Decisions
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So, apparently, we make about 35,000 decisions a day as an adult - which is wild to think about. A lot of the decisions we make every day are very quick - taking less than 313 milliseconds. Some decisions take up more time, meaning that they don’t just take up space in a day but space over months. Some decisions, about 226 a day, are as simple as deciding what to eat. Then we have some heavier decisions like whether or not to stay in a job or to end a relationship.
The other day I needed a car wash; within a five-mile radius of my apartment there are four hand-wash car washes - I had a decision to make. Typically I like to go through the standard decision process, which is as follows:
When I was deciding on the car wash as I got to the “weigh options with evidence gathered” step I had identified the 4 options - I eliminated one of them because it was in the opposite direction in which I was going afterward (Trader Joe’s). So I had three choices.
1st choice:
pro - closest to me
con - hardly any reviews
2nd choice:
pro - great reviews & brand new
con - difficult to find the entrance? idk about y’all where you live but the drivers in Houston wait for NOBODY to make a decision - either know where you’re going or get off the road.
3rd choice:
pro - easy to access
con - a bit run down
Can y’all guess which one I went with? Okay, I will tell you, it was option 3. I made the choice and took action. When I pulled up…swear it was like they had never seen someone wanting a car wash before - the driveway was empty (it was 10 am on a Sunday) and nobody came up to my car. Usually, they come up to the car, let you know the services offered, ask for your keys, etc. so I sat there for a couple of minutes with my window down and when nobody approached the car I turned it off and opened the door. I got out of the car and walked up to the guy sitting there and was like, “Are y’all open?” he said “Yes" and then just stared at me. At this point I thought I had made the wrong decision lol but I continued onward and let him know I needed inside vacuumed and wiped down, then a wash on the outside. And he said, “Okay $30, keys are inside?”, I told him “Yes” I then saw this little trailer building and asked if I could wait in there and he said “Yep."And that’s just what I did, they took about 20 minutes on my car and when I got my keys back I was decently happy with the wash and went on about my day.
Something that most people know about me is that my decisions are not about what is easy - typically I would’ve gone with choice number 2 because it fit the vibe and had great reviews and I care about that stuff. During the review decision stage, it got me thinking why did I make that decision? The quick answer to that is because it was easy to access and because I am new to the area I didn’t want to deal with the con of not knowing where to enter. As I lay on the floor of my empty apartment I reflected and the more I thought about that decision process I thought about how many times people make certain decisions because of where they are in life instead of what they want in life or where they want to be - that’s a pretty dramatic turn from the decision of a carwash right?
How many times have you made a decision that aligned with your current self but not with your future self? And I am not talking about survival decisions - that's completely different. I am talking about decisions like “Should I stay friends with this person?”, “Should I take this job?”, “Should I buy this?”, “Should I move?”, “Should I get into this relationship?” - those types of decisions where you should be sitting down with yourself and asking “Will the decision I make align with my future self or is it more aligned with where I am right now”. From my own experience, I have made those bigger life decisions when I wasn't confident in where I wanted to be, I was being impatient, I was complacent in where I was at in life - and then down the road I looked back and thought “Well damn I think I made the wrong decision”.
Something that I think is important to note is that even though I can acknowledge that maybe I made the wrong decision, I don’t regret my decisions. I made the decision that was right in the moment and moving forward I will be moving towards being more aware of my future self in my decision-making process as well as fulfilling the needs of my current self. That is what I am working on now - not really with car wash decisions but with decisions with a bigger impact on my life. Through my silly story about the car wash, I hope you can think about your future self when making an impactful decision about your life the next time you’re faced with choices.
xoxx,
B
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Some sources:
Camilleri , A. R. (2021, January 31). What Are Life's Biggest Decisions? Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/life-s-biggest-decisions/202101/what-are-lifes-biggest-decisions
Hickson, D.J. (1986), "How Long Does It Take To Make a Decision", Management Research News, Vol. 9 No. 3, pp. 2-7.
Hoomas, J. (2015, March 20). 35,000 Decisions: The Great Choices of Strategic Leaders. Roberts Wesleyan University. https://go.roberts.edu/leadingedge/the-great-choices-of-strategic-leaders
Lang, S. (2006, December 22). 'Mindless autopilot' drives people to dramatically underestimate how many daily food decisions they make, Cornell study finds. Cornell Chronicle. https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2006/12/mindless-autopilot-drives-people-underestimate-food-decisions
Milosavljevic , M. (2023). Consumers can make decisions in as little as a third of a second. Judgement and Decision Making, 6(6), 520-530. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/judgment-and-decision-making/article/consumers-can-make-decisions-in-as-little-as-a-third-of-a-second/9711447249D813E954260FDCA39E3C70
(n.d.). Decision Making Process. UMass Dartmouth. https://www.umassd.edu/fycm/decision-making/process/#:~:text=Decision%20making%20is%20the%20process,relevant%20information%20and%20defining%20alternatives.