In order to get the results we desire, we must do two things. We must first create the space to reason in our thoughts, feelings, and actions; and second, we must deliberately use that space to think clearly. Once you have mastered this skill, you will find you have an unstoppable advantage.

Decisions made through clear thinking will put you in increasingly better positions, and success will only compound from there.

Part 1: The Enemies of Clear Thinking

1.1. Thinking Badly— or Not Thinking at All

So our first step in improving our outcomes is to train ourselves to identify the moments when judgment is called for in the first place, and pause to creat space to think clearly. This training takes a lot of time and effort, because it involves counterbalancing our hardwired biological defaults evolved over many centuries. But mastery over the ordinary moments that make the future easier or harder is not only possible, it’s the critical ingredient to success and achieving your long-term goals.

Part 4: Clear Thinking in Action

Often what seems like poor judgement in hindsight doesn’t even register as a decision in the moment. When the defaults conspire, we react without thinking. And that reaction doesn’t even count as a decision. Once we register the opportunity to make a conscious choice, the question becomes: How can we make the best decision possible?

The decision itself should represent the outcome of the decision-making process. That process is about weighing your options with the aim of selecting the best one, and it’s composed of four stages: defining the problem, exploring possible solutions, evaluating the options, and finally making the judgment and executing the best option. We will discuss each of these components in detail throughout this chapter.

Knowing how to use these tools depends on keeping your defaults in check so you can reason. If you can’t, you’ll just react with one of your defaults. While you might get the outcomes you desire for a while, it's only a matter of time before lack of thinking catches up to you. It’s only after you’ve mastered the defaults that the tools I describe become useful.

If you can’t keep those in check— if you’re easily swayed by emotion, if you can’t adapt to change, if you value being right more than doing what’s best— then all the tools in the world aren’t going to help you. The defaults will overwhelm you, rout your decision making-making process, and seize control of your life.

Many of us have a hard time learning from our decisions. One reason is that our thinking and decision-making process is often invisible to us. We inadvertently conceal from ourselves the steps we took to reach our final decision. Once that decision gets made, we don’t stop to reflect, but just move forward. And when we look back at our decision later, our ego manipulates our memories. We confuse what we know now with what we knew at the time we made the decision. And we see the outcomes and read them back into our intentions: “Oh, I meant to do that.”

If you don’t check your thinking at the time you made the decision— what you knew, what you thought was important, and how you reasoned about it— you’ll never know whether you made a good decision or just got lucky. If you want to learn from decisions, you need to make the invisible thought process as visible and open to scrutiny as possible. The following safeguard can help:

Safeguard: Keep a record of your thoughts at the time you make the decision.