We live in a free society which affords us an abundance of choice.
Unfortunately, this also means we often choose the wrong thing.
We choose cookies over vegetables, late night television over sleep and anything on Amazon over saving.
Especially on the weekends when we choose to “NetFlix and chill”.
We inherently KNOW these decisions are bad ones. I’ve never heard anyone brag about how much they spend on Uber Eats.
But our collective decisions as a society have allowed fast food delivery to become a thriving industry.
We don’t do this because we hate ourselves…so why do we make bad decisions?
The Paradox of Choice
When presented with too many options, you are actually less likely to make a decision.
An abudance of options requires more effort in making a decision and has been shown to result in less satisfaction with your decision.
This is referred to as the Paradox of Choice.
Two studies were performed by Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper on the effect of more options on our decisions.
The first study was conducted in an upscale grocery store with a tasting display for different flavors of jam.
The first weekend provided 6 different flavors and the second weekend provided 24.
The display table with more options was found to be more appealing.
Customers sampled slightly more jams when presented with 24 flavors versus 6.
However, customers purchased significantly more when presented with only 6 flavors.
The customers presented with only 6 flavors also made more subsequent purchases of the jams.
The second study was an assignment to students at Stanford University.
After watching a 2 hour video presentation, the students were offered an extra credit assignment.
One group of students were offered 6 different essay topics about the video presentation and another (larger) group was offered 30 different essay topics.
More students offered only 6 essay topics elected to complete the assignment and their work was slightly of higher quality than the students who completed the assignment when offered 30 topics.
Fascinating stuff…but you might be wondering how this relates to your health and fitness.
Decision Fatigue
Our parents called this “willpower”: the ability to make tough decisions and stick to them.
Dan Ariely of Duke University writes in “Understanding Ego Depletion,“ we have limited reserves of willpower.
We use up those reserves regularly.
On Monday morning we have plenty, so we get up early, go for a walk and pack a healthy lunch.
By Friday, we’re having leftover pizza for breakfast.
Decision fatigue is a new idea, but it’s very real.
We make more decisions than our ancestors ever did: They got up at six because the cows were hungry.
They ate oatmeal for breakfast because they didn’t have 37 options.
They bought one gift for Christmas because everyone did. And they were probably happier for it.
The people under the most pressure in the business world usually take steps to limit the number of decisions they have to make each day.
Steve Jobs wore the same outfit and ate the same breakfast every day. If he’d dipped into the well of willpower when choosing his cereal, that would leave less in the pool for later when the BIG decisions came up.
How do we avoid burning out our willpower? Habits.
The Power of Habit
Our brains are wired to form habits for efficiency and to reduce the stress that is associated with having to make decisions.
There are plenty of people who have shared their habits for success and we need only to follow them instead of relying on our ability to make a good decision in the moment.
Are your habits ultimately aligned with what you want to achieve?
Waking up at the same time every day.
Eating the same breakfast or lunch every day.
Working out at the same time every day.
Relying on someone else to program your workouts.
Many of the most successful gym owners have someone else writing their personal training programs. They outsource for themselves the very service they provide for other people because the decisions become overwhelming.
I try to shift as many decisions off my plate as possible. I don’t want to struggle with decision fatigue when it’s time for the important stuff.
When I make a decision, I do my best not to second-guess it because that it especially exhausting.
Don’t let your good habits become decisions.
Jocko Willink, a famous U.S. Navy Seal, wrote a book Discipline Equals Freedom.
Once you’ve decided that you will train at 6am, there isn’t a decision to be made at 5:30am when the alarm goes off.
You simply have the discipline to do the thing you said you would do. Allowing this to become a decision you make on a daily basis is the very thing that strips you of your freedom.
Make it a habit…not a decision.
Conclusion
If you’re beginning to exercise or improve your nutrition, do everything you can to minimize the number of decisions you have to make.
Do a nutrition challenge or 75 Hard and follow the instructions.
Plan and prep your meals in advance so you’ll make better decisions.
Work with a coach for your training so you can avoid paralysis by analysis. And they’ll hold you accountable for actually showing up.
This leaves you feeling fresh and energized so you’ll make better decisions on the important things in your life outside the gym.