PDF Summary:Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, by Andy Stanley

Making good decisions is a struggle—and it doesn’t help that it’s hard to define a “good decision.” Is a good decision one that you think through slowly and carefully? Is it a decision that yields the result you want? Or is it the decision that you know, intuitively, is the right one for you? In Better Decisions, Fewer Regrets, pastor Andy Stanley argues that good decisions help you move your life in the direction you want it to go—and that it’s easier than you might think to improve your decision-making skills.

Stanley contends that by asking yourself a series of questions, you can take control of any decision you face. This guide will begin by examining how Stanley defines a good decision and a bad decision. Then we’ll examine the reasons we make bad decisions and the methods Stanley recommends using to get around our worst impulses. We’ll also compare Stanley’s ideas to those of other decision-making experts who have researched how you can make stronger, sounder decisions.

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You might notice a pattern in Stanley’s explanations for why we make these three kinds of bad decisions: We tend to tell ourselves that we want something—to have a material object, to hold onto a relationship, or to keep indulging in a harmful habit—and that it’s OK to go for it, even when we know better. Stanley explains that that’s because we’re great at deceiving ourselves, an idea we’ll explore further in the next section.

What Horror Movies Can Teach Us About Decision-Making

Stanley notes that we often make bad decisions because we want something, and we’re willing to take questionable actions to get it. To see how this works, you could rewatch your favorite horror movie. The characters in these films are notorious for their bad decisions. They act on their immediate desires (maybe to meet up with friends in the woods or to evade a monster), not on rational judgments. They don’t think ahead about what dangers might lurk in the woods, or why it’s not a great idea to retreat deeper into an abandoned house. Like these characters, we often forge ahead and assume everything will turn out fine. But you don’t survive the haunted house or the zombie apocalypse if you just react in the moment.

Of course, Stanley didn’t write a book about decision-making for horror movie characters. (He’s said that he doesn’t like scary movies.) But when he writes that our motivations drive our bad decisions, Stanley is describing the kind of decision-making that you can see dramatized in many horror movies. We don’t make bad decisions because we’re trying to get ourselves into trouble. Instead, we make bad decisions because we’re so strongly driven by what we want in the moment that we can’t see beyond those desires.

Why Do We Make Bad Decisions? And How Can We Make Better Ones?

So we’re good at making bad decisions—great at it, even! But why does it come so naturally to us to make choices that we’ll regret, choices that undermine how we want to spend our time and what we want to accomplish in our lives? According to Stanley, there’s a fundamental explanation for all of this: that we make bad decisions because we lie to ourselves. In this section, we’ll explore what Stanley means when he says that we deceive ourselves in ways that undermine good decision-making. We’ll also look at the reasons we aren’t truthful with ourselves and examine his advice for how we can break this destructive habit.

We’re Bad at Decisions Because We’re Good at Lying to Ourselves

Stanley explains that when we make a choice, we tell ourselves a story about the situation we’re facing and the options we have in front of us. But we tend to tell ourselves stories that aren’t true, and Stanley contends that this is the problem at the heart of our bad decisions. He points out that we often make up stories to deceive ourselves (and sometimes others, too) so that we can feel good about choosing what we feel like doing over what we should be doing. But failing to be truthful with ourselves can lead us away from good, sound, responsible decisions and toward decisions that we’ll later regret.

Most of the time, you don’t make a decision knowing that you’ll regret it later (your justification for that extra slice of pizza aside). So how can you know when you’re using a not-so-faithful interpretation of the facts to justify a decision? Stanley explains that when you realize you’re talking yourself into something or making excuses for yourself, that often signals that you’re gearing up to make a bad decision, and using a bad story to do it. The key insight here is that we often lie to ourselves because we’re motivated to do so: Telling ourselves the truth might make us feel bad about ourselves, and fudging the truth a little makes us feel better. But that effect is temporary, and we’ll have to face the consequences of our decisions sooner or later.

Why Are We So Good at Bending the Truth?

