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What a midnight snack.
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
How People Make Decisions That Are Bad For Them
He looked shocked.
I was having a conversation recently with a guy who was telling me about his nephew, a high school senior. “He should be an engineer,” the guy told me. “Engineers make great money. The job market for engineers is good. My nephew should definitely become an engineer. Don’t ya think?”
“No,” I said.
(That’s when he stared at me, stunned).
“What?” he replied.
“No,” I repeated. “I don’t know your nephew. What are his strengths?”
“His strengths?”
“Yes, his strengths. What are his strengths, his gifts, his passions? What is he interested in?”
“Passion?” The guy scoffed. “Nobody chooses a job based on PASSION!”
I calmly replied, “It’s important for him to discover who he is…what his strengths, passions, and interests are…” and he looked at me like I was speaking gibberish.
I haven’t seen the guy again, and am not sure which career path his nephew will choose. But I know one thing for sure: if the nephew doesn’t understand himself, and if engineering doesn’t align with his strengths, passions, and interests, it might not be a great decision to become one.
We’re all guilty of making bad decisions. These decisions can greatly affect the course of our life. Whether we get involved in relationships that aren’t good for us, choose a career that doesn’t light us up, neglect our self-care repeatedly… we make bad decisions at times.
Why So Many People Make Bad Decisions
Making bad decisions can drastically change your life, leaving you unfulfilled and dissatisfied. When people make recurring poor decisions, they may not reach their potential.
People make bad decisions for many reasons. Their mindsets, lack of self-expertise, and following societal norms are three of the reasons they make poor decisions.
Your Mindset Determines the Quality of Your Decisions
Mindset, according to Merriam-Webster, is a mental attitude or inclination. It is important to recognize that your mental attitudes and inclinations are present and can greatly affect your ability to make decent decisions. Living your best life starts with your mindset. If you think small, make decisions based on limiting beliefs, and consistently avoid taking meaningful action due to fear, you will never reach your full potential.
Jim Taylor, PhD, explains cognitive biases as:[1]
“the tendency to make decisions and take action based on imited acquisition and/or processing of information or on self-interest, overconfidence, or attachment to past experience.”
He describes many cognitive biases. One bias, the myopia bias, he explains, is when you
“see and interpret the world through the narrow lens of your own experiences, baggage, beliefs, and assumptions.”
The homecoming queen/king bias, Dr. Taylor writes, is when you “act in ways that will increase our acceptance, liking, and popularity.”
When you make decisions based on your cognitive biases, your choices aren’t always wise. It’s important to realize your mental inclinations are present.
Understand Yourself, but Don’t Let Your Feelings Lead You Astray
If we aren’t self-experts, it’s hard to make good decisions. Lions are amazing, strong, powerful, majestic animals. They know where they belong in the food chain, and they know where to live. They know how to hunt and how to act. However, what if a lion didn’t understand this, and attempted to live in the ocean? Surely it would NOT thrive in the ocean. The same goes for us. If we don’t understand who we are at the core, it’s hard to make the best choices that enable us to fully thrive.
When you understand yourself, you are better equipped to make good decisions. This does not, however, mean that you should always make decisions based on “how you feel.” In fact, making decisions based on your feelings can sometimes significantly restrict your growth.
For example, recently I was asked to speak to a group of business professionals. While I’m an extrovert and love being around people, and am very comfortable working with my coaching clients from around the world, standing in front of a crowd as a speaker is currently out of my comfort zone. My immediate response was discomfort, but I said “yes” to the invitation. Why? Because speaking is one of my goals, and I know as I move toward that goal I will be uncomfortable at first.
Stepping out of your comfort zone is necessary in order to experience growth. As Brian Tracy says,
“Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.”
Following Societal Norms Can Lead to Bad Decisions
Societal norms affect people’s choices every day. The people you spend time with and society in general often influences the jobs you choose, the hours you work, the level of success you reach, your habits, and everything from your worldview to your view of what a “good” relationship with your significant other is.
