Schitt’s Creek . . . The Great British Baking Show . . . Peaky Blinders . . . El Camino . . . Surf’s Up . . . Ancient Aliens . . . Mary Poppins Returns . . .
You’re going to watch Netflix. Easy decision.
Which show? Not so easy.
How much time, on average, do you spend scrolling through Netflix options before settling on the show you’re actually going to watch? There are the “Popular on Netflix” titles like above. You also have “New This Week” to explore. “Critically Acclaimed Movies.” “Goofy Comedies.” Even “Binge-worthy Supernatural TV Horror.”
In the end, of course, the endless options become so overwhelming that you scroll back up to the “Continue Watching for Peter” section and click on “The Office.”
Life constantly presents choices for us to make–tons of them. Too many of them. And for each choice, there are a thousand options. More.
The endless options presented frequently leave us experiencing a strange phenomenon, termed “Overchoice” by the writer Alvin Toffler: We become overwhelmed. Maybe paralyzed. Certainly stressed. Disappointed or dissatisfied. What if we’re making the wrong choice? What are the risks in that other choice? What might happen if I pick that one? What might happen if I don’t?
Life hands us some pretty insignificant dilemmas: What should I wear today?
But life also hands us some pretty consequential dilemmas, too: Who should I date? What should I study?
And if you’re in business or in management, it seems like every day throws you a hundred of those consequential decisions, each with its own set up endless options: Who should lead this project? Which design to pick? Which candidates should be hired? How should this process be ordered? How should the surplus be used?
Trying to figure out which choice to make is a great idea. This blog post is not about how to do that.
This blog post is about when you’re ready to bang your head against the wall because there are too many “right” choices and too many “wrong” choices. When you’re at your wits’ end, because if you choose A, then B will happen, but if you choose B, then C will happen, and if you choose A and B, then OMG what if XYZ happens?! You can think of a hundred reasons for each option and a hundred reasons against each option, and you’ve already exhausted a hundred options.
Then what?
Well it’s a consequential matter, so you’d better figure out the best option. Right?
Wrong.
I think one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned about decision making–particularly when it comes to management and business, but I think in other areas of life as well–is this:
Choosing the “right” option isn’t THAT important.
Ew, that sentence doesn’t feel right.
Sure, in some situations, you’ll have several options and after a little research be pretty confident about which option will lead to the best results. And when you can figure that out, great!
But really, in lots and lots of situations, you’ll have an endless number of options, and “getting it right” is absolutely hopeless. Or at least, so unlikely and so messy that it’s probably healthier in the long run to just go with a GOOD choice (instead of THE RIGHT choice) and then focus all your energy on executing that choice like a pro.
When you spend hours and hours, days and days, on one decision, you might find yourself no closer to figuring it out. No more confident. Worse, you might have finally settled on the exact right option only to have a sudden new thought knock your decision right off balance again. Back to the drawing board.
You can put so much unrealistic pressure on yourself, responsibility to somehow determine each potential outcome, to know each risk inside and out. You can lose sleep over whether you’re making the right or wrong choice, because you just can’t be quite sure.
And goodness knows, no matter how right your choice, it will turn out to be wrong. Something bad WILL happen because of the option you picked, no matter what. If you pick A, you’ll realize that it cost you B. And if you pick B, you’ll realize that it cost you A.
So maybe there isn’t one “right” option. And even if there is, maybe you have no way of discovering it. Maybe it makes better sense to flip through fifty options, pick your ten favorites to analyze, and flip a coin over the two that “feel” the most right after a while.
Honestly, you’re not going to be successful–at business, at management, at life–because you somehow put your finger on the absolutely right choice. You’re going to be successful because you kicked butt when you executed on the choice that was made. You’re going to be successful because when an option was finally chosen, you embraced it, you didn’t look back, you made the best of its weaknesses, and you pushed full steam ahead to explore and capitalize on its strengths. You didn’t lose too much sleep. You didn’t drive yourself nuts. You’re not wallowing in guilt for what your decision might have cost. You’re not wasting loads of time and energy examining endless options. You’re not giving up completely and ignoring the decision to be made. You’re just leading and executing like a bad-ass.
So when you find yourself unsure of what to pick, afraid you’ll make the wrong choice, sometimes it’s all going to go better if you just go for it!
After all, no matter which option you pick, right before you commit, you’re definitely going to think, “Oh man, that wasn’t the right decision, was it?”
So stop aiming at perfection. Just aim at something great and then move past the deciding stage to the stage where actual Stuff happens.
I think I’ve noticed these two things about great leaders:
First, they know that the one option THEY select out of the endless options isn’t really the most important thing. They don’t get paralyzed wondering and second-guessing. They do a little analyzing and then make their best educated guess. Then they focus fully and powerfully on executing it.
Second, they often really don’t care which one option their FOLLOWERS select out of the endless options. They won’t hold your hand, they won’t give you the answer, they won’t tell you which decision they think you should make. They say, “I know you’ll make a good decision” and then they support you and have your back.
Because there will always be endless options and “getting it right” can be hopeless.
So “getting it right” must not always be the part that matters.
All that being said, I know there are some decisions so consequential that maybe all the soul-searching and analyzing are worth it. I just think we way overestimate how many of those decisions we see in a day. Or in a lifetime.
Good luck flipping coins!
And no, I haven’t really applied this lesson very well in my personal life. I still browse Netflix for an inordinate amount of time, and my show-picking hasn’t really improved. Although, maybe watching The Office for the 20th time really was the best choice all along.
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