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The Power of Positive Language: Reframe Words to Create Energy and Opportunity

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The language we use shapes how we think and act. Every word creates an image and an energy. We actually remember positive words better than negative ones.

Take a sign that says, “Don’t dump trash here.” Your brain first processes the negative, “I can’t dump trash here”, then has to flip to “So…where should it go?” A clearer, more effective version is: “Dump trash here.” One small change; a big shift in energy and action.

Try these positive flips:

Negative: “No, we don’t have that one; we only have this one.”
Positive: “What we do have is this one, and its features are…”

Negative: “I can’t have this ready until Friday.”
Positive: “I can have this ready for you on Friday.”

Negative: “They cannot correct that problem until they redesign the motor.”
Positive: “When they redesign the motor, they’ll correct that issue.”

Negative: “Our managers don’t communicate with one another.”
Positive: “Our managers need to find better ways to communicate with one another.”

Negative: “We can do this, but…”
Positive: “We can do this, and…”

From Problems to Opportunities

Words like problem or even challenge can trigger stress as they are emotive words. They suggest obstacles, failure, or competition. Instead, try thinking in terms of opportunities – which provide chances to learn, improve, and grow.

When you replace the word “problem” with “opportunity,” your focus shifts from potential failure to what you can achieve.

“What would you attempt to do today if you knew you could not fail?”

This simple shift in perspective opens the door to new possibilities and forward momentum.

One Small Habit

Watch your use of “but”. Often, everything before “but” gets erased by what follows. Try swapping “but” for “and” (or simply pause) for a week and notice the shift.

Choose words that move you, and others, forward. Positive language reduces friction, saves time, and builds the energy you need to achieve your goals.

Looking to reframe your words and unlock more energy in your life and work?

Send me an email: babette@babettebensousan.com.au to learn more.

Once Upon a Time

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Once upon a time in a bustling city, there lived a young professional named Sarah. She was ambitious, talented, and full of dreams, but like many individuals navigating the complex maze of life, she often found herself at a crossroads, unsure which path to take.

Sarah’s dilemma wasn’t unique. In fact, it was a universal challenge that many people face – the art of decision-making. She yearned for clarity, direction, and the confidence to make the right choices that would shape her career and personal life.

One day, while grappling with a particularly tough decision about a career opportunity, Sarah discovered the world of coaching. She had heard about it before but had never given it much thought. Intrigued, she decided to explore this avenue, hoping that it might offer her the guidance she so desperately sought.

Enter Coach Maya, a seasoned and compassionate decision-making coach. She had spent years helping individuals like Sarah navigate their personal and professional journeys. Coach Maya believed that everyone had the answers within themselves; they just needed the right guidance to unlock them.

Their first meeting was a revelation. Coach Maya listened intently, creating a safe space where Sarah could share her fears, doubts, and dreams. Through thought-provoking questions, Maya helped Sarah explore her values, priorities, and long-term goals. She encouraged Sarah to dig deep into her inner wisdom, empowering her to see possibilities she had never considered.

As the coaching sessions progressed, Sarah began to experience a transformation. She not only gained clarity about her decision but also developed a newfound self-awareness and confidence. With Coach Maya’s guidance, she learned to embrace the decision-making process as an opportunity for growth and self-discovery.

Their journey together was not without its challenges. Sarah faced setbacks, encountered unexpected obstacles, and even questioned her decisions at times. But Coach Maya was there every step of the way, offering unwavering support and helping Sarah build resilience. She reminded Sarah that the journey itself was as important as the destination.

Over time, Sarah made the decision that had once seemed daunting. She embraced it with courage and conviction, knowing that it aligned perfectly with her values and aspirations. With Coach Maya’s guidance, she had learned to trust her judgment and take ownership of her decisions.

Sarah’s story is a testament to the transformative power of coaching in the realm of decision-making. It’s a reminder that we all face choices that shape our lives, and with the right coach, we can navigate those choices with clarity, confidence, and purpose. Coach Maya had not only helped Sarah make a decision but had empowered her to become the author of her own story, setting her on a path towards a future filled with fulfilment and success.