Blindly following the crowd can cause you to live an unfulfilled life. Just because everyone you know works 9-5 in an office doesn’t mean that’s the best fit for you. Just because everyone you know has their kids in a bunch of activities doesn’t mean that’s the best plan for your family.
How to Make Great Decisions That You Won’t Regret
Three keys to consistently making great decisions are being aware of our mindsets, understanding ourselves, and making decisions intentionally instead of passively following the crowd.
Be Aware of Your Mindset
It is important to understand that your mindsets can lead you to make poor decisions. Success starts between your ears, with your mindsets. People often avoid making positive changes in their lives and doing big things because they believe achieving their biggest dreams is not possible for them. They settle for less than their full potential. Many people have an internal dialogue that is less than friendly toward themselves.
Start paying attention to your thoughts. When you think about achieving a big goal you have, what thoughts do you have? Are you encouraging toward yourself? If you discover that your self-talk is discouraging, work on modifying your thoughts. For example, if you think, “I can’t start a business; I don’t know how,” modify that sentence to “I don’t know how to start a business right now, but I can learn.” If you think, “I can’t lose weight; I failed last time I tried,” modify it to “I didn’t achieve my goal last time, but this time I’ll do x,y, and z to get great results.”
One way to minimize the risk of making poor decisions due to your mindset is by collaborating with an expert on your decision, or learning from people who have already done what you aspire to do. For example, when making career decisions, you can hire career counselors or executive coaches. If you want to retire when young and travel the world, learn from people who have done exactly that. Learning from experts and mentors who have achieved what you aspire to do can help you stay inspired and encouraged.
Become Self-Experts
Becoming self-experts is an important key to making good decisions. When you have a strong understanding of your strengths, your priorities, and the impact you want to make on the world, you can make purpose-driven decisions and live more fulfilling lives.
I highly recommend the book, Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath. The book helps people discover 5 of their strengths. Having a strong understanding of your strengths can help you choose a career path that allows you to maximize those strengths, rather than choosing a career that isn’t a good fit for you.
Make Decisions Intentionally
Being intentional with your decisions rather than passively following society’s recommendations for your life can help you make choices that align with what matters most to you. Pause to reflect and think about why you’re making the choices you’re making. Are you living your life in a manner that enables you to become the best version of you, and make the impact on the world that you are here to make? Or, are you living the life that society wants for you?
One simple step to being more intentional in your life is to write out a tentative schedule for your day. When you tell your time where to go, it can help you minimize time spent on time-sucking activities that don’t align with who you most want to be.
Also, as Jim Rohn says,
“You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.”
Being intentional with who you spend time with can also steer you toward better decisions.
Although nobody’s perfect, and nobody has a perfect life, working on these strategies can help you make better decisions, leading to less regrets and a more fulfilling life.
Reference
| [1] | ^ | Psychology Today: Cognitive Biases Are Bad for Business |
The post How People Make Decisions That Are Bad For Them appeared first on Lifehack.
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The Best Way to React When Someone Is Shouting at You in Anger
Yelling is a topic relevant to every person on this planet because everyone has raised their voice in anger during their lifetime. Some people yell on a regular basis, but we are all guilty of yelling at some point in life. There are ways to react to a yeller that will help diffuse them, rather than continue to escalate the situation.
Yelling is not healthy for relationships and its results do not yield long term positive results. A person may acquiesce to a yeller at the moment to get them to stop yelling, but once things get back to normal, they typically revert back, because the yelling hasn’t changed their mindset long term. For example, a Mom who yells at her kids to pick up their toys may actually result in the kids picking up their toys in that moment. However, it won’t change their mindset that they should pick up their toys consistently. Kids will learn to pick up if they have been conditioned with a reward or punishment system and they recognize the importance and value of picking up their toys.
Yelling is damaging to relationships. It is not a constructive way to deal with a difficult situation, yet every person engages in yelling. Some more than others. You should be aware of your own yelling, understand why some people are constant yellers, and also know how to deal with a yeller.
