The muscular mind

PROVE YOURSELF WRONG

admin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 07:39:00 +0000

Most of us, when we make up our minds, set out immediately to validate what we think we “know,” says Dr. Ellis. As time goes on, we find more and more “proof” that our assumptions are correct because all we’re looking for is that proof. :But we tend to learn more by trying to falsify our assumption,” says Dr. Ellis.
There’s no better way to find holes in the fabric of faulty thinking than to ask yourself, “What are the reasons I may be wrong?” Try asking this question of yourself the next time you feel absolutely sure about something. You’ve got nothing to lose but your possible error!

DON’T RUSH THE VERDICT

admin — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 07:38:06 +0000

The old advice “Sleep on it” makes a lot of sense. Your opinions will be more valuable if you harvest them after allowing them time to ripen. Your vision become clearer over time about decisions and judgments you need to make.
There’s a good reason for this. “We’re heavily influenced by recency,” says Donald A. Norman, Ph.D., a professor of cognitive science at the University of California in San Diego. For instance, if you had to travel to London two days after a major airline crash, you might seriously think about canceling the trip. “Leaving a little time to put recent things in the past can help a lot to clarify thinking,” he says.

GET A SECOND OPINION

admin — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 07:37:26 +0000

When time allow, it’s a good idea to consult with other people before making important decisions. There are just too many things in this world that are too big for any one person to examine alone.
But whose opinion do you ask? You could go to your best friend or someone else with whom you share common interests and values. But you’ll do much better by asking people who think differently. People who are like you will probable agree with you. That will boost your confidence, but not the accuracy of the decision.
A better tactic is to go to people with different backgrounds, different occupations-different biases. And if you want to get double your money’s worth from a second opinion, ask for it before you reveal your own feelings, say the experts. Don’t walk in and say, “I’ve decided that I’m going to get this operation-what do you think?” The advice you get will be much more valuable if it comes without any influence from you.

CHOP UP BIG DECISIONS

admin — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 07:36:34 +0000

A big decision can be like an enormous chunk of steak. Try to swallow it without first cutting it up, and you risk choking. So says Paul Slovic, Ph.D., professor of psychology at the University of Oregon and president of Decision Research, a nonprofit research institute in Eugene, who recommends a technique he calls “incrementalism.” Say, for instance, that you’re considering giving up your job as a salesman in Chicago to become a sportswriter in Miami. The decision involves not only starting a new career but selling your house, moving your family and leaving all your friends. You’ve been agonizing over this one for some time.
Decision like this can be overwhelming, says Dr. Slovic. The thing to do if you feel overwhelmed is to cut up the dilemma into smaller pieces. Perhaps you can find a part-time newspaper job in Chicago, while keeping your present job, to see if reporting will be as much to your liking as you think. Possibly you can take time off from work and spend it in Miami with the family to see how much everyone goes for Florid living. You may be surprised. “We tend to think that we can predict new situations better than we actually can,” says Dr. Slovic.

DROP YOUR “MUSTS”

admin — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:35:39 +0000

While in the midst of trying to make a decision, any decision, listen to your inner self. Do you hear a cranky little voice inside saying, “I must have this I must I must I must!” People are born with a tendency to take their important desires and turn them into “musts,” says Dr. Ellis.
The problem is that this limits your ability to think in an objective manner. The key to rational thinking and clear decision-making is to remain flexible. So the next time you hear yourself saying “I must!’ step back and ask yourself, “Must I?” Ask yourself if the sabbatical you’ve been fantasizing about taking realy makes more sense after the kids get out of college; consider whether a dependable car might make more sense than that Porsche 911 you saw in the used-car lot. You might be surprised how good it feels to make the more logical (read: grown-up) choice.

CREATE A BALANCE SHEET

admin — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 07:35:02 +0000

Whatever decision is looming before you, you want to make the best one. You’ve already gathered all the information and searched hard to come up with many different avenues. Now it’s rating time.
The best way to do it, say the experts, is to grab paper and pen and put together a list of all of the advantages and disadvantages of each option. You can use any rating system you like, but we favor the basic 1-to-10.
Then do some quick arithmetic. “You’ll normally find that one option comes out with a distinctly better score,” says Dr.Ellis. If you don’t make such a list, he warns, you risk allowing your emotions to give a disproportionate weight to a single aspect.
He gives as an example a young man he knows who purchased a flashy-but quite undependable-car simply because it turbocharged his ego. Naturally, the guy soon found himself with a car he was kicking more than driving.