Psychologists say that we all engage in self-deception: We lie to ourselves to avoid acknowledging truths that threaten the way we want to see ourselves. Researchers think that some of us lie to ourselves naturally, while others develop the habit to cope with challenges that come our way. While we can use these lies to block out negative thoughts, brighten our mood, or boost our self-esteem, there’s a downside too. We sometimes use self-deception to keep our consciences clear even when we behave in ways that we know are wrong.

For a tragicomic illustration of how self-deception leads to regrettable decisions, just look to Wes Anderson’s 2001 film The Royal Tenenbaums. Royal, the Tenenbaum family’s estranged patriarch, habitually deceives himself to feel better about a lifetime of lying, cheating, and stealing. He even tells his family he’s dying of stomach cancer to try to bring them together again. Most of us wouldn’t go that far to save our self-image. But we do turn to self-deception to avoid the painful truth about our mistakes, or put off facing down our bad decisions. If it’s hard for Royal to let go of the lies he’s told, it’s also the only way he can start making decisions motivated by something more noble than a desire to keep his conscience clear.

Biases and Errors in Our Thinking Make It Easy to Lie to Ourselves

Stanley blames our ability to lie to ourselves on the cognitive biases built into our brains. Cognitive biases occur when your brain tries to make the decision-making process faster or easier and takes a shortcut that yields a less rational decision. Because your cognitive biases can keep you from thinking logically about a decision, they make it easier to choose based on how you feel right now rather than what you think might happen later. Cognitive biases make it easy for you to lie to yourself about what you should do. That reduces your chances of making a good choice, one that you’ll look back on later and be glad you made.

Stanley explains that because cognitive biases and other errors in your thinking are always around to influence how you think about a situation and to trip up your decision-making, you need to have a plan to get around them and make good decisions anyway. He recommends that part of that plan should be to try to see through the ways you trick yourself into making bad decisions. (We’ll take a closer look at a few of these errors and biases in the next section.)

(Shortform note: Many experts agree with Stanley that countering your cognitive biases can help you make better decisions. Dan Gardner and Philip Tetlock write in Superforecasting that people who make accurate predictions do so in part by avoiding getting tripped up by their cognitive biases. Just being aware of these errors in thinking can help you look out for them. But the authors also note that seeking out other people’s perspectives, breaking complex problems down into simpler pieces, and challenging yourself with intellectually difficult pursuits like doing crossword puzzles or reading difficult books can help you learn to make better predictions.)

How to Make Better Decisions by Questioning Your Biases

To guard against the tendency to tell yourself stories that aren’t true, courtesy of your cognitive biases, Stanley recommends deliberately structuring your decision-making around five questions. Each question can help you think more critically about the stories you tell yourself and push you to think more clearly about what decision you should make. Ahead, we’ll look at five methods that Stanley recommends for improving your decision-making, each paired with a specific question that can help you push beyond a cognitive bias that tends to affect decision-making.

1) Stop Ignoring Information You Dislike

The first cognitive bias that Stanley addresses is the confirmation bias. Because of this error, we pay more attention to information that confirms what we believe (or what we want to believe) than to information that challenges our ideas. This means that when you’re facing an important choice, you naturally pay attention to the evidence that tells you you’re right—and dismiss all of the signals that there might be another way to look at the situation.

Ask: “Am I telling myself the truth?”

To counter your confirmation bias and stop ignoring useful information that disagrees with what you want to believe, Stanley recommends thinking about whether you’re telling yourself the truth. He explains that to make better decisions, you often have to question your internal logic. By taking a hard look at whether you’re telling yourself the truth, you can gain more insight into the situation and why you’re seeing it the way that you are.

For example, you might believe that your spouse never helps around the house and you always have to do the chores. This would probably make you feel resentful and justified in starting an argument about it. But if you sit down and list who does what and how often, you might realize that your spouse is taking care of responsibilities you’d overlooked at first, like shopping for groceries, paying the bills, and repairing things that break. By asking whether you’re telling yourself the truth, you’re able to challenge your confirmation bias, appreciate your spouse’s contributions, and avoid making a rash decision to start an argument.

