P: Half of the success behind good decision-making is avoiding negative emotions

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Reference:: R: Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

Have you made a decision that you then regretted? Chances are that it happened when you were under the influence of emotions.

Today I learned: Half of the success behind good decision-making is avoiding negative emotions.

Why?

Negative emotions suppress our neocortex, effectively switching off rational thinking.

Once they grip us, we get tunnel vision, focus on the negative, become defensive, prioritize the short-term, insult people, etc. In short, we do things we later regret.

Although it might not be apparent at the moment, emotions are fleeting. Anger, fear, lust, greed, and other visceral emotions will fade sooner or later. In other words, clarity of thought will return after you let yourself cool off.

This means that whenever you're gripped by negative emotions, you MUST stop yourself from making decisions and attain distance before you come back to the issue.

How can you attain distance? Here are a couple of tactics.

1. Increase the reaction time. Go for a walk, sleep on it, or do something else. This will cool off your emotional circuits and will let you access your neocortex, allowing you to make a more rational decision. For example, instead of immediately replying to an email that steers anger in you, go for a walk first and get back to it when you're thinking clearly.

2. Change your perspective. Think about your decisions on three different time frames: How will you feel about it 10 minutes from now? How about 10 months from now? How about 10 years from now? This will allow you to escape the short-term frame and provide a more rational long-term perspective.

3. Ask other people to tell you when you're angry. Often we're not aware of our emotional state, which can lead to making bad decisions unconsciously. Asking others to alarm you when you're angry will help you attain greater control over your decisions.

4. Train your mind to gain control over your emotions through meditation.

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