And so, in the heart of the bustling city, the narrative of decision-making and coaching continued, one person at a time, unlocking the potential within and illuminating the paths toward brighter, more purposeful lives

THE POWER OF DECISIONS: A COACH’S PERSPECTIVE

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Every decision we make involves cutting down other possibilities, which often feels like a loss. This sense of loss can weigh heavily, even in small choices—like picking a Netflix show—and becomes even more daunting when facing life’s bigger challenges.

In today’s complex world, decisions are everywhere, from the trivial to the transformative. Yet, our mental energy has limits, and decision fatigue—a state where the quality of decisions declines with the sheer number we make—poses a real challenge.

As a coach, understanding decision fatigue and equipping others to navigate it effectively is key to fostering resilience, clarity, and growth.

What Is Decision Fatigue?

Decision fatigue occurs when our ability to make quality judgments diminishes after a series of decisions. Think of your decision-making energy as a finite resource. Every choice, big or small, draws from it, leaving less mental clarity for subsequent decisions.

For leaders, entrepreneurs, or individuals navigating uncertainty, decision fatigue often shows up as procrastination, impulsive choices, or a sense of overwhelm.

A Coach’s Perspective on the Evolution of Choices

Our ancestors made survival-based decisions: food, safety, shelter. Today, we’re bombarded with endless options—from toothpaste brands to career paths. This explosion of options stretches our mental bandwidth. However, while our cognitive resources are finite, our capacity to manage them strategically is limitless with the right tools and frameworks.

The Cost of Decision Fatigue in Leadership and Life

Decision fatigue doesn’t just affect individuals—it can ripple across teams, organizations, and even families. Consider the research by Stanford professor Jonathan Levav: judges were far more likely to grant parole in the morning (70%) than later in the day (10%), irrespective of the cases. This highlights how fatigue influences even the most objective professionals.

For you as a leader, partner, or decision-maker, unchecked decision fatigue can lead to diminished productivity, strained relationships, and poor outcomes. Recognizing and addressing it is essential to thriving in today’s fast-paced world.

Strategies to Overcome Decision Fatigue

As your coach, I encourage you to approach decision fatigue with intention. Here’s how:

  1. Prioritize High-Impact Decisions Early
    Make your most important decisions when your mind is fresh. Reserve the first part of your day for critical thinking and reserve less demanding tasks for later.
  2. Delegate and Empower
    Hand off non-critical decisions to others. Not only does this lighten your load, but it also builds trust and fosters growth in your team or support network.
  3. Streamline Options
    Too many options can paralyze progress. Narrow down possibilities to a few key ones. Simple decision-making frameworks—like pros-and-cons lists or prioritization grids—can make the process easier.
  4. Create Systems and Routines
    Automate repetitive tasks and establish routines to reduce daily decision-making. This frees your mental energy for the decisions that truly matter.
  5. Schedule Breaks
    Your brain needs time to recharge. Regular pauses throughout the day can reset your mental energy and improve clarity.
  6. Release Perfectionism
    Not every decision needs to be flawless. “Good enough” is often better than indecision. The pursuit of perfection can drain you—focus on progress instead.

Shifting Perspective: Embracing Imperfect Decisions

Many decisions, when viewed from a broader lens, aren’t life-altering. When coaching clients, I encourage them to ask:

  • Will this decision matter in a month or a year?
  • What’s the worst that could happen if I choose imperfectly?
  • Can this decision be revisited or adjusted later?

This perspective helps to lower the stakes, reduce anxiety, and enable confident action.

Navigating the Fear of Better Options (FOBO)

In coaching, I often encounter clients paralyzed by the fear of making the “wrong” choice, also known as FOBO (Fear of Better Options). The truth is, most decisions don’t require perfection—just momentum. By making timely decisions and learning from their outcomes, you sharpen your intuition and decision-making muscles.

Reclaim Your Decision-Making Power

Decision-making is about creating clarity and alignment with your values. The ability to decide with confidence, even in the face of uncertainty, is a skill that can be cultivated. With intentional practice and strategies, you can move through life with less stress and more purpose.

Remember: Every decision is an opportunity to learn, grow, and move forward. As your coach, I’m here to guide you in navigating options with confidence and clarity.

Adapted from: Decision Fatigue: Understanding and Overcoming the Hidden Strain on Decision- Making by Leah Fessier, Chief Newsletter, October 2, 2024

Tips for Making 2025 Your Best Year Yet!