How Confirmation Bias Fueled an Infamous Beatles Conspiracy Theory

As Stanley points out, confirmation bias—our tendency to pay more attention to information that confirms our expectations—often determines what we consider when we make a decision. This bias is so powerful that it can sometimes make us believe things that, in retrospect, seem pretty far-fetched. That’s the case for millions of people who fell for music’s “most notorious conspiracy theory”: the story that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and the other Beatles went to great lengths to cover up his death, even hiring a lookalike to take his place.

Psychologists note that when people heard the theory that McCartney had died, all they had to do was look at album covers and song lyrics to find confirmation from the surviving Beatles—or so it seemed. The apparent morbid symbolism of Paul’s bare feet on the cover of Abbey Road, a mumbled “I buried Paul” that listeners thought they heard in “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and other clues appeared everywhere conspiracy-minded fans looked for them. It was because of confirmation bias that so many people “saw” the clues and believed the story.

The “Paul is dead” hoax demonstrates that you can find proof for just about anything if you look hard enough. It can be more difficult to step back and question the things you already believe. But by questioning whether it’s reasonable to think that the Beatles not only covered up McCartney’s death, but also found a replacement who looks, sounds, and composes exactly like McCartney, a credulous fan might see the conspiracy theory for what it was: a hoax that got its start in a college newspaper and spiraled out of control from there.

2) Think About the Future Instead of Focusing on Now

A second bias in our thinking makes us value what we want in the present more highly than what we’ll want in the future. Stanley explains that because of a cognitive tendency called focalism, we exaggerate the importance of what we’re focused on and let it block out everything else. Often, that’s the opposite of what we need to do to make a good decision.

Focalism explains that when we’re paying attention to a decision that affects us right now, we tend to forget that many other things will happen and affect our happiness and well-being in the future. When we make a decision, we usually aren’t methodically thinking through how the choices might play out. Instead, we’re influenced by our emotions: the emotions we feel in the present and the emotions we imagine we’ll feel if we make a particular choice. Stanley notes that it’s natural to pick the option that will make us happier now, even though those decisions are sometimes the ones that will make us less happy or healthy later.

(Shortform note: As Stanley writes, focalism—our tendency to overemphasize one piece of information—often trips us up, especially when strong emotions are involved. But physicist Leonard Mlodinow writes in Emotional that you really can’t keep your emotions from affecting your decisions. He contends that feeling is just as important as thinking when you’re faced with a choice, and emotions help our brains choose what information to pay attention to and account for when making a decision. Still, Mlodinow writes that if your emotions run too high or linger too long, you can rein them in by expressing them, meditating, or “reappraising” the situation by looking for a more productive way to explain the events that prompted the emotion.)

Ask: “How does this fit into my story?”

Stanley notes that every decision you make becomes part of the story of your life. If you can take a step back from the present moment, you can consider how the decision you’re about to make could shape that story. Stanley points out that you want to make decisions you’ll feel proud of, and this often requires trying to think about the future.

For example, imagine that you're offered a high-paying job that requires working long hours. The salary would enable you to buy a new car or move into a bigger apartment. Those benefits might outweigh everything else in your mind. But if you ask yourself, "How does this fit into my story?", you’ll remember that you want a balanced life, with time to spend with your family and friends and enjoy your hobbies. The benefit of higher earnings might not align with your desired narrative—which might lead you to rethink the job offer.

(Shortform note: Stanley explains that the tendency to focus on the present instead of considering the future undermines our ability to make decisions, and other experts agree. Katy Milkman, author of How to Change, explains that we place too much emphasis on short-term concerns. But this isn’t just lazy thinking: The reason seems to be hard-wired into our brains. Neuroscientists note that the future is uncertain, and our brains don’t like to deal with uncertainty. The human brain evolved to keep us alive in the short term, so it finds certainty and a sense of control rewarding. That means that it’s stressful to face the uncertainty of the future—and as a consequence, we avoid thinking about the future as much as possible.)

