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Brain-Based Transformational Solutions

V Is for Vampire

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More accurately, V is for choosing whether or not to become a vampire. (Stay with me.) It’s an example offered by philosophy professor L.A. Paul to describe the difficulty of making certain kinds of decisions—decisions that will, literally, transform you in some way. She asks, how could you make an informed choice about whether or not to become a vampire?

Imagine that you have a one-time-only chance to become a vampire. With one swift, painless bite, you’ll be permanently transformed into an elegant and fabulous creature of the night. As a member of the Undead, your life will be completely different. You’ll experience a range of intense new sense experiences, you’ll gain immortal strength, speed and power, and you’ll look fantastic in everything you wear.

So far, so good. However…

You’ll also need to drink animal blood (but not human blood) and avoid sunlight.

Paul goes on to say that all your friends and family have already become vampires and they are crazy about it. They encourage you to become a vampire, too. When you ask for more information, they tell you that, as a human, you can’t possibly know what it’s like to be a vampire until you become one.

High Stakes (no pun intended)

Paul refers to such decisions as high-stakes transformative decisions. Once you take the plunge, there’s no turning back. High-stakes transformative decisions definitely alter your status quo, for better or for worse. Other examples are:

  • Becoming a parent for the first time
  • Being born deaf and getting a cochlear implant
  • Being in a war
  • Seeing color for the first time

Normally, Paul argues, experience helps us develop the conceptual or imaginative abilities we need to imagine things or situations that don’t currently exist. (It’s easy enough to imagine a vampire, especially these days, but it’s not so easy to imagine being a vampire.) When we go about trying to decide if we should take path A or path B or stay right where we are, the right kinds of experiences allow us to project ourselves into the future so we can make a rational decision about how to proceed. If we lack such experience, we have no basis for making a rational decision.

We Are Not so Rational

Paul says:

There’s a lot of value in introspecting. It’s important for us to try to think about who we are and who we want to become when we make these big decisions.

Of course that’s true for all kinds of decisions. And there are no guarantees that even the most rational of decisions will produce the results you want or hope for. Whether the stakes are high or low, even if you think you know yourself pretty well, and you think you know who you want to become in the future, and you have suitable previous experience, and you attempt to include all the relevant information, you can still end up choosing something that leaves you disappointed or far from where you thought you’d be.

Besides that, the vast majority of choices we make are non-rational (System 1, unconscious) choices. Rational decision-making isn’t even the norm for most high-stakes transformative choices.

Affective Forecasting

When we project ourselves into the future, trying out various potential outcomes, we may be weighing (consciously or unconsciously) numerous factors. But a primary consideration for most of us is how we’re going to feel as a result of a particular outcome. This is called affective forecasting—and we tend to be really, really bad at it.

In order to predict how we’re likely to feel about something, we need to be able to imagine the event. As Paul says, that’s easier to do if we’ve experienced it or something similar in the past. If we’ve been to a lot of parties, we can imagine—in general—how we’ll feel about attending a party on Saturday. If we’ve cleaned out the garage before, we can imagine how we’ll feel about doing that on Saturday, too. But if we haven’t experienced something, what we imagine or expect may not bear much resemblance to the actuality. Thinking we can predict the future leads us to believe in the veracity of what we imagine.

Even if we’re able to imagine an event because we’ve experienced it before, our memory of it—and how we felt at the time—may be faulty simply because it’s the nature of memory to be faulty. And the feelings we experience when remembering an experience from the past are not necessarily the same feelings we had at the time of the experience. (Daniel Kahnaman claims the experiencing self and the remembering self have very different agendas.) Additionally, when we don’t recall actual details of something, we may come to rely instead on our beliefs or theories about how that thing will make us feel in the future.

The Future Will Not Be the Same as the Present

There are many other variables that influence the way we make decisions, including how we’re feeling at the time, both physically and emotionally. In Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert describes how our attempts to imagine the future are based in our experiences in the present:

We assume that what we feel as we imagine the future is what we’ll feel when we get there, but in fact, what we feel as we imagine the future is often a response to what’s happening in the present.

He adds:

We fail to recognize that our future selves won’t see the world the way we see it now.

And our future world won’t be identical to our present world, either.

