Mindful Decision Making
The myth of rationality
Decision making is the process of choosing a course of action from among several alternatives based on some set of criteria or objectives. It involves gathering information, analyzing options, considering consequences, and evaluating potential risks and benefits. Decision making is often thought of as a cognitive process – a rational, careful analysis that involves critical thinking and the ability to weigh and balance different factors in order to settle on the best option.
I will be blunt and say that rationality is nothing, but a myth perpetuated by people who like to simplify things that are best understood as complex, that valuing “common sense” or the ability to draw a superficial conclusion based on arbitrary premises will give us the correct answer. Rationality affords us the privilege of thinking that we as human beings are reducible to clear-cut rules of logic. Fortunately or unfortunately (depending on where you stand), this is not true. While all our psychological activity is logical, that logic isn’t necessarily what we think of as conventionally logical. To borrow a term from the late Donald Bannister, there is also logic of passion, not just the logic of reason. And both of these logics must be taken into account if we are going to make meaningful decisions, rather than just rational decisions.
Emotions often influence decision making by affecting the way we perceive and evaluate information, as well as the trade-offs they are willing to make. Emotions act like filters, some information goes through the filter amplified, while other things remain neglected, invisible. Biases (implicit and explicit ones) can also impact decision making by leading people to overlook important information or make judgments based on preconceived notions or stereotypes. Values and beliefs shape decision making by influencing what people consider to be important and relevant factors in their decision making. Intuition, our ability to make decisions based on “instinct” or "gut feelings," can also play a role in decision making and often produces surprisingly effective results.
Simply put, our entire lived experience shapes not only how we think about facts but also what we see as possibilities. Rationality, while helpful, is only one aspect of decision making.
Mindfulness as a decision making aid
Mindfulness can be helpful in improving decision making and here by mindfulness I mean specifically formal meditation practice, not just being mindful of the present moment although that has its benefits too. As a formal practice, mindfulness involves being present and fully engaged in the current moment without judgment, balancing focus on the object of meditation (breath, body, image, phrase, etc.) while being aware and letting go of the psychological processes that continuously unfold in the background.
In the context of decision making, mindfulness can help us become more aware of our biases, emotions, and other underlying assumptions, and enable us to make more considered and deliberate choices. By practicing mindfulness, we can learn to approach decision making with greater openness, curiosity, and flexibility, and be more attuned to our own values and priorities.
Mindfulness can also help us manage stress and anxiety, which can often interfere with effective decision making. By cultivating a sense of calm and equanimity, we can approach decision making with greater confidence and clarity and be less reactive to external pressures or distractions. The less impulsive you are, the more nuanced your thinking is.
Practicing mindfulness allows you to slip away from what Jon Kabat-Zinn calls the doing mode and go into being mode where you can observe yourself at work – what arises, what passes away; not only what you already know, but whatever comes about. Being dynamic and always in motion, our psyche can pleasantly surprise us with its richness and potential, but also terrify us with strong feelings, long-forgotten memories and prejudices that seem at odds with our conscious understanding of who we are. In other words, for better or worse, mindfulness will bring you into contact with all of you, not just the you that is socially acceptable.
Here are some more specific ways in which mindfulness can help you make better decisions:
1. Studies show that mindfulness helps boost your creativity. You are more likely to come up with an original solution to a problem. By being mindful, you are slowing down your processing of the world and, by doing that, you are amplifying and more carefully examining your thoughts and feelings. By being open to whatever arises (instead of expecting a specific result), mindfulness makes you more open to unorthodox solutions and new ideas.
2. You are more likely to take your values into account and make ethically-responsible decisions. Especially when we make business or financial decisions, we can be tempted to stray way from what we feel is the moral road. Mindfulness can bring us back to what our actual values are. Awareness of how our desires shape our thinking and how our goals direct our decisions allows us to look past all that and recall what our actual values are.
