Decision Making, Door Openers & Elimination
Decision Making, Door Openers & Elimination
Amigos y amigas!
The first Big 3 newsletter of November is here.
- 1 mental health tip
- 1 social skills tip
- 1 personal reflection
Let's begin with this week's mental health tip...
1.) How to make better decisions
If your decisions are good, so too will you have a good life.
But decision making is another thing youâre not taught in school. Not to mention the world we live in today isnât exactly primed for you to be decisive.
- Going shopping? Youâll no doubt be confronted with 30 different types of shampoos, 7 types of oat milk, 9 brands of dark chocolate and 5 types of canned tomatoes to choose from.
- Deciding on who to marry for the rest of your life? Have fun trying to choose one of the 27,653 people you can swipe left on.
- Stuck on what job to take next? Enjoy picking one of the 2379 job listings on indeed.
But 3 years ago I became fed up with being indecisive. So I did some research and I came across an exercise which has since helped me make any life decision, big or small with clarity and ease. It only takes around 5-10 minutes.
Hereâs what you doâŚ
First of all, reflect back on the top 3 best decisions youâve ever made in your life.
When you made that decision, consider:
- What was your environment like at the time?
- Who were you listening to?
- What mind state was you in at the time?
- What emotions did you feel?
Then do the same but with the top 3 worst decisions youâve ever made:
- What was your environment like at the time?
- Who were you listening to?
- What mind state was you in at the time?
- What emotions did you feel?
Take some time to write down your answers.
The goal with doing is exercise is to extract the themes amongst your best and worst decisions so you can use them as guides for future decisions.
In my case I realisedâŚ
My worst decisions involved:
- Me listening to what other people weâre saying
- My mental health was in a bad state before I made the decision
- I felt excited and giddy before I made the decision
In summary, my worst decisions were plagued by impulsivity, poor health and excitement.
However, my best decisions involved:
- My mental health being in a good place
- Me having no idea how the decision would work out (I knew the what but not the how)
- Listening to my own voice
- Most people disagreeing with me
In essence, the best decisions Iâve ever made have come from a place of stillness and calm, not chaos and confusion.
So I genuinely implore you to do this exercise. I've yet to make a decision in my life without using the results I found to guide me.
Also, I'd be curious to know what answers you find.
Go deeper...
Here are a few more principles you can use to aid your decision making:
â˘â â If its not a fuck yeah, its a no.
â˘â â Consider fully & act decisively.
â˘â â Oftentimes our best course of action appears objectionable at first step.
â˘â â The best way to make the worst decision is to ask everyoneâs opinion.
â˘â â When something is for you, it will bring clarity and alignment, not chaos and confusion.
â˘â â If it costs your mental health then itâs too expensive.
â˘â ââ Sometimes it's best to lie low, to do nothing but let the winter pass.â - Robert Greene
â˘â â Just because you can doesnât mean you should.
â˘â â Donât confuse what you want with what you need. You should be absolutely willing to make a less exciting decision if itâs within your long-term best interests.
â˘â â Never take advice from someone you wouldnât trade places with.
â˘â â Never take direction from someone whoâs never been where youâre going.
â˘â â A problem postponed is a problem extended.
If you'd like a book to read on how to make better decisions I'd recommend this one. (I also did a video summary on it which wasn't one of my best videos but hay ho).
Now we've improved our decisiveness, let's cover this week's social skills tip...
2.) Door openers
Trying to get people to talk to you when they donât want to is hard.
- A friend whoâs isolating themselves.
- A colleague whoâs annoyed with you.
- A partner who is being more distant than usual.
But the best way to get someone to open up when they don't want to is to use something called a door opener.
A door opener is a nonintrusive invitation you send the other person to talk.
(Emphasis on nonintrusive.)
Because most of the time, when someone doesnât want to talk we send a door closer...
- "What's up with you?"
- "Happy yet?"
- "What did you do this time?"
- "Don't inflict your lousy mood on me."
- "Whatâs happened? The end of the world?â
Or we try to reassure or give advice...
- "Cheer up."
- "Things will get better. They always do."
- "Next week you won't even remember what happened."
- "Why don't you try doing something that'll cheer you up?"
(The above examples do nothing but tell the other person âstop feeling what youâre feeling.")
