be deliberate in our habits has been recognized for centuries. Over nineteen centuries ago, Paul of Tarsus (known as St. Paul among the Christian faithful) described in his letter to the church in Rome “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”. Here Paul is recognizing that many of our habits come from deep and our instincts and are not necessarily what we consciously wish to do. In this letter he described his own struggle to alter those habits and create a better man out of himself, with the help of God of course. Many religious traditions referred to a similar process, with such prevalence that this is one of the common threads that runs through many religious traditions from around the world. But even if you’re someone who does not subscribe to a particular religious tradition, modern science has affirmed this phenomenon that with intentionality, we can reshape our habits and live in a way more consistent with our values and thus with greater integrity.
There are numerous resources available to point the way toward the strategies. It is my hope that this blog overtime and its accompanying podcast, to be released next month, will be one of them. One that I would point you to is the block and resources provided by Michael Hyatt, a leader in deliberate, intentional life design and execution.
It is my hope that with the very powerful technique of intentionality, that overtime we can journey together toward more intentional, deliberately lived lives filled with more success and happiness than we ever thought possible.
Blogs on intentional living:
