Thought Patterns That Make Bad Decisions

First notes on mindfulness & meditation

I started meditating in 2018 because I wanted to make better decisions. The main problem I was trying to figure out is how to be more efficient with my time and energy when deciding between hard choices.

Hard choices aren’t necessarily bad though. They are great to have actually. Here’s a quote that reminds me why I want to look for hard choices.

“Hard choices, easy life. Easy choices, hard life.”

— Jerzy Gregorek

Definition of decision-making

Making decisions is about choosing a specific action and disregarding other options. The process starts with picking a problem, then breaking down the components, finding possible solutions, taking action, and finally, checking for the results.

The hard part was staying committed.

Analyzing problems and brainstorming solutions are easier for me. Specifically, both staying away from distractions and keeping a decision takes a lot of effort. The result was failing to get what was expected.

There was a time I was very unhappy at work. And I suffered for most of the year. The career path within the organization was uninspiring. The team wasn’t working out. And the daily work itself was becoming tiresome and mundane. Talking with my manager didn’t work. Resources outside the company were either inapplicable or not very effective. There were a few options available for me at that time. And it was impossible to choose.

That limbo situation had long since passed.

Looking back, being more decisive and action-oriented could have saved me from unnecessary suffering.

Realizing that, I took my roommate’s offer to join a meditation group.

Meditation and decision-making

One of the first things I noticed while sitting in meditation is the sensations. Sensations are everything you can see, hear, smell, touch, and taste. These include the pressures felt throughout the body. Like the pressure on the buttocks when seated. Or the hotness or coldness of a room on the skin.

Sensations are felt without much effort. It’s even easy to tune a sensation out to tune in to another. For example, in a quiet room, we can listen to our heartbeat or chose to look at light rays coming in through a window.

As a mental process, sensations are the way bodies receive information about the environment. It’s easy to understand that I’m separated from the sensations I perceive. When I hear the sound of birds, I know that the chirping sound is not me.

On the contrary, there’s another mental process that comes and goes, much without effort, which I often can’t separate myself from. This mental process is thought. And what’s problematic is being lost in thought.

Much like sensations, thoughts arise and disappear without my conscious effort. For example, on a normal workday, it’s easy to spend the whole day tuning in from one thought to another. There was no choice making. No options were being deliberated. Here, I simply jump from one thought to another. While the majority of events unfolded okay, some came back to bite me later on.

My thoughts are not me

One way I find helpful is to reflect on my favorites thoughts. Once I have them in mind, I actively scrutinize them. It’s not surprising to find out that my favorite ideas are not the best ones. It doesn’t take long for better options to reveal themselves.

When many possible options are deliberated, there’s a higher chance to pick better choices. For events that already happened, there’s a higher chance to realize how a decision could have been made better. Instead of blindly holding on to ideas, keeping no favorites benefits the decision-making process.

Keeping no favorites also helps when it comes to execution. In some situations, it’s best to quit on hard-won choices, while at other times, it would be best to ignore distractions and keep our choices.

But sometimes, I feel strongly about my favorite ideas that I find it almost impossible to break away.

Some thoughts bring with them very strong negative emotions

Another mental process I’ve started to be careful about is the emotional state of my mind. Being emotional keeps my mind stuck, cycling the same negative thoughts over and over. And nothing productive gets decided.

Some random person in the train station who is walking slowly in front of me could start the fire. I would think badly about the person, and when that happens, my mind spends milliseconds being irritated. More negative ideas pop up as I keep noticing other people walk slowly. The emotions that follow can snowball, lasting several minutes.

And that’s just one small random situation. If I seriously contemplate on memories in which I was hurt, it could take hours to shift the state of my mind. And it’s easy to get blinded by emotions especially when close people, like family, for example, are involved.

Reframing the original thought in a positive perspective helps. Practicing this makes the negative emotion show up less in the future.

The next topic here is a bit different from the previously mentioned sensations, thoughts, and emotions. While the former three are mental processes, this next one is a thought pattern.

Aversion for the unfamiliar

When I think about unfamiliar concepts, my mind feels blocked. Even if the unfamiliar idea is the best choice, my mind wants to pick ideas that I’m more familiar with.

The unfamiliar idea can be made more acceptable by reducing its unknown elements. But oftentimes, to get the full benefits of the decision, going all-in is the best way to go about it.

A year ago, the dance studio I went to every day for the last eight months suddenly closed down. I was heartbroken. I didn’t know I had so much attachment to that place.

Immediately, there’s already so much pressure to choose another dance studio. After all, I was spoiled with how easy it was to simply fork the money and give up all responsibility for learning to a teacher. On the other hand, my mind avoided deliberating the benefits of learning on my own. The uncertainty and responsibility don’t sound good at all.

The familiar idea of paying for dance classes feels much safer. While the unfamiliar idea to work on my dance outside the classroom didn’t even register as an option to be entertained.

As I get more familiar with this feeling of aversion, I’m able to remind myself to measure the benefits of doing something I’ve never done before. And that a wise evaluation is possible. Here are some questions when the unknown is one of the options.

• What are my goals and how much do they align with the choice?
• How credible is the source of information?
• How big are the potential benefits?
• How small are the risks involved?

All decisions affect people

Another realization I had is seeing the huge amount of time I spend thinking about people I’ve met in life. Why some people stay longer while other people just pass by. And how my decisions seemingly pushed or pulled them away.

This is not just about small things like who to invite for lunch.

Rather, this is about choices regarding my personal growth. For example, the importance of connecting with a friend by disclosing my truth. Or the inevitability of losing contact with a friend because of moving to a new city to pursue a dream. Or whether it was okay and fair to prioritize reaching out to somebody who doesn’t seem to care.

It seems like prioritizing my growth harms my relationships. It seems that I’ll need to be picking myself over others.

In the end, here’s the realization, that as long as I keep making hard choices, people in my life will either be pushed away or pulled in. I will lose contact with some, and I will keep in contact with others. People will come and go. And that’s okay. There’s no need for concern. Neither I nor they are abandoning the other.

After all, every decision is picking which group I end up aligning with.

These things were revealed. And I’m better for it.