Mistakes are wrong actions, and actions are executed decisions. So why do we keep making the same mistakes and bad decisions?
The road more traveled
Making the same wrong decisions is sometimes related to taking the road more traveled.
Whenever we decide or make an action, a neural pathway is created in our minds. Wrong or right.
Avoiding the road will foster the neural pathway and make you more vulnerable to taking it. You need to think from a fresh angle.
In learning a musical instrument, they always give you some advice when you start. Try to be slow to know the correct technique because it will be more challenging to unlearn if you learn incorrectly.
Arrogance
We often refuse to admit that we are wrong, so we keep doing what we do. We refuse to retreat and accept our failure. And the result is more failure.
Tunneled vision
Poverty affects your financial decisions. Less fortunate people may make wrong financial decisions. They are totally consumed by their day-to-day choices to stretch the dollar so they can scrape by and fit their necessities in their tight budgets.
Dr. Mullainathan, a Professor of Economics at Harvard University explains a psychological dynamic called the bandwidth tax.
It’s when a tunneled vision caused by scarcity leads to reduced mental functioning in fluid intelligence (solving problems and reasoning logically) and executive control (planning and controlling impulses).
Such limited mind resources lead to bad decision-making.
Wrong input
Your brain is like a machine. Putting the wrong input and data will output wrong decisions and actions.
If we do not update our knowledge, we will make the same mistakes.
Status Quo
People don’t like change and like to stay to defaults. We don’t like risk. We understand what we already have in our hands and in front of us.
Aversion loss
We like to keep what we have and fear losing it; behavioral scientists call this bias aversion loss. The impact of losses feels much worse to us than the impact of gains.
Sunken Cost
Sometimes we have already invested in a relationship or an investment, so changing the status quo will make you feel like an idiot. After all those years, you say to yourself, I can’t be wrong.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy describes our tendency to follow through a struggle whether the current costs outweigh the benefits.
Conclusion
Thinking about what we want to accomplish from a fresh perspective is much more helpful than trying to avoid your mistakes.
Avoid the sunken cost, aversion loss, and status quo.
Gather more information about your decision-making problem, and don’t be arrogant.
Lastly, give yourself a little more time in your decision-making process when your mind is busy.
References https://0810e7xje-1105-y-https-doi-org.mplbci.ekb.eg/10.1016/j.jcps.2015.06.011 https://thedecisionlab.com/insights/finance/how-scarcity-affects-the-working-poor/