Redefining "Good" And "Bad" Decisions

When I was in my late 20s, I was engaged to a man named Greg. My parents weren’t thrilled with the match, and weren’t shy about voicing their concerns, yet they went along with my decision. The venue was booked, my dress was purchased, and save the dates had gone out.

The wedding was planned for July 7, 2007.

I pulled the plug in February of that year.

Was it a good decision or not? (We’ll come back to that later.)

When Annie Duke works with executives of companies, she sometimes starts by asking them to think about their best and worst decisions from the previous year. Without a doubt, they often tell her about their best and worst results, not the best and worst decision.

This is what is referred to as “resulting” — when we tightly align our decision with the result, without factoring in all the other variables that could have impacted the results. There is also an element of hindsight bias at play because we know the results after they happened.

If we go back to my called off wedding, from where I stand now, I can say that it had a good result. I met my current husband a week after my cancelled wedding, we got married in 2009 (I wore the original dress, but that’s a different story), and now we have two beautiful children and I live on the French Riviera.

Great results, no?

The problem with this frame, though, is that I am not looking at the decision objectively. When I made the decision to cancel the wedding, of course, I thought it was the “good” decision to make. But let’s say, hypothetically, I never met my current husband, never met anyone else, and never created the life I live now. Would it still have been a “good” decision?

In How to Decide , Annie Duke demonstrates this with a choice that all drivers make — whether to go when the light turns green.

Here are two ways that it could play out:

• You’re waiting at the light when it turns green, you pull through without a care and go on with your day.
• You’re waiting at the red light when it turns green, you pull through without a care just as a car from the left broadsides you.

Most of us would say that going through the green was a “good” decision in the first scenario and a “bad” one in the second.

This is “resulting” in motion. We determine the good or bad of the decision based on the outcome, not on the decision itself, and too many of our decisions have a degree of luck involved.

We like to think that we are making a skillful decision like a chess player would do, but in reality we’re playing poker. We have no idea what hand we’ll be dealt, nor what cards will be turned up afterward. We have to make do with what is right in front of us, not what might, possibly, come next.

Which means, we can’t judge a decision on the backend. We can only judge it at the moment we make it. So yes, it was a good decision that I cancelled my first wedding, but not because I later met my husband. Simply because we weren’t a great match.

Is there a decision you’ve regretted making? What if it wasn’t a “bad” decision at all?

Originally posted on Substack with comments.

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