How Do Mindfulness and Decision Fitness Impact Decision-making?
Have you ever regretted making a snap decision when you were hungry, angry, lonely, or tired (HALT)? For example, you might have decided to ignore the check engine light on your car before driving home because your kids were fussing in the backseat, or to disregard a colleague’s sage advice when you felt overwhelmed. It’s important to remember that being human means occasionally making poor decisions, especially when your emotions or state of mind cloud your judgment.
Our co-founder Annie Duke summed this up in a 2018 interview with the website The Campaign Workshop:
“If someone is in an emotional state, it doesn’t matter how much they know about decision-making; they won’t be able to execute on it.” But, as Annie pointed out in that interview, there are strategies to “calm down in the moment of a decision and get into a more rational place.”
Decision Education teaches us methods for self-awareness and self-regulation to help us respond to situations more thoughtfully. Developing these dispositions can lead us to slow down our thinking, reflect on our reasoning, and notice how our feelings impact our thoughts and decisions.
The term decision fitness refers to being in the proper emotional state to think clearly and make thoughtful decisions; you can think of it as being “fit” to make decisions effectively. Regardless of how much you know about making better decisions, you need to be in the right state of mind to execute those skills and strategies. Improving your decision fitness can be achieved through various methods—one of the most effective is mindfulness.
Mindfulness helps us be more present and attentive, reducing the likelihood of reactive or impulsive decisions. It allows for a clearer assessment of situations, helping to filter out distractions, focus on relevant information, and evaluate options and outcomes more thoughtfully. Mindfulness enhances our self-awareness and self-regulation, enabling us to be decision fit and engage in a more deliberate and informed decision-making process.
Looking for ways to integrate mindfulness and decision fitness into your life or your classroom? This video from the Alliance’s legacy program, Mindful Choices, provides some insights:
By integrating mindfulness into our daily lives, we can improve our decision fitness and enhance our capacity to make better decisions.