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We all know that throughout 2025, you’ll face countless decisions—some routine, others transformative. When reflecting on these choices, ask yourself: Was I accountable, or was I responsible? Shane Parrish offers a compelling distinction:

“The quality of a decision increases directly proportional to the degree to which the person is responsible.

If I tell you to do something, you’re accountable but not responsible. Following a process makes you accountable, not responsible. Using judgment to opt out of the process makes you responsible.

Completing assigned homework makes you accountable. Seeking out additional resources to deepen your understanding makes you responsible. Remembering your partner’s birthday makes you accountable. Consistently finding ways to make them feel appreciated makes you responsible.

Taking out the trash when told makes you accountable. Noticing it needs to be done and doing it makes you responsible.

Focusing on accountability doesn’t improve decision quality. Embracing responsibility does.”

In other words, responsibility requires ownership, initiative, and the willingness to act beyond expectations. It’s about going deeper, thinking critically, and acting proactively.

So here are some tips for taking responsibility for making 2025 your best year yet.

1. Create Structure for Self-Reflection Incorporate regular self-check-ins, journaling, or coaching sessions to ensure you’re staying aligned with your goals and values.

2. Embrace Responsibility, Not Just Accountability Shift from simply completing tasks to taking full ownership of your decisions and their outcomes. Ask yourself, “Am I doing this because I was told to, or because I recognize it as the right thing to do?”

3. Prioritize Relationships and Engagement Make time to nurture meaningful connections, both personally and professionally. Fully engage in your interactions to build trust and strengthen bonds.

4. Focus on Progress Over Perfection It’s not about getting everything right—it’s about doing your best and learning along the way. Small, intentional steps create momentum and lasting change.

5.  Seek Support Whether through a coach, mentor, or accountability partner, having someone to guide and challenge you can make a world of difference.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like some support.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise so I am changing myself” Rumi

Repair Heart

Emotional First Aid

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Isn’t it interesting how we’re all taught about hygiene and physical first aid? We know exactly what to do when our hands are dirty before a meal, or how to handle minor injuries like scraped knees, even more advanced skills like CPR. Yet, most of us have never learned how to offer emotional first aid—for our thoughts and feelings. How do we manage stress, navigate negative environments, or handle difficult relationships?

Since our thoughts and emotions shape so much of our day-to-day lives, learning emotional first aid is essential.

In this newsletter, I’d like to start by focusing on those nagging, negative thoughts and emotions. You know the ones—the thoughts that seem to circle endlessly in your mind, the feelings that just won’t go away.

We all experience moments of anger, grief, anxiety, stress, remorse, or embarrassment. These emotions are part of the human experience. Life can be challenging, and during these tough times, we often struggle mentally, trying to talk our way out of our emotions or distract ourselves. Sometimes we may even turn to food, alcohol, or other means to drown them out.

What’s fascinating is that these coping mechanisms only perpetuate the negativity in the long run. So how can we break this cycle? How can we stop these negative thoughts from controlling us?

Instead of suppressing these feelings, what if we shifted our focus inward?

A simple but powerful 4-step process called RAIN can help us approach these emotions in a healthier, more constructive way:
RAIN stands for:
R – Recognize
A – Allow
I – Investigate
N – Non-identification

Recognize
The first step is to simply recognize what you’re feeling. For example, “I’m feeling stressed,” or “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” Pause for a moment and tune in to what’s happening in your body and mind. Notice the thoughts, emotions, and sensations as they arise. Rather than trying to suppress, ignore, or fight them, approach these feelings with curiosity and openness.

By acknowledging the emotion, you’re giving yourself the space to care for yourself in that moment.

Allow
Once you’ve acknowledged what you’re feeling, the next step is to allow it to be there. Acceptance doesn’t mean you have to like or agree with the situation. But allowing yourself to feel what you’re feeling without resistance can create space for calm and self-compassion.

We often have an automatic impulse to push away difficult emotions. But in doing so, we inadvertently create more tension. When you allow your emotions to exist without judgment, you’ll begin to notice a sense of ease. You’re no longer enmeshed in the emotion; instead, you’re witnessing it.