3. Mindfulness helps you consider diverging perspectives and form a more informed opinion. Mindfulness can improve cognitive flexibility, which is the ability to switch between different modes of thinking or problem-solving strategies. By becoming more flexible in their thinking, individuals can explore new possibilities and come up with innovative solutions to problems. An experience that many meditators have is that concepts can become blurry and diluted, only to contract again and becoming something entirely new. When you have to choose between A and B because those are the only two options you can see, mindfulness can help you come up with C, D and Y. I know they’re not in order, but that’s the point!
4. Mindfulness is the opposite of impulsivity. You are more likely to identify unintended consequences of your actions and figure out a way to avoid them. With equanimity that comes with mindfulness, we are able to carefully examine the complexity of the problem without feeling the need to jump ahead to the end of the process. That way, you are less likely to miss an important aspect or neglect to understand a difficult consequence that may come about as a result of your decision. Unfortunately, life rarely offers clear-cut solutions that don’t involve some sort of a downside.
5. Even though is connects you to your feelings in a profound way, mindfulness also allows you to make more rational decisions. This may seem to contradict the beginning of the article, but I like to think that is supplements it. The rational decision I’m referring to here is something we can call “rationality+” – a meaningful decision rather than a purely logical one. A meaningful decision is rational because it contributes to our overall well-being and a better quality of life, and not because it brings us more money or a career advance if the price to pay is exhaustion or acting against our values.
OK, but… how?
In the beginning, I mentioned that I am referring specifically to formal meditation practice, not just pausing and being aware of what’s happening in the moment. I will outline one possible approach and while it will sound simple – the practice itself is harder than you think! Learning how to meditate on a topic in order to make better decisions requires stable focus, good guidance and experience. It’s one of those things best learned and practiced with a teacher, but if you already have a mindfulness practice, you may try it out.
Meditating on a topic can be a useful way to gain clarity and insight into a particular issue or question. Here are some steps you can follow to meditate on a topic:
Choose a quiet and comfortable space. Find a quiet space where you can sit comfortably without distraction. You may want to use a cushion or chair to support your posture. It’s highly recommended that you do this meditation sitting and not lying down. Every bit of wakefulness is your friend here. You may set a timer for 20 minutes or simply make sure you have enough time and stay in meditation as long as you need (although this might require practice).
Have a journal next to you to write down your impressions after. This may seem like a banal step, but notes ought to be taken as soon as possible.
Take a few deep breaths. Ground yourself. Clear your mind.
Set your intention for the meditation - focus on the topic you want to explore. You may want to state your intention out loud too.
Spend some time focusing on the breath and then slowly recall the intention, hold it in your awareness and observe your thoughts. Begin by observing your thoughts and emotions related to the topic you want to meditate on. This is the tricky part. You are not supposed to analyze but merely observe whatever arises. If you still need a degree of control over the process, you may label thoughts by observing the theme present. Observe your feelings as well, especially how thoughts and feelings affect each other in relation to the topic you’re meditating on.
Visualize the topic. As you continue to focus on your breath and label thoughts, begin to visualize the topic you want to meditate on. Imagine it as a symbol or image in your mind's eye and observe any thoughts or feelings that arise in connection with it. Whatever symbols arises in your mind’s eye, note it and go with it.
Once you’re done, open your eyes and without moving, take your journal and write down as much as you can. Don’t try to create a narrative, simply write down keywords, key ideas, images, memories and feelings. Don’t neglect body sensations. Repeat the process more than once, preferably within a week to gather as much notes as you can. Then slowly review your material being mindful of how you respond to it, and use that for analysis.
Remember that meditation is a practice, and it can take time and patience to develop. This isn’t as simple as it may seem and even though this technique and subsequent analysis produce surprisingly good results. Practice, adjust it to suit your specific needs.
When I teach this technique, I focus on it with my advanced students, those that have completed our Mindfulness 101 course, or I use it with more experienced meditators. The reason for this is that this technique requires you to have basic knowledge on how meditation works and how to use visualization techniques in meditation, as well as the ability to sit with very diverse and often unexpected psychological content without being too distracted or disturbed by it. This requires time, practice, and knowledge. But hey – how does one live a mindful life without investing effort and work into it?