BE AN “AMIABLE SKEPTIC”

admin — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 07:32:56 +0000

The tough part about separating your emotions from your reasoning is that there are lots of people out there who’d rather you remain emotional-like the boss or spouse who uses emotion-inciting ploys to get you to do something you don’t want to do. To prevent yourself from being lured into making bad decisions, it’s important to view things with a critical eye, says Diane Halpern, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at California State University. That means developing what she calls an attitude of amiable skepticism. Amiable, because it doesn’t entail an adversarial relationship with the world. You can be doubtful and still be cheerful. You can decide to reserve judgment when you sense you’re being swayed against your will. It begins with advertising and extends to telephone salesmen offering trips to Hawaii for $300 and all the way to politicians promising to be kinder while they’re active tougher.

KEEP YOUR COOL

admin — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 07:32:19 +0000

Imagine what was going through Captain Haynes’s mind when he found himself in the cockpit of a crippled plane with the lives of nearly 300 people depending on his judgment. Did he wring his hands? Did he visualize the flaming destruction that could have been moments away?
Of course not. If he had, there’d be no story to tell. “I really didn’t have any thoughts,” he says. “There was nothing on my mind but what we were trying to accomplish, just the job at hand, which was to bring the plane down safely.”
How can you always be coolheaded, especially at a trying moment? The key, our experts agree, is self-confidence.
We know what you’re probably thinking: Easy for us to say. Sure, Captain Haynes had confidence in his flying skills, but what about decisions that involve whole new sets of parameters you’re not familiar with? Having self-confidence can be hard when you lack experience, agrees Dr.Johnson. His advice to young doctors who get hung up trying to decide if they’re doing the right thing is to look to the good decisions they have made in the past to reinforce their confidence. There’s no reason you can’t do the same.
The heart of this issue is trust… of yourself. It’s an attitude that has at its core an acceptance of yourself and your decisions regardless of what anybody else thinks or any mistakes you may have made, says Albert Ellis, Ph.D., president of the Institute for Rational Emotive Therapy in New York City.

LOOK UNDER EVERY ROCK FOR HIDDEN OPPORTUNITIES

admin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 07:31:28 +0000

Take the job/don’t take the job. Can’t decide? What about other choices? In just about any given situation, a little thinking turns up more options you could take. But if you’re like most, you never seek out all those choices. It’s easy to get forced into anxiety-ridden “either/or” situations.
One way you may be limiting your options is by springing upon the first solution to a problem that shows itself. But “your first answer is likely not to be your best,” says Jeff Salzman, vice-president of CareerTrack, a Colorado-based consulting company. Instead say, “Okay, I have one possible answer-let’s see if I can find something better.”
The cerebral world of chess offers a perfect example of the importance of creative thinking. According to Michael Valvo, one of America’s top-rated chess players, the downfall of many in chess-as in life-is that they “concentrate on only two or three moves, while at least seven or eight are usually available.”

ASSEMBLE THE FACTS

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 07:30:32 +0000

Before you can make a good decision, you have to assemble all the facts-not just the obvious stuff, but everything you can get your hands on. Although Captain Haynes’s time was extremely limited, he had to gather certain information before he could choose a course of action. How much damage had the explosion caused? Which controls were still available to him? What sites were open for an emergency landing?
“Mistakes are usually made because someone had insufficient or bad data,” Says John C. Johnson, M.D., director of emergency medical services at Porter Memorial Hospital in Valparaiso, Indiana.
The way to get good data is to ask questions. At he emergency room, Dr. Johnson is faces with life-or-death crises daily. His powers of observation and a willingness to think beyond the obvious are what get him through. For example, he describes the case of a badly wheezing child whisked into the emergency room for care. If the attending doctor wasn’t thinking clearly, he might reason that the child was having an asthma attack and treat him accordingly. But a sharper doctor would first ascertain when the wheezing began and whether the child had been playing with any small objects. He might discover that the child was choking-and save life.
As Sherlock Holmes said to the ever-bumbling Watson: “It is a capital mistake to theorize before you have all the evidence. It biases the judgment.”