This act of allowing is an act of kindness toward yourself.

Investigate
Now that you’ve created some space, take the opportunity to investigate. Ask yourself: Why do I feel this way? Where did this feeling come from? What do I really need right now?

Think about any triggers that may have set off your emotions, or whether certain thoughts—like worries about the future or past conversations—are at the root of your feelings. Investigating with curiosity can help you understand yourself better and build a deeper relationship with your emotions.

This process of inquiry helps bring insight and, over time, can lead to dissolving some of the negative patterns.

Non-Identification
Finally, practice non-identification. This is the realization that you are not your thoughts or emotions. You are the awareness beneath these feelings. You are the awareness that lies beneath every thought, emotion and sense perception you experience.

Non-identification helps you to stop defining yourself by your emotions. Instead of saying, “I am stressed,” you begin to understand that you’re simply experiencing stress. There’s a part of you that is always still, calm, and untouched by whatever storm is passing through.

This step brings a profound sense of freedom and peace.

Remember, no matter how intense your emotions may feel, there’s always a part of you that remains steady and unshaken.

The RAIN method is a wonderful tool to help centre yourself in times of stress, overwhelm, or emotional difficulty. As Eckhart Tolle wisely said, “Whatever you fight, you strengthen, and what you resist, persists.”

Next time you feel negative emotions arising, try practising RAIN and see how it transforms your experience.

Want to learn more? How about http://www.mindful.org/tara-brach-rain-mindfulness-practice/. Tara Brach is a clinical psychologist and author of “True Refuge: Finding Peace & Freedom in Your Own Awakened Heart.”

How Well Do You Choose?

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The Power of Choice 

Every day, we face a myriad of choices, both personal and professional. From small decisions like what to have for lunch to significant ones such as whether to quit a job and start a business, we generally try to reflect on our options factually.

There are various methods and tools available to help us with these choices, from flipping a coin to making pros and cons lists to conducting in-depth future projection analysis.

Emotional Choices and the Power of Response

However, let’s talk about the emotional choices we have and the power we possess in choosing our emotional responses. As Eleanor Roosevelt once said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” The key words here are “your consent”. We choose how we interpret what others say or do, and how we view events. Whether we reject someone’s words or take them to heart depends on our perspective and how we perceive the other person involved.

The Influence of Filters

Our perspective on a situation and the people involved is shaped by filters we’ve developed since birth. These may include:

  • The language we grew up with at home
  • The support we received at school
  • Our social interactions

These filters can either limit or expand our perception, impacting how we view our circumstances. How we continue to experience or react to any situation is truly dependent on our choices.

Changing Our Choices

How can we change our choices or make different ones than we have in the past?

  • Understand the Power of Thoughts, Feelings, and Actions: Recognise how we show up in various aspects of our life.
  • Acknowledge Our Behaviour: Understand that our behaviour is based on previous learnings and experiences and that we are constantly changing beings.
  • Be Open to New Learnings: Look at the choices we make and be open to new understandings and developing a new story for our life

Get Started with the ‘Power of Choice’ Template

To help you get started, download the free ‘Power of Choice’ template. It provides questions and strategies for reflection.

Need Support?

  • Email me today if you’d like support in understanding your filters or to discuss the power of your choices.
  • Learn more about coaching by clicking here to find out what coaching is all about.

Take control of your choices and lead a more empowered life

Fear-of-success2

Battle Between Your Ears

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Are you pursing the goals that matter most to you?

Are you satisfied with your level of success?

Are you glad to be where you are in life?

Are you playing YOUR own game or are you playing someone else’s game?

Everything seems hard. We are all busy and we are all tired. We all don’t have enough money. We all know someone who says we can’t or that we would never make it. And then we are worried with what comes next. Are these excuses familiar to you?

What about these –

  • Fear of change
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear of not being good enough
  • Waiting for something to happen
  • Perfectionism
  • Being overwhelmed with all that you have to do
  • Not knowing how

Well guess what – there is a battle going on….. and it is between your ears!!

Don’t surrender! While your fears may be real they are not good enough reasons for inaction. Your biggest work is in front of you.

