Speaker 1: When was the last time you had a really hard
Speaker 1: decision to make. Maybe it was whether to accept a
Speaker 1: new job offer. Perhaps it was an important decision about
Speaker 1: the direction in which to take a project, or maybe
Speaker 1: it was something in your personal life, like whether to
Speaker 1: leave a relationship. Decisions can be hard, but founder of
Speaker 1: ever Note Phil Libbon says that hard decisions fall into
Speaker 1: two distinct categories, and it's really important before making a
Speaker 1: big decision to work out which of these two categories
Speaker 1: the decision falls into. My name is doctor amanthe Immer.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychologist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work a show
Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. On
Speaker 1: today is my favorite Tip episode, we go back to
Speaker 1: an interview from the past and I pick out my
Speaker 1: favorite tip from that interview. In today's show, I speak
Speaker 1: with Phil Libbin about what he has learned about the
Speaker 1: difference between difficult and unpleasant decisions.
Speaker 2: That's probably one of my favorite kind of things that
Speaker 2: I've that I've learned that I've figured out about myself.
Speaker 2: I found that whenever I think, oh man, that's a
Speaker 2: really hard decision, like that's a hard decision. Whenever that happens.
Speaker 2: Whenever I feel like something's a hard decision, I like
Speaker 2: a little red flag goes off and I ask myself,
Speaker 2: is it hard like it's difficult to know what the
Speaker 2: right answer is?
Speaker 3: Or is it hard like it's unpleasant?
Speaker 2: And usually the vast majority of time, when I forced
Speaker 2: myself I think through that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, yeah, I know what the right answer is.
Speaker 3: It's just unpleasant.
Speaker 2: So probably ninety percent of the decisions that I perceive
Speaker 2: as quote unquote hard, they're not actually difficult to know
Speaker 2: what the right answer is. I know what the right
Speaker 2: answer is. They're just unpleasant. They're scary. There's something about
Speaker 2: him that that's bad. And once I kind of identify
Speaker 2: which one it is, then then things become clear.
Speaker 3: Not easy, but clear.
Speaker 2: Obviously, if a decision is unpleasant, you should still do
Speaker 2: the right thing, regardless of whether it's pleasant or unpleasant.
Speaker 3: You just have to deal with the unpleasantness.
Speaker 2: But I think what I used to do is really
Speaker 2: conflate those two things, and I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people conflate that. I think a lot of people conflate
Speaker 2: difficult decisions with unpleasant decisions, and they pretend that it's
Speaker 2: hard to know what the right answer is when really
Speaker 2: it's just an unpleasant answer. Uh. And yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: like a that's probably my favorite, like management hack or
Speaker 2: life hack.
Speaker 3: It's just like something's a hard decision hard how.
Speaker 1: And when you have an unpleasant decision to action? How
Speaker 1: do you approach that conversation?
Speaker 3: Uh?
Speaker 2: It mean it's very situation right, it depends on what's
Speaker 2: what's unpleasant about it and how, and but ultimately you
Speaker 2: just you have to do the right thing and you
Speaker 2: have to do the right thing. Like I very much
Speaker 2: dislike words like fearless. I think for a while it
Speaker 2: seems to it seems to be receding, it seems.
Speaker 3: To be in remission.
Speaker 2: But for a while, like if you years ago, everyone
Speaker 2: was like something something fearless, something something, it was like
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: Way overused word.
Speaker 2: And I think fearless is really like people. Fearless people
Speaker 2: are just genuinely stupid. They really don't have any fear.
Speaker 2: Then they're clearly too dumb to understand what the danger is.
Speaker 2: I never try to be fearless. Being brave is about
Speaker 2: experiencing fear. Like if you're not afraid, you're not brave.
Speaker 2: You're just dumb, so you have to you know, you
Speaker 2: experience the fear and the trepidation, and you allow yourself
Speaker 2: to experience and you just do the thing that you
Speaker 2: have to do anyway, because that's that's the right thing
Speaker 2: to do. It's not easy, but it's simple.
Speaker 1: Ever since hearing this tip, I think about it all
Speaker 1: the time. When I'm faced with a big decision, the
Speaker 1: very first thing I ask myself is whether it's difficult
Speaker 1: or just unpleasant? And this has saved me an inordinate
Speaker 1: amount of time and headspace when it comes to decision making.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for more tip to improve the way
Speaker 1: that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that
Speaker 1: contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me
Speaker 1: work better, ranging from software and gadgets that I'm loving
Speaker 1: through to interesting research findings. You can sign up for
Speaker 1: that at Howiwork dot code. That's how I Work dot co.
Speaker 1: How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support
Speaker 1: from Dead Set Studios. And thank you to Matt Nimba,
Speaker 1: who does the audio mix for every episode and makes
Speaker 1: everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise.
Speaker 1: See you next time.