How to make decisions

Separate Cravings from Decisions: Making Short Term Decisions

We waste an incredible amount of time negotiating with ourselves over small, recurring decisions: what to eat, whether to work out, whether to go out tonight.

I used to think discipline meant fighting every urge in real-time. But most of the damage wasn’t from giving in, it was from the 30 minutes I’d spend debating the urge, then doing it anyway and regretting it.

I feel like we are often taught to fight our urges when they come when the real fight is before the battle starts.

Habits and Cravings are long term decisions. if you crave unhealthy food a lot, the solution is not to fight the craving every time it comes, but to work out, be forced to eat a protein rich diet to keep up with your workout and naturally reduce the cravings over time.

You don’t fix the craving, you change the context in which it exists.

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Don’t think short term while making long term decisions

This is quite obvious if you think about it and yet it’s so easy to make this mistake. Taking a high-paying job you’ll hate. Dating someone out of loneliness. Starting a project just to feel like you’re doing something. I’ve done all three.

When we’re unsure what to want, we copy others. Girard called it mimetic desire. I’ve chased countless ideas that weren’t mine. I’d see someone ship a product, get praised online, and feel behind. So I’d start something, anything, just to catch up. It never ended well.

Humans are creatures who do not know what to desire, and they turn toothers to make up their minds — Rene Girard

The hardest decision isn’t how to do something. It’s what to do. Altman, Naval, and Chris Lattner have all said versions of this: your biggest leverage comes from choosing the right problem. And yet, many of us waste years solving the wrong one really well.

I am now way more conscious and strategic about my long term decisions keeping in mind not to be paralyzed with infinite options and never actually making a decision, which is the next problem.

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What to choose

Set a deadline for your search based on your luxury of time and money.

For the 75% of this duration find all the possible decisions you can make. For the 25% of time, try to find a better option than best one previously found. If found, make the decision, if not try to get back to the previous best.

In this case, it’s important to realize that you may not make the “best possible” decision and that’s okay. It’s not in your hands. I don’t believe in fate but I do believe fate loves irony.

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Patience and Faith

I have a tendency of worry about every decision I make. I always try to optimize and try to get the best possible outcome. This ironically has costed me a lot more than if I had just taken a conventional path. It’s like trying to find the best combination of stocks for years and seeing people making more money with S&P500, literally.

In my case, I could have tried to work at FAANGs but that’s not cool right, where’s your 100M startup. I didn’t realize that conventional paths become conventional because they work and it doesn’t mean if you choose it you can’t steer from it.

If I am not working on a project I get like tinglings to do something, I just can’t sit still, watch a movie or party. Idk i just can’t do it. This is severe disadvantage imo. Empty space, nothingness is necessary to figure out what to do.

I need to understand to play my cards and sit still for others to play theirs, it may so happen that they fold better cards and I win with nothing.