So here are some tips to help you overcome your excuses.  They are not in any particular order. Some are quick solutions and others take work –

  • Identify your goal and embrace it. Use this question as a start. What do you want the change to look like? How will that give your life meaning? Think about it – even go for a walk to reflect on it.
  • Create the space – even a small space (or time) to make a change.
  • Be accountable to someone while surrounding yourself with others making similar changes themselves.
  • Get help and insight to uncover and understand the core of the fear that is holding you back.
  • Take small steps that will move you forward. Movement begets movement. Now take another small step…… and change is created.

I find that most of my clients have difficulty addressing their fears because, in the end, it might show how vulnerable they really feel. However if we don’t understand what is holding us back, how can we then create the lives we truly desire.

You know by letting any of your worries (also known as fears) out into the light and talking about it with someone who understands, it becomes a whole lot easier to see the situation or issue for what it really is.

Just venting can make a huge difference to your perspective.

If you don’t have anyone to talk to at the moment write it out. It means you get your issue out of your head, clarify your thoughts and find clarity in the small steps available to you to move forward.

Choose to no longer go along with the ride. It is your turn to drive. Choose your own route and own what comes of it.

It is really time to decide what you intend to do next and what the next few years will mean to you. Self leadership is all about leading the life you want, while energised for success!

 

About the Author

For over 25 years Babette Bensoussan has served as an advisor to organisations and business leaders around the world. A recognised global authority on Competitive Intelligence, and one of the most published authors and well-regarded speakers in her field, Babette brings valuable insights to entrepreneurs, business leaders and senior executives.

If you want some support to overcome your fear or just want to touch base, email me today!

HOW HIGH CAN YOU JUMP?

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A flea can jump up 7 inches (18 cm) and sideways 13 inches (33 cm) or about two hundred times the length of their own body! For you that would be about 200 times your height (900 feet)!

If you wanted to train a flea to perform in a flea circus, you find a short drinking glass. Find a bunch of healthy fleas (be creative!), put them in the container and cover the top. Don’t take the cover off for three days. When you do, you’ll see the flea only jumps as tall as the glass was and never again further! (This goes for their next generation of fleas too.)

Application for YOU – Do you have any unsuspected “flea training” in your life that whispers: “You can’t jump that high! Don’t even try!” Your history doesn’t create your future …(sometimes it can help), but sometimes it limits you in ways you’re blind to.

We all have choices in our lives – day to day choices, life choices, choices about our friends (we can’t choose our families – although we can choose how to behave/react with them!), choices about how we show up at work, our attitudes, our thoughts even our beliefs.  And the more coaching I do, the more I see how much we limit our choices to staying in the ‘safe’ zone (under that glass!).

Often times we become blind to the myriad of choices that are available to us as well as the range of options before us.

Why is that so?

The key element that defines our choices is our thinking.  Our thinking in turn is driven by the “personal” energy we have.

Our personal energy is affected by the sum of all of our life’s experiences. Our learning, beliefs, values, principles, emotional scars, and even our mother’s favourite sayings all aggregate together and help form the filters through which we view and live life.

For example, if your life’s experiences taught you to be overly cautious and fearful, then, when presented with a challenge, you will see that challenge through cautious and fearful eyes, and act accordingly.

Our personal energy is created by the interplay of catabolic and anabolic energy which drives our choices, our ability to change, and our ability to maximise our current strengths.

What do I mean by this?

Catabolic energy = destructive, contracting, resisting energy (cat = down, against)

Anabolic energy = constructive, expanding, fueling energy (ana = building, upward)

Both types of energies are valuable and applicable in certain areas of life.  Catabolic energy is necessary for immediate survival needs. If you were attacked by a lion, for instance, you’d want the burst of adrenaline and cortisol (catabolic hormones) to help you run as fast as you could.  As a short-term survival/coping mechanism, catabolic energy can work well.  Long term it is destructive and unsustainable.

Anabolic energy looks and feels different from catabolic energy. This energy is behind everything from creativity and intuition to compassion and caring. This type of energy fuels your body, your performance, your perceptions and choices, and your interactions.

The more anabolic, powerful energy you have, the more capacity, or potential, you have to achieve whatever it is you wish to do, and also, the more satisfaction you will experience in your life.

So is this the year that you will choose to take steps to create the life you want…and jump way before your height?