3) Don’t Disregard Your Intuition

The third mistake in our thinking that Stanley points out isn’t a cognitive bias, but instead is a logical error called the genetic fallacy. Because of this problem with our reasoning, we tend to dismiss certain pieces of information on the basis of where that information came from, thinking we’re justified in ignoring information from certain sources. Stanley argues that one of the most harmful ways you use the genetic fallacy is to dismiss signals from your intuition.

(Shortform note: Stanley doesn’t define “intuition,” and it’s a tricky concept to pin down. One definition comes from psychologist Seymour Epstein, who’s credited with coming up with dual-process theory (the idea that we learn, think, and make decisions with both an automatic system that learns from our experiences, and a rational system that relies on conscious deliberation). Epstein explains intuition as “the things we've learned without realizing we've learned them.” Intuition can be useful in some situations, like when an unfamiliar situation turns out to be very similar to ones we’ve experienced in the past, and not so useful in others, like when our past experiences aren’t particularly relevant to the current decision.)

Stanley explains that your intuition is an incredibly valuable source of information. When you get the feeling that something is wrong, that might be a clue from your intuition that the choice you’re about to make could have negative consequences for you or for other people. Or, that feeling might let you know that the choice you’re considering isn’t the decision that God wants you to make.

(Shortform note: Stanley doesn’t go into detail about how to distinguish between your intuition versus a message from God. But in an earlier DVD and study guide called Discovering God’s Will (2004), Stanley states that God wants to be involved in your decisions, both big and small. He contends that if you ask God to give you a vision of what he wants your life to look like, then you’ll begin to see a mental picture of what it could and should be. As that mental picture takes shape, you can write it down in the form of a sentence or a paragraph. Then you can begin making decisions that move you toward God’s vision for your life.)

Stanley explains that if you’re like most people, you often dismiss the feeling that something is off. Because we all think we can predict the future despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, you might even reassure yourself that everything will be fine or that you have the situation under control. Instead, you should stop and examine what your intuition is telling you.

Ask: “What am I ignoring?”

Stanley explains that by checking in with yourself about whether your intuition is waving a red flag, you can cultivate the habit of listening to your internal knowledge about whether you’re making the right choice. For example, imagine that you’ve been dating someone who seems to check all the boxes: They’re attractive, successful, kind, and everyone around you likes them. However, you notice an unsettling feeling you can't quite explain. You could dismiss your intuition. But if you ask yourself what you’re ignoring, you might dig deeper and discover that aspects of the relationship or the other person’s choices don't fully align with your values—something you intuitively knew before you knew exactly why.

Intuition, Then Logic? Or Logic, Then Intuition?

Stanley considers actively consulting your intuition an important tool for making better decisions. Experts say that going against our intuition—as we do when we use the genetic fallacy to dismiss it—can feel like self-betrayal, since the experiences and ideas that shape our intuition are integral to our self-perception. Many researchers agree that it’s valuable to account for intuition in many of our decisions, but they have different opinions on whether you should think logically first and consult your intuition second, or let your intuition lead the way.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains that we have two “systems” of thinking. System 1 operates intuitively, quickly, and seemingly effortlessly. System 2 moves slowly and logically and requires conscious effort. Together they enable us to make decisions. Both are vulnerable to mistakes that can lead to regrettable decisions. But Kahneman warns that System 1 is more prone to error and more likely to yield bad decisions if you rely on it by itself, particularly for high-stakes decisions. He recommends consulting your intuition after, not before, collecting data and trying to make an objective decision.

Conversely, cognitive psychologist Gary Klein contends that expert decision-makers start with their intuition and then logically evaluate what might happen if they make the decision that seems intuitively right. In Sources of Power, Klein (like Kahneman) contends that we make most decisions using both our intuitive and our analytical abilities. He considers intuition one of the “sources of power” that experts use. Klein writes that when you gain the experience to recognize familiar patterns in unfamiliar situations, you can intuitively recognize the right course of action. Then, you can analyze that solution to determine if it will really work.