Or we try to drag them through the door...
- "You look sad John. Feel like talking?"
- "Not really."
- "I can tell you are troubled. You know you can talk to me."
- "I don't feel like it right now."
- "You really ought to get it off your chest, you know."
- "Yeah I know. Later maybe."
- "But the time to talk is when you are feeling things."
A door opener, on the other hand, is delivered with the understanding that most people want to talk about whatâs going on inside them but they need a bit of encouragement.
A door opener might sound something like this...
- "I'm interested in hearing more about it."
- "It seems like something is bothering you. Care to talk about it?"
- "Looks like things didn't go well for you today. I've got time if you'd like to talk."
- "Something unpleasant happen to you? Want to talk about it?"
Go deeperâŚ
A good door opener is based on 4 elements:
1.) A description of the other person's body language or tone of voice ("your face is beaming today!" / "you look like you're not feeling up to par.")
2.) An invitation to talk or to continue talking ("care to talk about it?" / "please go on..." / "I'm interested in what you're saying.")
3.) Silence (giving the other person time to decide what they want to say)
4.) Attending (eye contact and a posture of involvement that signals concern once they start talking)
Note: sometimes not all of the above elements are necessary to invite someone to talk. If you know someone well, sometimes all you need is to say âshootâ or âletâs hear about itâ to get the conversation going.
So remember...
Itâs hard for someone to decline a door being politely opened for them but itâs easy for them to decline walking through the door if you try to force them through it.
This week's challenge:
- Dial in to someone's body language and send them a door opener and invite them to talk
For example...
- *You notice your friend's tone of voice is lethargic and drawn out
- Door opener: "hey man, it's seems like something might be getting you down at the moment. Care to talk about it?"
Personal story...
A few weeks ago a young lad dressed in a suit knocked on my door. He was a salesman trying to pitch me to switch my wifi network. But I couldn't help but notice he seemed really sad while he was talking so I said "thanks for the pitch mate, but I have to ask, are you ok?" to which he responded "yeah, I'm fine" with a smile. I then clarified with "ok, I know it was a bit out of the blue but I couldn't help but notice you seemed a bit sad."
We laughed, he reassured me he was fine and I wished him a good day. Hopefully I didn't send him into a state of paranoia but I had to check!
Now letâs finalise with this weekâs personal realisationâŚ
3.) Elimination is king
This week I deleted WhatsApp.
And Iâve felt great.
I donât have instagram, snapchat or any other social media besides YouTube and X but Iâve always had a feeling that WhatsApp was draining my energy.
What started off as a simple way of keeping contact with people by engaging in group chats and texting quickly became another habit of compulsive checking each day.
But now Iâve deleted it and gotten some breathing space, Iâve realised something rather sad and joyful at the same timeâŚ
All the time I thought I was spending âconnectingâ with people, I wasnât.
The truth is, texting is pseudo communication and rarely, if ever, leads into the deeper connection we want to build with people.
Now I donât have WhatsApp, Iâve been reflecting back on all those moments I spent texting people for HOURS whilst thinking: âwhy didnât I just call them or arrange to meet up?â
On a more vulnerable level, I've also been able to realise how unplugging from pseudo communication has allowed me to find better ways to meet my social needs. Because after all, if I can quickly message someone and distract myself from any feeling of loneliness, I don't give myself the opportunity to sit with my loneliness and conclude; "oh, I don't want to feel lonely, so I'm going to call someone and arrange to meet up." or "oh, my evenings are pretty boring and lonely, so I'm going to start doing salsa classes each Wednesday and return to my local boxing gym."
By distracting yourself from your emotions you remove the one feedback mechanism you need in order to address your most important needs.
Either way, this personal realisation isnât just specific to technology, because the point Iâm making is; to improve your mental health, subtract before you add.
Instead of trying a new flashy technique, cramming more knowledge into your brain or coming up with a new plan, write down a list of everything you currently engage in that is potentially draining your energy.
In fact, do so with this question at hand:
âIs the value I get from this thing worth the life energy I spend in exchange for it?â
Then you might just see how many things fall into insignificance right before your eyes.
Because after all, a lot of things pretend to have meaning but they don't.
Thank you for reading.
Until next week!
Lew
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