When someone is constantly yelling at you in life, they are displaying emotional tyranny over you. Their goal is to gain an upper hand in the situation and the yelling is their means of gaining control over you. It is a form of intimidation. The yelling may work temporarily. However, the long term sustainability of the results from yelling is not good, because it is a way of bullying someone into getting them to do what the yeller wants done. Yelling is not healthy for relationships, in fact it breaks down healthy communications and the closeness of relationships.
Why Do People Yell?
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” – Mark Twain
When someone is angry and they are yelling, there are a variety of reasons that they are yelling. Most reasons why they are yelling are not good reasons for yelling, so it’s important that the recipient react correctly, which is more about not being reactive. It is important to understand why someone is yelling, because most often yelling is indicative of issues in that person’s core psyche that have nothing to do with the recipient of the yelling. Their yelling is a reflection of their emotional instability, even though their yelling is intended to show strength and dominance in the situation. Below are some of the reasons a person yells when angry:
Poor coping skills
Many people yell because it is their go-to coping mechanism in difficult situations. But this coping mechanism does not have good long term results. If a person is a yeller because it is how they have learned to cope in life, they need to get some help in finding better ways in regulating their emotions. They may be using emotional outburst as their way of coping in life and this is not healthy for them or the recipients of their outbursts.
Loss of control
A person may be a yeller because they feel a loss of control over the situation. They may be overwhelmed by the thoughts, feelings, and emotions and are experiencing a loss of control over all of these things at once. It is a big jumble of confusion to them, so they yell to try to get control over what they are experiencing. They lack proper coping skills to regain feeling of control over the situation and their surroundings, so they resort to yelling in order to feel that they are in control. They may get that feeling of control, but it is most often temporary, because most problems are not solved through yelling. A person may appear compliment to the yeller, simply to calm that person down, but in reality nothing has been solved for the long term.
Feeling threatened
Bullies are often people who have a very sensitive core emotional psyche and they are trying to protect that core. Anytime they think this core is being threatened they react. Yelling is one tool that they proactively use anytime they feel threatened.
Aggressive tendencies
Some people are simply aggressive individuals. They may yell and the aggression may escalate to a physical altercation. You rarely see a physical fight that doesn’t begin with raised voices, shouting, or yelling. If someone is yelling at you and you don’t know this person well, you should be on your guard that the yelling can lead to a physical confrontation.
It is important to avoid reacting in an aggressive manner to someone who is an aggressive yeller, because it is like pouring fuel onto the fire of their anger and things can become physical. It is likely to become physical if they have these tendencies and you mirror their yelling.
Learned behavior
Some people become yellers because they grew up in a household where their parents yelled on a regular basis. They learned that when conflicts arise, so do voices. They haven’t learned proper coping behaviors when they are faced with conflict and difficult situations. Yelling has always been their go-to reaction to situations in which they find any sort of turmoil.
Feeling neglected
Some people raise their voices and yell in anger because they feel the other person is not listening to them. They may have even repeated their message several times and finally they resort to yelling in anger because the other person had not responded to their other tone of voice. This is often the case of yelling while parenting. Parents feel their kids aren’t listening, so rather than continually repeating themselves, they yell at their kids. The problem is that this actually scares children. Yelling in anger is also very damaging to children and research shows that it can be just as harmful as physical abuse. Read more about The Only Effective Way to Talk With Children When They Are Acting Out
Reactions to Avoid with a Yeller
The worst possible reaction to a yeller is to mirror their behavior. Things do not go well if you yell at someone who is yelling at you. The situation escalates when both people engage in yelling. There are other reactions that can escalate the situation which should also be avoided and include: baiting the yeller, challenging what they are saying, acting defensive, and criticizing the person during the confrontation.
There are better ways to deal with a yeller. Below are the steps you should use to handle and hopefully diffuse a yeller.
1. Stay calm and don’t feed into their anger. Remember that when a person is yelling, it is not you that has the problem, it is them. They have poor coping skills or another reason for yelling that has nothing to do with you personally. If you react they will react to your reaction and things will continue to escalate. Remain calm, even if you are seething on the inside. It is not worth feeding into their yelling, as the situation will just get worse and things are rarely resolved when two parties are yelling at one another. Problems are more likely to be solved when calm tones are being used. Be a part of the solution and not the problem by remaining calm and using a calm tone of voice.