So if you want to improve the odds of having your decisions lead to positive outcomes rather than negative outcomes, you need to identify what’s really important to you and focus most of your attention on going after those things. Feelings are fleeting, but the things that are most important to you are also likely to be the most constant.

Trying to decide whether or not to become a vampire isn’t really so different from actual decisions you face. Making high-stakes transformative decisions will lead to unexpected results and unintended consequences.

So will not making them.

Part of the series A-Z: An Alphabet of Change.

Give Up Choice; Get What You Really Want

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boston snowstorm

Being clear about what you really want and why you want it is essential if you want to bring about a behavioral change. The what and the why provide you with direction: your highly desirable outcome. But if you don’t feel a sense of urgency about creating that outcome, you’re likely to continue operating on the assumption that you can choose whether or not to do what you need to do to get there.

If you want to change the status quo, the outcome you’re after has to be so compelling that you’re willing to give up the freedom to not have it. I’ll give you a personal example.

Vitality is a highly desirable outcome for me. One thing that contributes significantly to my level of vitality is a combination of physical activities, such as walking, hiking, using a treadmill, and strength training. I generally enjoy doing those things as much as I enjoy the results of doing them. A couple of years ago, I had a much more regular schedule that allowed me to walk nearly every morning, hike a couple of times a month, and get in four strength training sessions a week at the gym. But that hasn’t been the case for the past year.

When my schedule changed, my level of physical activity declined and became hit-or-miss instead of regular. At the beginning of last summer, I decided to start walking for 25-35 minutes every day. That seemed like something I could reasonably commit to. Although it wasn’t ideal, it was a start. So from May 31st through today, I have walked or walked and used a treadmill every single day, no exceptions.

In September, I decided to increase my target to 45 minutes a day and have reached that most days. In December, I took a deeper look at how important vitality really is to me (VERY!) and realized that walking wasn’t enough. I get a better aerobic workout on a treadmill. In fact, I’d made a few attempts to get over to the gym to use the treadmill in the fall, but didn’t get far because I felt like I had a choice as to whether or not to do it. On December 19th, after an insanely busy two weeks, I decided to start using the treadmill three times a week, no exceptions. Since the best I’d managed during the  previous 12 months was three times in one month, I may have been overly optimistic.

But even though my schedule isn’t any more accommodating than it was before, I am now using the treadmill three times a week. The difference is that having decided to do it, I stopped giving myself a choice. I schedule the day and time I’m going to go to the gym. I may have to reschedule once in a while, but because I have no choice, I always get my three sessions in.

Going to the gym brought home to me how much I miss strength training and how wonderful I felt when I was doing it. I had a portable weight bench in the garage and a few sets of hand weights in a closet, and I realized that even if I couldn’t go to the gym to do it, I could do some upper body strength training at home. So on January 1st, I decided to include three 30-minute sessions of upper-body strength training each week, no exceptions.

Of course, I feel much better as a result of all of the increased physical activity, but maintaining this schedule is far from easy or comfortable. It’s winter now, and on the days I’m scheduled to walk outside for 45 minutes, the wind chill might be in the mid-20s, and snow might be blowing directly in my face. Winter, to put it mildly, is not my favorite season. I’ve been known to hike in the Sandia foothills when the temperature was in the mid-90s. If I could dress in shorts, T-shirt, and sandals all year, I would be ecstatic. But as I’m writing this, we’ve just had three brutally windy and cold days in a row, the coldest so far this winter. If I gave myself a choice as to whether or not to put on multiple layers of clothing and subject myself to the elements, I would never do it.

But having made the decision to invest in my vitality, I’m willing to tolerate (not always silently) the discomfort and occasional pain in the moment for the medium and long-term outcomes I’m after. And because I don’t have a choice in the matter, I don’t waste any time whatsoever debating whether or not to follow through or trying to talk myself in or out of doing what I have decided to do.

When the path ahead is clear, why wouldn’t you take the obvious next step?

By giving up the freedom to not have it, I get to have what I really want. And although it isn’t always easy, it is astonishingly simple.

Note: This is the fourth in a series of posts. To follow the thread, select the category Making Different Choices in the box under Explore.

