Think like a poker player and realize that you don’t know everything going on in your life. Sometimes luck is at play. Maybe you made the right decision but had bad luck. Or made the wrong decision, and he had great luck. If you think like a poker player, you’ll be able to make good decisions, even when you don’t know all the facts.
Think in percentages. What is the best bet going in? If you had to place money on one of your decisions, where would that decision go? Instead of thinking of right answer or wrong answer, Instead, think of percentages. This is a 10% chance. That is a 40% chance. What has the best odds of being the right decision? That way, you’re not doing this black and white thinking. You’re actually giving credit to all the ideas and deciding which is the best idea. It also means that you lose that hurdle of admitting you are wrong. Instead, you placed the bet on something that had a lower percentage of winning.
Realize there are two types of errors. One is the false positive, where you think something will happen, and it doesn’t. And the second type two error, when you feel something’s not going to happen, and it does. Make sure that you try to reduce the types of mistakes you have in your life,
Realize that we all have a bias about ourselves and about our decisions. And what great thoughts we have! The only way to make better decisions is to get away from bias. Have an honest evaluation of what we decide and what we know.
Admit, “I don’t know.” Remember, you don’t have to come up with an answer for everything. When you admit that you don’t know, it gives you room to investigate why something happens and the truth.
Be a truth seeker and be on the lookout for information that’s wrong or information that comes from a bad source, even if the bad source didn’t mean to do any harm by it. But always look for that truth in whatever it is you are thinking about.
Challenge
Try this little experiment: For the next week, try to put percentages based on all your beliefs, whether it’s just inside your head or when you’re telling someone else. I think there’s a 40% chance it’s gonna rain tomorrow. I think there’s a 70% chance I’m going to sleep in. whatever it is you decide, try assigning percentages to that decision. It will give you a way of evaluating how confident you are about what you’re saying or thinking.
