Up: [[Questioning]] Created: 2024-01-29 Updated: 2025-01-08 Making decisions from [[Intuition]] or gut will be wrong as or more often than they’re right. That’s the statement [[C. G. Jung]] and others make, but my friend Joanne has an excellent counterargument when she says that maybe every intuitive decision is right because it represents a necessary step on your journey. Still, if I want to sometimes take more of a critical thinking approach to decision making, here are some questions to ask myself and things to try. ## Identify Biases and Assumptions What do I believe about this issue? Then, what do I want to believe that? This is what Stephen Colbert refers to as ‘truthiness’. What would I like to be true? What are some reasons that I might be wrong? Richard Feynman said this was the prime responsibility of a scientist; to be constantly trying to prove his own theories wrong. Or this question could be phrased as, What if the opposite is true? ## Opposite George In an old (1994) Seinfeld episode, George Costanza decides that since his gut instincts always seem to be wrong, he does the opposite of whatever he is inclined to do. Consider the opposite when making a decision to open up new possibilities. ## Watch Out! One of the [[Enemies of Questioning]] is hubris or pride. I’ll know that’s flaring if I’m more committed to being right than I am to understanding. ## Use Critical Thinking Questions - What is the evidence behind this claim and how strong is it? - Does this evidence come from a solid source? - Is there an agenda behind it? - What is the opposing view? ## Open Up the Options - Project best case, worst case and midpoint scenarios. - If none of the current options were available, what would I do? - Ask myself what advice I’d give to a friend who had to make this decision. Or ask myself, What would [[Hestia]] do? I do this a lot. ## Ask Future Me Paying attention to future me takes a decision from immediate preferences to long-term consequences. - How does this decision fit within my life story? Or another way of thinking about this is, How would I later explain this decision to others? - Ask the James Hollis question. See [[How to Make Choices]]