How Do Decisions Affect Your Choices?

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choice snooze

Moment-to-moment, the vast majority of the choices you seem to be making are being made for you by the unconscious part of your brain. You do have both the ability and the opportunity to affect your choices, but you may not be making the best use of either.

The terms choice and decision are often used interchangeably, which muddies our understanding of the process of taking one action instead of another. So let’s make a distinction.

A decision is a conclusion you reach after some consideration of a significant issue. It involves thinking or deliberation. That means a decision is a result of a conscious (System 2) process. Some examples are: moving to a new city or staying where you are; keeping your current job or looking for a new one; trying to iron out the problems in your relationship or separating from your partner.

A choice, on the other hand, is more immediate and—at least in the short term—usually less consequential. Choices are generally the result of unconscious (System 1) predictions and responses. Some examples are: selecting from a restaurant menu; determining which movie to see; getting up with the alarm or hitting the snooze button.

Over time, the choices you make add up: to an outcome you want or to an outcome you don’t want. If you hit the snooze button every morning instead of getting up when you need to, you could end up getting to work late often enough that your employer notices. That’s probably not a desirable outcome. If you regularly select healthy meals in restaurants, you could end up maintaining a healthy weight or improving your sense of well-being, either of which is a desirable outcome.

If you don’t have much influence over your moment-to-moment choices, how can you influence them to add up to outcomes you want instead of outcomes you don’t want?

If you want your choices to add up to positive outcomes, you need to clearly identify what those positive outcomes are. Not only do you need to know what outcomes you want, you also need to be clear about why you want those outcomes. Identifying the what and the why requires conscious deliberation, and anything that requires conscious deliberation is energy intensive for your brain.

The decision-making process is sometimes protracted and even painful. For many people, it involves making a list of pros and cons, which is not a particularly effective strategy. Trying to imagine how you will feel if you achieve a specific outcome is also ineffective. There’s plenty of research to indicate that humans are notoriously poor at affective forecasting (being able to predict how we will feel in the future). No matter how much time you invest or how carefully you consider your options, you still can’t guarantee you’ll be happy with the outcome.

That’s why the default response is to throw up one’s hands and give in to following the path of least resistance. It means letting your brain continue choosing for you because it’s just so much easier. Learning how to use your brain to regulate your behavior (choices) definitely does not come naturally or easily.

Given that the unconscious part of your brain is completely capable of making the majority of your choices for you—with no input from you—why bother expending energy and mental effort on decision-making or trying to change your behavior?

The short answer is because you have consciousness. You’re driven to try to change your behavior because you can imagine outcomes other than the ones you have gotten or are likely to get if you continue along the path you’re on. Simply following the path of least resistance may be easy, but it isn’t satisfying and it doesn’t provide you with a sense of meaning.

In order to have a meaningful and satisfying life you need to master the process of changing the status quo.

So…what do you want to change? And why do you want to change it? If you can’t answer those two questions, the how is irrelevant.

Note: This is the third in a series of posts. To follow the thread, select the category Making Different Choices in the box under Explore.

Overthinking: Don’t Get Stuck in Analysis Paralysis

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spanish inquisitionIt’s one thing to look before you leap. It only makes sense to consider the potential outcome or consequences of an action you’re about to take. But it’s another thing altogether to believe you can fully determine—or even guarantee—the outcome based on the amount of thinking you do about it.

Overthinking often consists of making multiple lists of pros and cons, running through if/then scenarios, trying to gather as much information as possible, or attempting to approach the issue from every conceivable angle. The process of trying to make a decision becomes overwhelming. Worse, it drains conscious (System 2) attention throughout the period of time you’re trying to make a particular decision. So the more thinking you do about it, the less effective your thinking becomes. You can find yourself going around and around in mental circles, either unable to make the decision or just taking a stab at something—anything—because you can’t stand thinking about it any longer.

Overthinking also begets second-guessing, in which you get to run through several rounds of “if only/then” scenarios.

