We’re in the middle of moving house and it feels like we’re fighting our way through a constant stream of decisions and choices. They all feel high stakes even though, in reality, while some are really important, others are much more trivial. Sometimes I need a way of sifting through all the information and choices. I also sometimes need help managing my doubts about whether I am doing the right thing when I choose one removal company over another or decide to give something away rather than keeping it.
One of the founders of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, helped develop the Penn Perspective Check. This is three questions to ask yourself when you’re in a situation you’re finding difficult but I find it works well for decision making too.
The questions are:
1. What’s the best that can happen?
2. What’s most likely to happen?
3. What’s the worst that can happen?
If you tend to focus on the negative, or catastrophise, this immediately opens things up. Instead of a limited view of the situation, problem or options there are now three possible outcomes you can think about and plan for.
If you tend to come up with lots of nightmare scenarios and potential problems this helps you focus your attention on just three possible outcomes and allows you to start making a plan.
Plans are good! If you have a plan, you immediately start to feel more in control which in turn helps you feel more confident about what’s going on and the choices you’re making.
I like to put most of my attention on the likeliest outcome while seeing if there’s anything I can do to improve my chances of getting the best outcome.
Identifying the worst outcome allows me to stop worrying about it, especially if I think ‘well that’s not so bad’ or ‘it will never happen in reality’. It also helps me work out how to mitigate it for example by thinking about what I could do to reduce the risk, or by coming up with a plan B in case it all goes wrong.
Give it a try!
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