How to Make Choosing Easier
As an adult, I have grown increasingly more frustrated by
having more choices. I have never given much thought that the more choices I
have the worse I feel. I hate shopping these days because of the fact that
there are so many choices. I spent a great deal of time living overseas on a
military base where our choices were severely limited. At the time, I thought
it was horrible that there were only two types of deodorants to choose from, or
that the grocery store only had one type of apple.
However, when we came back
to the states I went to the store to pick up shampoo. I stood there in the
middle of the isle looking at the sea of choices and I felt like I was going to
have a panic attack. I couldn’t choose what type of shampoo to buy. This one
had intense moisture, but that one had added shine, well, I wanted both intense
moisture and added shine. I found one that had both, but there were 15
different brands. I couldn’t find the difference between all of them and the prices were all around
the same. My hair can be tricky, so buying the right kind of shampoo for my hair type is
important, or so the choices made it seem.
As I stood in the isle staring at barrage of
choices, I got really mad and I ended up leaving my cart in the isle and walked
out. I simply could not handle it. I felt so overwhelmed that I just had to get
out of there. I was so astonished at my reaction. I didn’t even understand
where it was coming from, but I really couldn’t deal with it. These large chain
stores drive me crazy and give me anxiety. I always feel like no matter what
choice I make, it was probably the wrong one.
Dr. Lyengar set out a pretty good strategy on how to improve
your ability to decide. The first step is get rid of the extra alternatives. I
have done this by not going to the bigger chain stores. The second step is to understand
the consequences of the choice. This one is still new to me and I am not sure I
would do this on a daily basis, but it would definitely work for major
purchases. The third step is to categorize. Our brains work better when there
are more categories than there are choices. And the fourth step is to condition
for complexity. This means to start off small and then gradually increase the
amount or degree of difficulty.
Now, if we could just get stores to understand this logic, life would be much simpler! But until then, learning how to break down the
enormity of the choosing between shampoos and other large choice items and put them into categories to process them better, will help me when I do find myself standing in the Super Store isle staring at 50 different choices of lipstick.
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