PERSPECTIVES AND CHOICES

In this posting I will discuss the use of different perspectives, even sitting in a different chair, may open up more choices for better outcomes.

THE MORE OPTIONS THE BETTER

Having one option is no choice, having two is a dilemma, only once you have three or more might you feel you have real choice. Although too much choice may be paralysing.

TOO MANY OPTIONS

Autonomy and Freedom of choice are critical to our well being, and choice is critical to freedom and autonomy. Nonetheless, though modern Americans have more choice than any group of people ever has before, and thus, presumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don't seem to be benefiting from it psychologically.

Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice, 2004) describes that a consumer's strategy for most good decisions will involve these steps:

Step 1) Figure out your goal or goals. The process of goal-setting and decision making begins with the question: What do I want? When faced with the choice to pick a restaurant, a CD, or a movie, one makes their choice based upon how one would expect the experience to make them feel, expected utility. Once they have experienced that particular restaurant, CD or movie, their choice will be based upon a remembered utility. To say that you know what you want, therefore, means that these utilities align. Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and his colleagues have shown that what we remember about the pleasurable quality of our past experiences is almost entirely determined by two things: how the experiences felt when they were at their peak (best or worst), and how they felt when they ended.

Step 2) Evaluate the importance of each goal. Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky have researched how people make decisions and found a variety of rules of thumb that often lead us astray. Most people give substantial weight to anecdotal evidence, perhaps so much so that it cancels out expert evidence. The researchers called it the availability heuristic describing how we assume that the more available some piece of information is to memory, the more frequently we must have encountered it in the past. Salience will influence the weight we give any particular piece of information.

Step 3) Array the options. Kahneman and Tversky found that personal psychological accounts will produce the effect of framing the choice and determining what options are considered as subjects to factor. For example, an evening at a concert could be just one entry in a much larger account, of say a meeting a potential mate account. Or it could be part of a more general account such as ways to spend a Friday night. Just how much an evening at a concert is worth will depend on which account it is a part of.

Step 4) Evaluate how likely each of the options is to meet your goals. People often talk about how creative accountants can make a corporate balance sheet look as good or bad as they want it to look. In many ways Schwartz views most people as creative accountants when it comes to keeping their own psychological balance sheet.

Step 5) Pick the winning option. Schwartz argues that options are already attached to choices being considered. When the options are not already attached, they are not part of the endowment and choosing them is perceived as a gain. Economist Richard Thaler provides a helpful term sunk costs.

Step 6) Modify goals. Schwartz points out that later, one uses the consequences of their choice to modify their goals, the importance assigned to them, and the way future possibilities are evaluated.

CHOICE AND HAPPINESS.

Schwartz discusses the significance of common research methods that utilize a happiness scale. He sides with the opinion of psychologists David Myers and Robert Lane, who independently conclude that the current abundance of choice often leads to depression and feelings of loneliness. Schwartz draws particular attention to Lane's assertion that Americans are paying for increased affluence and freedom with a substantial decrease in the quality and quantity of community. What was once given by family, neighborhood and workplace now must be achieved and actively cultivated on an individual basis. The social fabric is no longer a birthright but has become a series of deliberated and demanding choices. Schwartz also discusses happiness with specific products. For example, he cites a study by Sheena Iyengar of Columbia University and Mark Lepper of Stanford University who found that when participants were faced with a smaller rather than larger array of jam, they were actually more satisfied with their tasting.

Choice therefore appear to have something to do with control having enough options to feel this is choice but not so many as to overwhelm

IN A RUT (STUCK ON RAILS) OR AT A CROSS ROADS

If you are in a rut because of circumstances, education, culture upbringing etc., you may feel on autopilot or trapped into a journey based on other peoples decisions: rather like a car in a rut or a tram on rails. To actually change direction requires effort (to overcome the rut) or re-engineering (to switch rails and direction)

This is where it is important to be able pause, think, re-evaluate and take action either to make a concerted effort (to break out of the rut) or engineer a switch (to take a different path).

That switch may be based on new perspective (realising a new direction) and new habits (getting used to that path)

If you are at crossroads your choices may be simpler since there is nothing that you have to overcome to take that path it is a simple option with no burden associated with it. Route A or Route B are equally open to you.

The object therefore should be to arrive at our choices without the emotional constraints or self-imposed obligations that pulls us in a direction (Route B) that undermines the freedom to a new direction (Route A)

THE TWO TRAVELERS AND THE FARMER

A traveler came upon an old farmer hoeing in his field beside the road. Eager to rest his feet, the wanderer hailed the countryman, who seemed happy enough to straighten his back and talk for a moment.

What sort of people live in the next town? asked the stranger.

What were the people like where you've come from? replied the farmer, answering the question with another question.

They were a bad lot. Troublemakers all, and lazy too. The most selfish people in the world, and not a one of them to be trusted. I'm happy to be leaving the scoundrels.

Is that so? replied the old farmer. Well, I'm afraid that you'll find the same sort in the next town.

Disappointed, the traveler trudged on his way, and the farmer returned to his work.

Some time later another stranger, coming from the same direction, hailed the farmer, and they stopped to talk. What sort of people live in the next town? he asked.

What were the people like where you've come from? replied the farmer once again.

