Why we take "Poor Decisions"

I wrote a tiny post on good, bad and poor decisions (blunder).

Making a bad decision is understandable. But why do we make blunders. When we are in the capacity of making a good decisions, why are we converting them to poor decisions? Do we like shooting at our own foot? Of course, not.

Researchers say, we have two minds. Have you ever experienced the dilemma in your life? One of your minds say "i do not want eat another scoop of ice cream" and yet another mind finds excuses "i will take another scoop and compensate with additional workout". The next morning, one of the minds thinks that "i had ice cream yesterday and now i should get up from bed and go for a walk" and yet another mind says "it seems like it is cloudy out and it may rain". Another example is shopping. Buying things way more than our need and what we can afford. I am sure that each one of us would have took several poor decisions in life only to repent later.

Our brain has two minds. The truth is that one mind is rational and the another mind is emotional. Emotional brain is mighty and powerhouse. The Rational (animals don't have this) one is tiny and succumb when there is a tug of war with emotional. First we need to understand that emotional mind is capable of making "poor" decisions as the decisions are taken based on "what it likes" but not on "merit". But the rational part takes decisions as it names says "rationally".

Understanding that we have two minds and accepting that we take emotional decisions and constantly using "rational" side would help us make better decisions. Making better decisions is a habit. Unless anything forms as a habit, the results ought be inconsistent and unpredictable.

Bottom line: Practice to use rational side to make "right" decisions. It is a long term process.

Good, Bad and Poor Decisions

(Not a) Rocket Science: Good Decisions Vs Bad Decisions Vs Poor Decisions

Good decisions - Well thought out and the decision seems to be correct

Bad decisions (there are limitations) - Not well thought out and the outcome is not so great. There are some shortcomings that are outside of your control. You do not have expertise to decide but the situation is such that you need to take decisions. You learn something new. It is failure.

Poor decisions (limiting oneself) - Not well thought out again and the outcome is not so great. But there is a difference here. You had all information at your disposal or you have access to get those information with little to no effort. You screwed it. This is NOT a failure. This is a blunder.

There is a hell a lot of difference between a failure and blunder.

A failure gives you confidence that you will do it after learning and a blunder gives an impression that you lack commitment.

Do you have BRAIN? Watch This

Interesting video... If you want to improve your brain and increase neurons, watch this video. Just 12 mins

Learning and Rules of Brain

For quite sometime, i have taken up reading quite seriously. All the credits should go to OpenGyan. In order to prepare the content and aid me in delivery of workshops, i tend to read books (most of them are bibles and it needs at least few years to completely understand the content and solve the exercises in the books). For example, when i started to design workshop on Linux, it was mostly my experience along with gathering of information from "man" pages. I later found that a lot of coherency can be brought to the presentation, workshops and its contents if i follow a standard text book. It has couple of advantages. We tend to know ahead of time what can be covered in a days time and helps me in structuring my workshops. The second, sweet and big take away is that i tend to read a lot of material which in turn makes me to know little more. Because of this approach, my learning is incremental and i tend to know how the students will struggle if just dump everything in single shot. So, my effort would be to explain them what is required to understand a topic, do some experiments and give them few case studies. Finally get their feedback to fine tune the content. 

In this process i understood the importance of revision and its short-term and long term-benefits which is outlined in one of the interesting books that i read a while ago - Brain Rules. In order to fix the issues in the content and my understanding, i need to reread the text books and correct my understanding. When i read it again, i tend to get a feeling that my real learning starts today as i would learn something little deeper and the information seems to be wired strongly. This kind of makes me to take the classes at a relative ease (for the ones that i revise and i continue to struggle until i find the resonance ;-)).

There is a scientific way to know how brain works and the efficiency of the brain can be increased (btw, it works for only who has it and who uses it but it can't do any magic if you dont have it or use it, wow what a pun ;-)). Brain Rules makes sense now and if you are interested in developing your brain, check out this, this and the video below.

Learn the rules of brain, and you won't regret it.

Have a good Sunday or a great week ahead if you are reading this on Monday :-)

Now, it is Brain Rules

For the next few weeks, i m going to read two books which i think will have great impact.

I have already wrote about the book Predictably Irrational here and here. (not in an any journal or magazine, these links are below the current post :-)) I feel that i should read the book again at slightly slower pace.

I just read a chapter in another book which i found equally fascinating and has great insights. The book "Brain Rules" by John Medina. The book talks about various principles on how to keep our brain fit. I think, the book will be useful for those of us who use it. So, first, i got to use my brain in next few weeks and all the principles and then come here to write another review.

If you want to hear the author, here is the website and videos.

Brain Rules Introduction from Pear Press on Vimeo.

If you have noted, both the books are written by researchers and you could see all their points are backed by solid research.

Hope that i start using my brain from next year and then rule it :-)