How to Broaden Your Options in Decision-Making
Decisions made by teenagers often lack any choice at all, they are usually just statements of resolve like: 'I'm going to stop blaming others!'
When you find yourself rehashing arguments endlessly with the same 2 choices, push to widen your options.
Great decision-makers spend most of their time asking questions which broaden their options, like: Is there a better way? What else could we do? For example, Managers would ask" How can I make this work? How do I get colleagues to like me?
We're often victims to a bias called 'opportunity cost', where we're overly focused on what we give up when making decisions.
Focusing is great for analysing alternatives, but terrible for spotting them.
Use the vanishing options test, imagine if a genie wiped out all your available options and you're forced to think of a new one.
Be wary of 'whether or not' decisions'.
Don't think 'this or that', think 'this AND that'. Many times it's best to do 2 or more things at the same time.
Find someone who has solved your problem (Ask a friend/teacher, google for resources etc.)
You need to be open and seek out disagreement. We naturally seek out self-confirming information, so we need discipline to fully understand and consider opposing opinions
Source:
Chapters 2-5 of 'Decisive'(Book)