They were the best people in the world. Hard working, honest, and friendly. I'm sorry to be leaving them.

Fear not, said the farmer. You'll find the same sort in the next town.

Source: Personal recollection, Idaho, about 1950.

SEEING THINGS FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

In the previous story we can see that people judge others and find in them the characteristics of their judgement, whether good or bad. That judgement comes from within and we need to change that perspective to change how we find the world.

Below I will examine three ways of doing this

NON POLAR THINKJING

This is about reliving an experience three times with great intensity and a good break between each and then reflecting upon the event. In order to be dispassionate about the event it is best described as if it is a story or a movie and the person is the author or director.

The first involves experiencing the memory but only from a visual perspective. Only talking about what is seen and recalling every visual image of that. This is not just about reciting what happened but really observing and describing so that you are totally immersed in the situation. Then taking a break.

The second involves experiencing the memory but only from a auditory perspective. Only talking about what is heard and recalling every sound of that. Again in minute detail. Then taking a break.

The third involves experiencing the memory but only from a kinaesthetic perspective. Only talking about what is felt and recalling every sensation of that. With reference to every part of your body and how it felt then and how it feels now. Then taking a break.

Generally what happens is that the facts of visual perspective and auditory perspective somehow put into context the feelings of the kinaesthetic perspective and people will feel that actually on reflection the feelings were not proportionate to what happened and actually they feel much more in control in retrospect and less troubles by the experience in the future.

An important caveat is that whilst this does work in many circumstances severe trauma of the PTSD type may result not in reflection but a flashback, so this is possibly not good in cases of real trauma.

THREE CHAIRS

A similar approach is also involves reliving an experience three times with great intensity and a good break between each and then reflecting upon the event. This time it involves an element of role pay sitting in the chair of, or standing in the shoes of [1] yourself [2] the other person [3] an bystander or unconnected observer.

Again, as before, the movement from one position (a chair) to another literally separates the perspectives and helps you adopt the persona and feeling of each person as they observe, hear and feel what is happening from each chair.

Chair [1] yourself
Relive the experience with what you observe, hear and feel using I sentences: I feel, I hear, I see, I smell

Chair [2] the other person
Role play the experience with of what they did and said using I , he, she or they sentences: I feel, I hear, I see, I smell but also he or she in response to Chair 1 and what they are doing and saying. As you do this you may feel an appreciation for what the person in Chair 2 may be feeling and how they would react.

Chair [3] a bystander or unconnected observer
Role play the experience as an onlooker using I , he, she or they sentences and observing the words, tone and body language between the people in Chair 1 and Chair 2

As before what happens is that the role play helps understanding from different perspective and helps identify the points where control may be lost or gained, where communication succeeds or fails and with this better understanding the person will feel much more in control in retrospect and less troubles by the experience in the future.

DISSOLVING NEGATIVE EMOTIONS

Step 1
Think of anything that is bothering you, worrying you, or making you feel sad or fearful. Pick the worst thing you are going through now.

Step 2
As you keep thinking about it, let yourself detect where you feel it in your body. Some people have felt it in their chest, arms, stomach, throat, between their breasts (females), or at the top of their stomach (men store it here a lot). Become aware of where it enters your body.

Step 3
Notice which direction this feeling is moving. It has to move feelings move all the time. For example, I want you to think about being nervous. When a person is nervous, they normally say I have butterflies in my tummy.

Step 4
By now you should be thinking of it, feeling it and know the direction in which it is moving. Now I want you to look at what it is you are seeing in your minds eye. Is it a still picture or a movie? Go to (a) if its a picture and go to (b) if its a movie

(a) If its a picture, place a black border around the edge and move it away from you in your minds eye, shrinking it down to the size of a postcard. Then move it away from you again until its the size of a postage stamp. Then when it is as small as you can make it, take a deep breath and blow it away until you cant see it anymore.

At the very same time as you are doing this, I want you to place your hands on the area of your body where the feelings are. Then push the feelings in your body in the opposite direction. So, for example, if you discovered the feelings were in your lower stomach moving up, you would use your hands to move the feelings downward. As you blow the picture away you should also find you have moved the feeling from your body.

(b) If you see a movie playing, pick the worst part of the movie and freeze it. Now you have a picture and can continue with the technique by following the instructions given above in (a).

Step 5
Test the results of your work. Try to think again about THE SAME THING that was worrying you and see and feel for yourself how remarkably different the experience is now.

No other technique has ever gotten close to removing negative emotions as fast as this one and I give it to you with love and blessing for an amazing life. Never let your body trick you anymore you make the thoughts that create the feelingsand now you can change your feelings about anything in your life.


USEFUL REFERENCES

Schwartz (The Paradox of Choice, 2004)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice

The Two Travelers And The Farmer
https://www.pitt.edu/dash/traveltales.html

Dissolving Negative Emotions
https://www.neilstrauss.com/neil/nlp-technique-quick-release-of-negative-and-self-defeating-emotions/


ABOUT THE BLOG

This is a series of coaching blogs that eventually will become a book. By blogging each item I hope to share each element in easy to read bite size chunks, maybe invite some people to subscribe to see the next posting and hopefully encourage some comments, feedback and suggestions which will improve the content for the blog and eventually the book. All comments and feedback are therefore welcome.