Choices, Decisions, and Outcomes 🙇🏽‍♀️🤔

How often, if ever, have you separated the decision you made and the quality of that decision from the actual outcome that was produced? Decisions and results are not always mutually inclusive.

Resulting: the tendency to judge a decision based on its outcome rather than its quality.

Well, hey y’all! It’s been a while, but I’m happy to say I’m back… again. It’s been a journey not just getting to Substack but also returning to the idea of writing as a whole. I’m quite positive I’ll share more in future newsletters; however, let’s be brief and just say that the last several months have had me fighting for my life, okay? And from what I can gather from general sentiment, I’m not alone in that. It’s hard to escape from the chaos in the world right now. 

I’ve sat to write this newsletter countless times, but words have failed me until recently. Crises usually have a way of making us re-evaluate life and the choices we’ve given ourselves, the decisions we’ve made from those choices, and the way we reflect on the outcome of those decisions. 

In the last few months, I’ve had to make some difficult life-altering decisions, like whether to keep my grandfather on life support, some intermediate decisions, like whether to pursue a MBA, and lighter decisions, like whether to stay home or join friends in Vegas. Many of these decisions, months later, continue to oscillate in my mind. Did I make the right decision? Could there have been another choice that I didn’t think of? Is it still the right call? Would things be different if I did X instead of Y? 

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My best friend recommended I read Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke. Duke is a professor and professional poker player who authored this book to help others make smarter decisions with limited information and understand the nuances of decisions versus outcomes. 

Annie asks, “What’s one of the best decisions you’ve made in the last year?” Take a minute to think about that. 

For many of us, the answer is usually one that involves a good outcome. My initial answer definitely did. She then goes on to introduce the concept of resulting. Resulting is the tendency to judge a decision based on its outcome rather than its quality. A simple concept that was mindblowing to me. 

How often, if ever, have you separated the decision you made and its quality from the actual outcome that was produced? Until late, I had a strong tendency to conflate the two - good outcomes meant I made good decisions, and bad outcomes meant I made bad decisions. However, Annie uses the example of driving while drunk. Say, for instance, you make the decision to drive while under the influence, and thankfully, you and everyone on the road make it home safe. Just because the outcome was good in that no one was hurt, it does not negate the fact that driving intoxicated was a bad and poor-quality decision. 

To bring it back to my situation, just because I am mourning the fact that my grandfather is no longer here (bad outcome) does not mean the quality or decision itself was bad. It was the best decision, and it had an unfortunate result. This is my reminder to you to give yourself grace along this journey.

Good decisions can have “bad’ outcomes in that the results are against expectations or what’s desired, in the same way that poor decisions can have positive results. We have to learn to separate the two. Decisions and results are not always mutually inclusive. 

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This caused me to reflect on all my decisions in the last year and get to the root - my decision-making process. I asked, outcome aside, what were my habitual paths used to arrive at decisions, and what was the quality of those decisions? What I uncovered were my own inconsistencies. 

Certain things played out beautifully with little to no thought on my behalf, and I took credit for “making the right decision” when in reality, God saw me drowning and sent in the Navy. Other times I was extremely thoughtful and diligent, however everything that could’ve went wrong did. I internalized the wins and losses and became overconfident in my decision-making abilities pertaining to certain things while becoming risk-averse and stagnant in making future decisions in other categories, even if I was 1000% sure it was the right move.

I’m still making my way through this book and redefining along the way my process of making decisions, but so far, here are some things Annie suggested that have been helpful to me:

1. Identify how your beliefs shape your thought process. Our beliefs dictate how we show up in the world, and protecting that belief guides how we treat further information relevant to it. Work to first identify what that belief may be and then see if you can remove it to remain unbiased in the decision-making process. 

2. Become comfortable in not knowing, as results are often beyond our control. You don’t know everything, nor can you always control what’s to come. It’s okay to say, I don’t know, and work from there. Grace is needed most here!

3. Bad result ≄ Bad decision. Good result ≄ Good decision. It’s important to recognize an imperfect relationship exists here and that the two are not always mutually inclusive. 

4. Think in probabilities, but be prepared for the downside. Duke makes a good point that although something may have a 97% likelihood of happening, there is a 3% that it doesn’t. Accept both realities as truth and use that to bet on which decision would be best given that probability.

I write this to challenge you to unpack your decisions and the process you use to arrive at them. The goal is to 1) identify when/if you are resulting and 2) re-engage with the decision at hand, working to improve its quality. 

High-quality decision #1: Returning to you all 🙂. Stay blessed and remember to find time to return to self.

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Questions I’m thinking through:

• What was one of my best decisions in the last year and why?

• How can I become better aware of when I am resulting?

• What is the system I use to make decisions?

• How can I better identify my own belief biases when it comes to making decisions?

Links I’m loving:

• Thinking in Bets - Book

• 7 Steps in Decision Making - Article

• More Info Doesn’t Mean Better Decisions - Article

With love always,

Jamie ✈️ 🌎