The Challenge of Choice by Richard Fast
Decisions, decisions, decisions…our lives are filled with them. Some are small like what to make for dinner or which TV show to watch tonight. Even small decisions like these can be difficult to make, but they aren’t likely to impact your life over the long term. Others, however, can actually have life-changing implications and that’s the kind author Richard Fast examines in his book, The Challenge of Choice… how to make a ‘good’ decision when it REALLY matters!
Author, Fast, says, “The defining feature of being a member of the human race…is our singular ability to make choices…we humans face one choice after another for our entire lives.” But he goes on to say that “feeling right” and “being right” aren’t the same thing, which is ultimately the problem. Just when you feel confident in your decision that is exactly the time you would be “wise to reevaluate your choice.” But who does that?? This is where the challenge comes into play.
“…The key to becoming a skilled decision-maker, and enjoying a lifetime of decisional success, is to become acutely aware of the most common pitfalls of poor decisions while at the same time learning to follow a rational, simple decision-making formula. Becoming a skilled decision-maker is not about constantly striving to be right – it’s about being right when it really counts, and that is something every one of us can learn to do.”
This book is chock-full of great information, fun facts, interesting quizzes, and fascinating real-world examples. Before you even begin, you are asked to answer the “19 Very Short, Very Quick Questions” quiz which is a great jumping-off point to learning about yourself, how your brain works, and your usual decision-making process.
One of my very favorite quotes opens up an early chapter, “We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.” (Anais Nin). In Chapter 2, Fast talks about making sense of your senses. As he mentions, “You’re certainly entitled to put complete trust in your senses, but if you do you’d be wrong!” What??? But it’s true. The author explains that our “personal reality isn’t the perception of what is actually ‘out there,’ but rather it’s an observation of what is going on inside our heads.” Fast goes on to explain that the root cause of bad decisions is actually the way our brain works.
We use many unconscious routines, known as “heuristics” that usually work well for us, but they are not foolproof. There are so many examples of times when we see things a certain way just because we believe it to be true, but it doesn’t necessarily make it so. Think about those “quizzes” floating around on social media – is the dress blue and white or is it white and gold? Everyone seems to “see” it differently, but how can that be?
“You do not perceive what’s out there; you perceive whatever your brain tells you to perceive…and your brain is frequently wrong, which means that when it comes to making important decisions the ramifications are huge!”
In the next several chapters of the book, Fast amazes the reader with examples and explanations about second-guessing your sight, taste, sensorimotor illusions, etc.
The key is to learn how to spot these cognitive illusions, including cognitive laziness, confirmation bias, regression to the mean, status quo bias and so much more, which all help to “lead to poor choices and bad judgments and once you can do that then you can learn how to follow a decision-making process to help you make those all-important life-changing decisions with total confidence.”
Fast calls his 7-step decision-making process, “The Anatomy of a Good Decision” and he shows you this step-by-step process to help you make good decisions when it really matters (whether in your personal life or at work).
This is a wonderful book with extremely valuable and interesting information. Have some big important decisions coming up in your future? Then The Challenge of Choice is a perfect book for you. Let Richard Fast teach you how to make a GOOD decision…not just an “ok” one!
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