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One of the simplest, yet most stressful, decisions I deal with on a regular basis is one I'm sure you have worried over, too: What's for dinner?
There have been nights when I've stared at my phone, endlessly scrolling through Seamless in search of the perfect meal, and next thing I know I've wasted half an hour and I'm still hungry and foodless.
Sound familiar? Enter FOBO: Fear of Better Options. And it's a thing.
Researchers call this phenomenon maximization. It's the relentless researching of all possible options for fear that you'll miss out on the 'best' one, leading to indecision, regret and even lower levels of happiness.
The problem with maximizing is paradoxical: Though maximizers tend to make better decisions, they are less satisfied with those decisions than are people who make quicker ones based on less research (those people are called satisficers). And the ultimate goal of maximizing is impossible: You'll never be able to examine every possible option before making a decision.
To wit: One study found that maximizer college graduates chose jobs with higher starting salaries than did satisficers, but the maximizers were less satisfied because they felt regret and second-guessed their decisions, fearing there was still a better option out there.
So how do we stop these endless maximization spirals that prevent us from making decisions?
The solution falls somewhere between going full maximizers and becoming too much of a satisficer. Enter the Mostly Fine Decision. (Patent pending.)
Your M.F.D. is the minimum outcome you're willing to accept for a decision. It's the outcome you'd be fine with, even if it's not the absolute best possibility.
So let's say you're me, sitting at home and 20 minutes into mindlessly scrolling through Seamless. To break the cycle and find my M.F.D. so I can actually make an order, I need to think about what my criteria are for a decision I'd be fine with: not hungry anymore, didn't spend too much money, ate something I didn't hate.
With those criteria in mind, I now have a specific threshold I know I need to hit. Once I've found an option that ticks off all those boxes, I've landed on my M.F.D.
And, just for the record: It was sushi, and it was fine.Share
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