If you’re looking for a new direction, or to make those goals that seem so elusive become reality do this quick checklist. Yes, it’s simple, but take your time (reflect on where your thinking and judgments may be coming from) – maybe over your next cup of coffee.

Quick checklist to start the new financial year – list the three key items for each question:

  • What am I proud of accomplishing over the past year?
  • What didn’t I do that is still outstanding?
  • What am I most pleased with?
  • What am I most disappointed with? (don’t dwell on this – just note it down, it’s important to face your ‘failures’ and deal with them)
  • What would I like truly like to achieve this year in my:
    • Work life
    • Personal life
    • Health and Physical Goals

These aspects of your life are intertwined and will each impact on the other.

  • How will I make these become reality and am I ready to do this?

Taking the first step is the hardest but it is your choice whether you take that first step and the next one.

If you identify with the above, then I invite you as a valued reader, to chat to me over a coffee, in person, by phone or Skype and let’s see if you are ready to make your goals become reality THIS YEAR!

Any groundless or unrealistic beliefs will limit your energy and prevent you from achieving your goals – just like the lid on the flea training glass!

Working with a coach may help you leap even higher and in a coaching program, you can:

Consider your goals and aspirations

  1. Identify old assumptions holding you back
  2. Isolate and evaluate established, but unfounded and untested beliefs about your ability to achieve these goals
  3. Search for doubts about your worthiness to reach your goals
  4. Hunt for fears that may be lingering in your heart

 

My goal is to work with people for change – one person at a time.  What is yours?

 

 

 

 

 

Overcoming Fear

What Are You Afraid Of?

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Are you pursing the goals that matter most to you?
Are you satisfied with your level of success?
Are you glad to be where you are in life?
Are you playing YOUR own game or are you playing someone else’s game?

Everything seems hard. We are all busy and we are all tired. We all don’t have enough money. We all know someone who says we can’t or that we would never make it. And then we are worried with what comes next. Are these excuses familiar to you?

What about these:

• Fear of change
• Fear of failure
• Fear of not being good enough
• Waiting for something to happen
• Perfectionism
• Being overwhelmed with all that you have to do
• Not know how

Well guess what – there is a battle going on….. and it is between your ears!!

Don’t surrender. While your fears may be real they are not good enough reasons for inaction. Your biggest work is in front of you and it has to do with how well you lead your life – how good are you at self-leadership?

Understanding Energy Leadership is in my opinion the missing link or secret ingredient to making all the methodologies you’ve tried and tossed aside about leadership, work — the petrol in the engine, the currency that fuels your success. Today let’s focus on energy itself. What is this mysterious quality? It’s not just movement or activity, sometimes it is stillness and reflection. Some call it a vitality or force. Energy gives us the capability to differentiate ourselves from another. Energy gives us the physical ability and drive to win the marathon — not in the first 25 miles — but in the last mile, when it is so easy to give up.

Energy can be conserved, stored, stockpiled, transformed, leaked and shared. In life we get energy from an amazing array of fuels. We can use this power to grow and develop, use our senses well, attract and repel other energy.

Now let’s look at leadership. Interestingly each of us leads by choice or default. The question is not whether you are a leader but how well you purpose to lead. To lead well takes awareness of your energy and a willingness to learn ways to use it better. Your body is a perfect example of an energy system. It’s self-contained, self-governed and thought-affected. Each thought you have contributes a specific energy pattern to the energy within and around you. There are no idle thoughts. Your energy encompasses every thought, feeling, and emotion you’ve had today, as well as, your recent actions. Because thoughts create energy in their own likeness – some can injure and others heal.

Energy Leadership Coaching is designed to reveal and develop your personally-effective style of leadership energy. This energy will positively influence and change not only you, but your family members, friends and everyone you work with and meet each day.

Albert Einstein is reputed to have said: “Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.”

Well, regardless of who said this, I know that energy is also the secret power of great leadership. Once you understand how you create your reality and attract the things you do in your life, you can create the life you really want. Where to start? Here are some tips about how to overcome fear, and any excuses you may have.

