Critical, Passive Decisions
By: Gersh Payzer
Tags: Decision Making, Motivation, Business, Life Advice

The Myth

We picture important life decisions as memorable moments in time. As clear forks in the road. We can feel the sweat forming as we consternate over the the two paths in front of us before carefully choosing the correct one.

Many important decisions go by completely unnoticed.

There are millions of decisions you make every day, without realizing it. I’m not talking about active decisions like where to apply for work or what to major in. I’m talking about decisions aren’t even aware you are making. For example, investing $100 in a stock that could be the next Amazon. Moving to another city because the one you are in is in steady decline.

There are so many possible decisions at a given moment that our minds would be overwhelmed if we even attempted to think of them all at once. But some of them might be very important.

Important decisions can be ones you don’t make

Have you ever seen an individual or company that used to be great struggling and wonder what happened? Instead of looking at the wrong decisions they made, look at the decisions they didn’t make.

Humans are very conditioned for loss aversion. That means we fear loss more than we want gain. It’s a very useful survival trait, but can also hurt our ability to save ourselves from a bad situation.

This is also why there far more people who are eager to poke holes in an idea than those who propose new ideas. New ideas mean change.

Change is an active decision.

“No change” is an equally powerful, but passive decision.

The “no change” decision is deciding to do nothing. Rather than thinking about it as not making a decision, it’s helpful to consider these passive decisions as active votes for the status quo.

Voting for “more of the same” isn’t a bad thing if you like the status quo and it is trending in a positive direction. However, it is a very dangerous decision when things are trending negative. Be extra careful of the situation where things are good now, but trending downward. This is the situation younger people may find themselves in. Things are fine now, but over the course of a decade will trend in an undesirable direction.

Iceberg In The Distance

It might be hard to picture so we’ll illustrate with an example. Imagine there is an iceberg in the distance. You could change course to avoid it, but it is very, very far away. Years away. You know that by the time it’s upon you, it’s too late to change course. Yet, many people won’t make the decision to change course now that could save their lives 10 years from now.

Passive decisions sneak by you

You might wonder how such an important decision could go unnoticed. Let’s use a real-world example. How many people knew Google was going to be a big deal in 2010? Of those people, how many decided not to invest? Probably a lot of people. I was one of them. But if we traveled back in time to 2010, we would find that we didn’t make passionate arguments why we shouldn’t invest, rather we simply made no decision.

Going forward

Keep an eye out for the passive decisions you make. It will be uncomfortable at first because it made lead to regret. But it can also be an incredibly powerful tool for growth.

It is also helpful to view every decision as active. If someone comes to you with a bold, but risky idea to save you from an undesirable situation, instead of just focusing on the ways the new idea could go wrong, consider it against the decision to “do nothing” and maintain the status quo. In a dire situation, even a risky idea can be less risky than doing nothing.