How to Make Better Decisions
How do you make great decisions?
I believe your life is a sum total of the decisions you’ve made up to this point. Where are you going to live? Who are you going to spend time with? What are you going to do for work? What are you going to feed your body today? The challenge is, we were never taught in school how to make a decision or solve a problem.
In this episode, I’m going to share a technique that I outline in our brand new book called, Limitless, on how to make great decisions. Before I do that, I want to thank you for making Limitless an Instant New York Times Best-Seller — it was also #1 on The Wallstreet Journal. Now, I’m going to share an excerpt from our 10-Day Kwik Start program that serves as an audio/video companion coarse for Limitless — our gift to you when you order your copy of the book from limitlessbook.com. In the Kwik Start program, I teach you how to read the book, because we want to make Limitless the most read book of the year.
"Your life is the sum total of the decisions you’ve made up to this point."
JIM KWIK
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META-THINKING
- The Limitless Model is your blueprint for achieving and accelerating your personal success through the power of learning.
- The Limitless Model has three steps. The Mindset determines what’s possible. The Motivation taps into your purpose and energy. The Methods get you results.
- Today we are focusing on methods for meta-learning or learning how to learn.
- In this section, we talk about methods for being a better thinker. You don’t have thoughts you do thoughts. You don’t have memory, you do a memory.
- School taught us what to learn, what to remember, and what to think, not how to learn, how to remember, and how to think.
- Your life is a sum total of the decisions you made up to this point. Do you feel that? We take responsibility for that, right? Your life would be different if you would have made different decisions about who to be with, where to live, and what career to explore.
- Isn’t it interesting that no one has shown us how to make good decisions and how to think about our thinking—that’s called meta-thinking.
- Think about a problem that you are struggling with or a decision that you are not quite clear about. I want you to apply this method that I am about to share with you to help you in that endeavor.
THE SIX THINKING HATS
- The technique is called The Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono. Imagine there are six hats in front of you and they are all different colors. When you put on a hat, you are going to see your problem or situation from a specific point of view.
- When you put on the WHITE HAT, it means you are going to look at your problem or situation from a logical standpoint—science-based information. Analyze the situation based on pure facts, no emotion. To help you remember, think of the white coat that a scientist or doctor wears. Now take off the white hat.
- When you put on the RED HAT, you are going to look at the situation emotionally. How do you feel about the situation? How do feel about the various decisions? What are the emotions that come up? To help you remember that the red hat is emotions, think about the red heart— the emotions and feelings. Take off the red hat.
- Put on the YELLOW HAT. Yellow is the optimist hat. When looking at this problem or decision consider the best-case scenario. What are all the benefits that would come out of this situation? To help you remember the yellow hat as the optimist hat, picture the yellow sun, it’s warmth, and the positivity that comes from it. You are looking at everything that could go right. Take off the yellow hat.
- Put on the BLACK HAT. The black hat is the judge or critic. Look at this situation more critically. What could go wrong? To help you remember the black hat, think about the black robes of a judge. It’s the judgment hat. Take off the black hat.
- Put on the GREEN HAT. When you look at the situation, think about growth. Think about the new opportunities that could arise. Look at more options. What are you not considering outside the box? To help remind you of the green hat, think of the green grass that grows—new growth, new options. Take off the green hat.
- Grab the remaining hat. The BLUE HAT is the manager that considers all of the other points of view from the other hats and makes a decision. To help you remember the blue hat, think about the blue sky that oversees everything. It listens to everything that’s going on and it makes the final decision.
- The Six Thinking Hats is one of many methods in the “Unlimiting your Thinking” chapter of Limitless.
- Notice how you can apply this to your problems. Have fun with it. If you have a team or you want to do it with your family, you can have fun that way too. Each person can choose a different hat to see that point of view. Then you can switch hats to see it from other’s points of view.
- This activity gets you out of your own mind and gives you permission to see something in a brand new way. One hat is usually more dominant than others.
- Apply Six Thinking Hats and share with us what you experienced and learned.
SHARE WITH US
- Take a screenshot of this episode, tag me on social media (@jimkwik) and share your greatest “aha!” moment from this episode with us!
- Check out my book at limitlessbook.com