  1. Identify your goal and embrace it. Use this question as a start. What do you want the change to look like? How will that give your life meaning? Think about it – even go for a walk to reflect on it.
  2. Create the space – even a small space (or time) to make a change.
  3. Be accountable to someone while surrounding yourself with others making similar changes themselves.
  4. Take small steps that will move you forward. Movement begets movement. Now take another small step…… and change is created. It is time to decide what you intend to do next and what the next few years will mean to you.

DO YOU KNOW YOUR BIASES? – PART 2

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DON’T HAVE BIASES, THEN THINK AGAIN! 
Last month I shared with you six of the twelve thinking biases we are all subject to.
You can review these six here.

To recap, we are all subject to biases, those annoying glitches in our thinking that cause us to make questionable decisions and reach erroneous conclusions. A bias is a genuine deficiency or limitation in our thinking — a flaw in judgment that arises from errors of memory, social attribution, and miscalculations (such as statistical errors or a false sense of probability).

Leveraging the wonderful article by George Dvorsky on 12 of the most common and harmful biases that you need to know about, here are the remaining 6:

Status-Quo Bias
We, humans, tend to be apprehensive of change, which often leads us to make choices that guarantee that things remain the same or change as little as possible. Needless to say, this has ramifications in everything from politics to economics and to our personal lives. We like to stick to our routines, political parties, and our favourite meals at restaurants. Part of this bias is the unwarranted assumption that another choice will be inferior or make things worse. The status-quo bias can be summed with the saying, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” — an adage that fuels our conservative tendencies.

Negativity Bias
People tend to pay more attention to bad news — and it’s not just because we’re morbid. Social scientists theorize that it’s on account of our selective attention and that, given the choice, we perceive negative news as being more important or profound. We also tend to give more credibility to bad news, perhaps because we’re suspicious (or bored) of proclamations to the contrary. More evolutionarily, heeding bad news may be more adaptive than ignoring good news (e.g. “sabre tooth tigers suck” vs. “this berry tastes good”). Today, we run the risk of dwelling on negativity at the expense of genuinely good news.

Bandwagon Effect
Though we’re often unconscious of it, we love to go with the flow of the crowd. When the masses start to pick a winner or a favourite, that’s when our individualized brains start to shut down and enter into a kind of “groupthink” mentality. But it doesn’t have to be a large crowd or the whims of an entire nation; it can include small groups, like a family or even a small group of office co-workers. The bandwagon effect is what often causes behaviours, social norms, and memes to propagate among groups of individuals — regardless of the evidence or motives in support. This is why opinion polls are often maligned, as they can steer the perspectives of individuals accordingly. Much of this bias has to do with our built-in desire to fit in and conform.

Projection Bias
As individuals trapped inside our own minds 24/7, it’s often difficult for us to project outside the bounds of our own consciousness and preferences. We tend to assume that most people think just like us — though there may be no justification for it. This thinking shortcoming often leads to a related effect known as the false consensus bias where we tend to believe that people not only think like us, but that they also agree with us. It’s a bias where we overestimate how typical and normal we are, and assume that a consensus exists on matters when there may be none. Moreover, it can also create the effect where the members of a radical or fringe group assume that more people on the outside agree with them than is the case. Or the exaggerated confidence one has when predicting the winner of an election or sports match.

The Current Moment Bias
We, humans, have a really hard time imagining ourselves in the future and altering our behaviours and expectations accordingly. Most of us would rather experience pleasure or reward in the current/present moment rather than waiting for a larger future reward. This is a trend of overvaluing immediate rewards while putting less worth in long-term consequences.  This is a bias that is of particular concern to economists (i.e. our unwillingness to not overspend and save money) and health practitioners. It has been found that when making food choices for the coming week, 74% of participants chose fruit. But when the food choice was for the current day, 70% chose chocolate.

Anchoring Effect
It’s called the anchoring effect because we tend to fixate on a value or number that in turn gets compared to everything else.  Anchors can be as simple as a comment from a colleague, a number, or a statistic from the morning’s paper. One of the most common types of anchor is a past event or trend. Anchors can establish the terms on which a decision will be made and are often used as a bargaining tactic.  It is also why, when given a choice, we tend to pick the middle option — not too expensive and not too cheap.

Do you recognise any of these in your decision making?   If so, what do you think you could do to limit the impact of your biases on your decision making?