Overthinking is driven by your brain’s craving for certainty. But thinking harder or longer about something won’t necessarily get you closer to an answer. Here’s why:

  • In spite of your best efforts, your information will always be incomplete. There are things you don’t know, can’t know, or won’t know at the time you’re trying to decide, and any of those things could be important enough to affect the outcome. Unfortunately, we don’t know what we don’t know, and so we don’t take it into consideration.
  • Even if you were to have access to all of the information, because you’re human you’re subject to numerous cognitive biases, which means you won’t be able to view it entirely objectively. For example, you will overweigh some information and underweigh, or even ignore, other information. System 2 thinking may be what you’re aware of, but System 1 still has plenty of input, and System 1 makes mistakes.
  • You can’t account for randomness. The very idea of randomness makes your brain a little crazy, so it refuses to accept it. Your brain is under the impression it can find a cause-and-effect link for anything and everything. The consequences of randomness, according to physicist Leonard Mlodinow, are counterintuitive. (Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!)
  • You can’t predict the future. Even more to the point, you can’t predict how you’re going to feel in the future. Daniel Gilbert, in Stumbling on Happiness, says we tend to think the future will be a lot like today…only different. But the future is fundamentally different from today, and the way you feel right now when you think about the consequences of taking some action is not necessarily the way you will feel when you are living with the consequences of that action.
  • Taking any action can have unexpected results and undesired consequences. Although you can anticipate that such things might occur, you can’t plan for them because you won’t know what they are until after they happen.

Too much logical, linear thinking is as bad as too little. After framing the problem or situation and considering possible solutions, turn it over to your unconscious (System 1) for a while and see what it comes up with. Let your mind wander instead of keeping it on a tight leash. The sudden insight, moment of clarity, or change in perspective you get may surprise you. But this is the way the creative process works, and it’s a great way to use both parts of your brain to your advantage.

Additional reading: Intuition: Knowing without Knowing How We Know.

Depression’s Interesting Effect on Decision-Making

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confusionHow does depression affect decision-making? In a word: negatively. That’s not a big surprise. But why do depressed people have a harder time making decisions? According to the results of a recent study reported in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology, one reason is that people who are depressed have more difficulty accessing their intuition. In my last post, Intuition: Knowing without Knowing How We Know, I said that intuition as the result of the associative thinking of System 1 (our unconscious), which constantly sees patterns and connects dots our conscious brain (System 2) is unaware of.

Intuitive—or associative—thinking is good for making short-term predictions and for everyday decision-making. And it’s everyday decision-making that depressed people report having difficulty with. Instead of accessing or relying on their intuition, they use the rational, logical, and linear thinking of System 2, which is considerably slower.

Over-relying on System 2 thinking often results in “analysis paralysis,” which I’ll be covering in my next post. System 2 attention is limited and easily depleted, so if we have to rely on it for every little decision we make, we will quickly run out of steam. We won’t be able to make any decision, large or small.

Another thing the study revealed is that depressed people are more likely to ruminate. Maybe it’s this tendency to ruminate that disrupts a person’s access to intuition.

In a post on rumination last month, I wrote:

Rumination feels like problem-solving, but it actually prevents us from solving problems because it keeps us focused on negative events and emotions. We continue to dwell on our problems instead of attempting to resolve them. Rumination disrupts our self-regulation. Because we want to feel better, we try to distract ourselves or turn to immediate gratification. Rumination also increases stress levels and has a negative effect on our general health.

Rumination is a low level of thinking in which one thought leads to another but never to a solution or a conclusion. Rumination occupies mental space and System 2 (conscious) attention, which is already in short supply.

So depression may at least partially be a matter of using, or getting stuck in, the wrong kind of thinking. Intuition—otherwise known as jumping to conclusions—isn’t infallible by any means, but in terms of ordinary, everyday decisions, it is generally reliable. And when it’s wrong in those situations, the stakes tend not to be high enough to lead to major negative consequences.

System 2 thinking is slow, effortful, and deliberate. It’s great for solving complex problems and for long-range or strategic planning. It isn’t the best choice for the hundreds of quick decisions we normally need to make every day. It’s easy to understand how someone could become mired in the quicksand of System 2 thinking and feel mentally paralyzed.

Some suggestions on curtailing ruminative thinking can be found here. Hopefully, the link between a tendency to ruminate and the loss of access to intuitive thinking will lead to greater insight into depression and more treatment options for those experiencing it.

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