Welcome back to The Audacity, a weekly newsletter on personal growth and connecting you to the people, resources, and opportunities to get you where you’re going. I hope you’ll subscribe, check in each week, and join the conversation! Making your own audacious moves? Tell me about it in the comments below.
Remember that FRIENDS episode, early on in the series, where Ross is trying to decide between Rachel and some other chick? “Julie”? He makes a pro-con list for each woman, and finds that while Rachel’s so-called con’s are plentiful, Julie only has one: she’s not Rachel. So he scraps the lists and goes for Rach, but she’s not convinced by his rationale and… well, we know what happens with those two.
Like Ross, pro-con lists don’t really work for me anymore. I’ve made tons of them in the past when deciding between cities, jobs, home decor, and sure, significant others. And while these lists are helpful for sorting the black-and-white, objective factors within our choices, most of the choices we’re making right now are anything but black-and-white. Pro-con lists leave little room for the intuitive or complex, the “not Rachel” justifications that come from our gut. This year, I found myself growing increasingly dissatisfied with my lists.
Now I take a different approach.
I come back to my values.
THE METHOD
Being a career coach, organizational psychologist, and learning designer, I often bring values to the foundation of my work. I identified my personal values years ago while designing a workshop for young professionals at NBCUniversal and have refined them since. Instead of listing every pro and con under the sun, my new decision-making method puts my values first and focuses on the aspects of my choices I care about most. Here’s what I do:
Grab a sheet of paper and list my top values (there are seven)
Create two more columns for each option I’m weighing
Rate each option on how well they’d honor my values, on a scale of 1-5 (1 being just barely, 5 being living that value regularly).
I used this approach when trying to decide where to focus my recent job search, and found that Option 1 clearly honored my values much more than Option 2 did. Luckily, both options were realistic and Option 1 actually panned out.
But what if it hadn’t?
THE PERSPECTIVE
If I’d gone after my audacious goal, my Option 1, and it hadn’t worked out, I would have had to work with Option 2. You can see that this plan is less fulfilling than the other, and I’d be taking a significant hit to adventure, connection, and humor. I’d certainly have to get used to a less ideal atmosphere and deal with having less autonomy.
But even though the ratings may be low- they’re not at zero.
My friend Jillian made this important point when I consulted her about my job search decisions. She reminded me that, sure, Option 2 would be disappointing next to Option 1, but the former scenario still allows me to honor my values in some ways. I’d still get to be creative, embrace opportunities for growth, and make the most of the new atmosphere. This makes it easier to accept the Option 2’s when I need to, when circumstances may be out of my control or, despite my efforts, things just don’t work out as planned. Remembering that no option will leave me at net zero allows me to see the value (pun intended) in each scenario and look more consciously for ways to increase Option 2’s value-fulfillment in the future.
This method isn’t always the only step in my decision-making process, but it gives me a fresh perspective that's grounded in the factors that are most important to me. I feel more equipped to make future life decisions- and to remind myself WHY I made them when the inevitable doubt starts to creep in.
What’s your process for making the complex choices you’re facing right now? Are you Team Pro-Con List, or another method?
KEEP GOING
🔎 Get clear on your values. An obvious first step, no? I’d recommend starting with this list and circling all that resonate with you. Then, narrow that list down to 15, and finally seven top values. Why seven? It’s found to be the “magical” number for our working memories to hold onto (plus or minus two), making it easier for us to recall them in a pinch. To take your values search to the next level, try a visualization exercise: think about a moment in which you were comfortable, content, and confident (maybe one of your More You moments?). What are you doing? What are you wearing? Who are you with? Where are you going? What are your plans? Note anything that stands out from this vision and dig into the values they may illuminate- this is how I added unexpected values like “atmosphere” to my top list, and “warmth” to the full, unabridged list. You might be surprised with what comes up!
🎈 Read: Option B by Adam Grant and Sheryl Sandberg. A Facebook exec and a leading behavioral psychologist walk into a bar… er, sit down to write a book on resilience. This one made the rounds in 2017, but Sandberg’s personal story of regrouping after grief is as poignant as ever. Coupled with Grant’s signature mix of compassion and practicality, this book will quickly shift your perspective when faced with your own Option B.
🎧 Listen: Hidden Brain, You 2.0: Decide Already! I mean, if you’re not already listening to Hidden Brain- my OG favorite pod- wyd? Velvet-voiced host Shankar Vedantam speaks with Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert about how to make decisions we’re most likely to be satisfied with in the future- and how Dan’s research on decision-making affected his own relationship. My favorite takeaway: life looks different in the windshield than it does in the rearview mirror.