2. Take a mental step back to assess the situation. Before taking any action in the situation, pause mentally to assess things. This will allow you to figure out whether it is worth waiting out the yeller or to leave the situation. If you are being yelled at by a casual acquaintance and you don’t care if you offend them by walking away from them, then by all means walk away. You don’t have to subject yourself to someone’s abuse and mistreatment if they are not important to your life. If it’s your boss yelling at you and you know that walking away while your boss is yelling mid sentence may cost you your job, maybe you need to think about waiting it out and address the yelling with the boss later if it is a constant occurrence and it is now disruptive to your ability to work effectively.
3. Do not agree with the yeller to diffuse them, as it encourages future yelling. If you agree with the yeller to diffuse them and subsequently agree to do something or say something that they are asking, you are condoning their yelling. By being agreeable to someone who is yelling at you, it only encourages them to yell at you to get their way in the future. Avoid this type of diffusing method, it will come back to bite you again in the future and you will find yourself subject to their yelling more often.
4. Calmly address the yelling. In most instances when someone is yelling at you, your emotions are evoked and you feel the need to react. Reacting with yelling, criticism, or other negative responses will escalate the situation, you need to do everything in your power to reel in your thoughts and feelings so you can address the real problem, which is their yelling. Let the person know that you will not accept being yelled at, regardless of the situation or problem. Say this politely and calmly, and you are more likely to have a positive reaction, such as an apology or at least make them aware that they are in fact yelling. Some people don’t even realize they are yelling. Then your next step is to ask for a break away from this person.
5. Ask for a break from this person. After you have calmly addressed the yelling, the next step is to request that you take a break from this person to think. You may also need the time to calm down yourself, as their yelling has caused your adrenaline to rise sky high and you don’t know how much longer you can hold it all inside. When you are asking for a break from the person, it should be more of a statement than a question, especially if it’s not your boss. If it’s a spouse, friend, or someone else, it is completely acceptable to state that you need a break and time (a few minutes, a day, or whatever YOU need) to think things through in order to respond appropriately and calmly.
6. When you feel your emotions have calmed down, and you know how to address whatever it was they were yelling about, you can now go back to talk to the person. Give yourself time to process the situation, what was said, and how you want to respond. For some situations, for example an in-law relationship, this can take a few days as emotions can take longer to de-escalate. If it’s a boss and you know you can’t sit on the issue for long because there are deadlines or your job at stake, then use some calming techniques such as deep breathing or visualization methods to process the situation more quickly, so you can get back to them sooner than later. Here’re 3 Deep Breathing Exercises recommendations for you.
Moving Forward on Better Terms
Because you have taken the time to let the person know that the yelling is not acceptable and you took time away from the person immediately following the yelling, the person is less likely to yell at you now. If they want to move forward with the subject, they will need to remain calm in order to discuss the topic with you. Not only are you standing up for yourself and showing this person you will not be emotionally abused, you are also helping them to see that their behavior is not acceptable. If more people did this when someone yelled at them, we all would be more conditioned to avoid yelling in the first place.
If the yelling is something that has been habitual and your new course of actions have not changed their behavior, it is perhaps time to ask them for a sit down to discuss their yelling. When you have the sit down let the person know how the yelling affects you. For example, you feel deeply sad after a yelling episode and don’t want to be around them for a while. Also let them know how it affects your relationship. For example, that it creates an emotional chasm between you and them. If they respond with “that’s just who I am” let them know that its not acceptable.
Some people also don’t know how to change their behavior. Professional help (such as therapy, counseling, or anger management classes) are available for people who have issues with yelling. They need to recognize that the problem is affecting their relationship and change is needed in order to heal the relationship.
Yelling causes damage, so don’t allow them to continue to damage you or your relationship by tolerating their yelling.
The post The Best Way to React When Someone Is Shouting at You in Anger appeared first on Lifehack.
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