Indecisiveness

Here are excerpts of a thread conversation between me and a fellow JATLANDer, Navin on Decision making

Navin:
Indecisiveness
we(includes me) often tend to put off things making indecisiveness our excuse. The reality is that we suffer much more from indecisiveness than from wrong decisions.The principle i have been learning to follow over recent times is 'Do something straight away'. Rather than finding reasons why not to do a thing right now, find ways to do it straight away.

Me:
Blink
You are quite right, Navin. The idea that is catching up now and is similar to what you are proposing, is that of 'Blink' Decisions. This way you decide faster, based on your instincts, gut feel, the baggage you carry, your enviroment, etc. Social Scientists are now concluding that taking time to decide does not necessarily result in right decisions. In fact some times 'blink' decisions are better than relaxed contemplated ones. It also stems from the fact that there is a 'moment' when we finally make up our mind. The idea is to attain that moment quickly. The rest is then 'waste of time'. For some amazing insights do read the book by Malcom Gladwell titled, Blink (what else, eh?)http://www.gladwell.com/blink/

Dr. Neelam Rathi(participant not convinced):
You are right Sumit, Instints, Gut, or say Blink can be helpful in making decisions, and mostly come up with right decisions... but not always. And one thing more sometimes instints can be impulsive also and impuses may not be right always !!!

Me:
Noooooooooo
No. 'Blink' is not just about guts and instincts. The proponent of the theory Malcom Gladwell says it is infact the opposite of that. It is rapid cognition in his words. Or here at this thread (since it is titled indecisiveness), we can call it 'deciding fast'.There are a lot of rational factors that go into it. Your environment, your position with regards to it, your world view, etc. I thought I mentioned environment and personal baggage. If it didn't come out clearly, my bad. But the book explains the factors and the thinking process rationally and lucidly. Unlike me. What really fascinates me is the fact that nobody knows if the decision one is making will be right or wrong. Whether you sit on it for days or few hours or few minutes. With 'blink' you certainly can decide faster and ten employ the rest of the time executing it. Sort of a corollary to the theory of Karma.

Navin:
We all always have good reasons for not having taken decisions or for losing in an effort. These reasons can give us some solace but they cant give us the joy or peace that comes with success. Victory goes to the one who wins. We have to take our decisions and put our energy into making them succeed.In most cases it is not the rightness or wrongness of a decision that matters, it is the sincerity with which the decision is taken.

Sumeet Ji, I agree with that ‘blink’ decision. I will give one example to add to that. If you are walking on the road and unconsciously you pick up a stone and throw it at a pole it will hit the pole but if you think, aim and throw you will miss it every time.It is because the subconscious mind makes the right calculations without being effected by emotions/sentiments where as a conscious mind gets influenced and either hesitates or makes wrong decisions.


Me:
I like it
'In most cases it is not the rightness or wrongness of a decision that matters, it is the sincerity with which the decision is taken.'
I like it a lot.

Navin:
Bhai Sumeet,The surrounding people and circumstances usually try to put a doubt in our minds destroying our decisons before they are taken.Its a negative energy we ve to counter all the time.Till date i have never regretted taking any decision. The only time i regret is when i wont able to take a decision.

Me:
Hmmm
I am remembering idea of a "Regret Minimization Framework". Basically you decide thinking what will minimize your regrets. So you find what you regret in life, and then get on with the plan. Most people in the world decide in "Risk Minimization Framework". Those seldomly are able to push the limits. And they bring the kind of negative energy you are talking about. Most people say the real fun is in maximising risks. Don't think. Just do it. Life is short. etc.I say it is in minimising regrets.

Prashant Nauhwar(another participant 'not feeling the love'):
Navin bhai,In practical life, I believe indecisiveness is sometimes really required or to stretch it a little bit, may be pessimism too.. For example, when I plan on doing something I like to think over all its pros and cons rather than deciding right away..it depends on situation to situation whether you want to be a little bit indecisive or a 'blink' doer. If I have to do bunjee jumping from a cliff, I wont think about pros n cons, I will just do it..but if I have to leave my stable job and start a business, I cannot 'Just Do it'. I will have to think about lot of things, find out the potential issues and my backup plans, think whether I should really go ahead or not especially if I dont have a big financial backup. So, there are various stages in life where so called indecisiveness actually helps you to take a better decision.Though sometimes, indecisiveness also costs you if you delay it too much but its better to be safe than sorry as per my experience. So, a balance of both the thoughts are necessary. Again it all depends for what situation you are taking the decision.

Navin:
Prashant Nauhar Ji,I am 100% for the preparation part. What I am meaning is say for e.g. say if you are not at all satisfied with your current stable job, so you straightaway decide that you are going to leave it and work on something you like, say a business or any project. You decide but you dont leav your job, you start working and planning on the decision/dream decision that you have made and you put all your passion into it.We often tend to just wait for a suitable time to come when we can take a decision but the suitable time never comes.We agree, Planning, preparation and hard work is the most important part of a decision. There cant be any compromises with that.

Me:
@ Prashant
Dear Prashant,Navin Bhai has said what I wanted to say on your comment. Prep and planning is most important in any endeavour. We are just talking about reaching that stage quickly. The 'regret minimisation framework' I was talking about was infact mentioned by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who quit his cushy job in Wall Street to start his own start up with his father's life savings. In a year he had 60 million dollars worth of investment. But he didn't just leave his job like that. He was working with the companies to train himself to be an enterpreneur. And even when he started on his own he says he was giving himself 30% chance to succeed(which by the way is three times of the success rate of start ups in US).So the doubts and risks are always there. But no regrets. He says when he turns 80 he doesn't want to look back at his life and regret that he didn't give it a shot. Failure and success don't matter. But a sincere shot does. After all it takes a lifetime to create something worthwhile.

After that nobody has made any real contribution. I thought it was a really good discussion. Will keep you posted if some other lazyass thinks thinking is to be done slowly.

Gaping Void

In recent years on the internet, if some blog/media has made profound sense to me, it is Gaping Void. A blog by cartoonist Hugh Macleod, it talks about love. But in a rather strange way. You have to check it out yourself to understand it. And PLEASE DO READ the aptly titled, 'How to be creative'. You too will fall in love with this blog .


On the Right, you can find a widget of his cartoons.