4) Stop Aiming Low With Your Behavior

A fourth mistake that Stanley identifies as a flaw in our decision-making is the kind of black-and-white thinking where we assume that something is either wrong or right—and if an action isn’t obviously wrong, then it’s totally fine. Stanley explains that we set standards for ourselves and how we’ll behave as partners, parents, friends, professionals, and people. However, we’re often lazy with our behavior, and we’re less concerned with reaching our highest standards than we are with just doing the bare minimum and meeting our lowest standards.

You might push the boundaries by telling yourself that it’s fine to watch one more episode on Netflix, have one more cocktail, or spend one more night working late—because these things aren’t technically against the rules you’ve set for yourself. But by deciding that it’s OK to do something just because it isn’t technically wrong, you’re giving yourself permission to aim low. Stanley warns that it’s easy to slip into this kind of thinking because you live in a world where not everyone lives by the same standards you do. He contends that the world is very good at getting us to blur the boundaries we’ve set for ourselves.

(Shortform note: When we let ourselves off the hook in the way Stanley describes, we indulge in what philosophy professor Thomas Wells calls “moral laziness.” Wells explains that we aspire to moral principles that we often fall short of. It’s easy for us to believe that some people are just more moral than we are and we can’t live up to their example or reach the standards we’d uphold in a perfect world. But philosophers like Søren Kierkegaard have contended that everyone knows the difference between right and wrong. Kierkegaard wrote that it’s not enough to admire other people’s goodness and settle for less in our own moral actions: We can’t talk our way out of living up to our standards, and we instead need to strive for goodness.)

Ask: “How can I act wisely?”

To hold yourself to higher standards, Stanley recommends asking yourself how you can behave wisely as you make your decision. By thinking this question through, you can remind yourself about the goals you’ve set and the standards you aspire to, and see how your behavior can carry you closer or farther away from them. The wise decision might be to sacrifice something now so that you can achieve what you really want later. But according to Stanley, the wise decision never involves blurring the lines of your moral or personal standards.

(Shortform note: To act according to your values, as Stanley advises, you have to be clear on what those values are. In The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Mark Manson gives some advice for figuring them out. Manson writes that while we often can’t control what happens in our lives, we can choose the standards we live by. To do this, Manson advises developing a very clear idea of what you value. He recommends cultivating the habit of identifying the emotions you’re feeling, then asking yourself or a therapist why you feel the way you do. Then, you can identify the values that underlie your emotions: the ideas of success that you judge yourself against.)

5) Look Beyond Your Individual Perspective

Finally, the fifth error in our thinking that Stanley addresses is our tendency to get stuck seeing things from our own perspective. When we focus entirely on our point of view, we miss the opportunity to think about how other people in our lives and communities are affected by the things we do. We also miss the chance to make a choice that respects and honors other people. Stanley explains that in all our relationships, we can make decisions that will improve other people’s lives. He contends that we should do this not because it guarantees that the other person will put the same kind of effort into the relationship—it doesn’t—but because caring for other people is the one decision that we can always be certain is the right one.

Ask: “How can I act with love?”

Stanley writes that you should think about what it would look like to act with love. He contends that love is an action, not just an emotion, and you have to choose to behave with love when you make decisions. You can make the intentional choice to respect others, treat them with kindness, and honor them and your relationship. For example, suppose you start volunteering at the public library and run into trouble with a librarian who’s critical of your work and skeptical about your commitment. Especially if you differ in age, race, or political views, you might write her off as someone you can’t understand. Or you could choose to act with love and make an effort to be kind to her and try to make her day easier each time you’re at the library.

What Does It Mean to Act With Love?

Stanley’s advice to act with love and with a concern for understanding other people’s perspectives applies not only to your relationships in your family and in close social circles but also to your relationships with other people in your community, who might be divided over a contentious election or polarized by different political priorities. Writing prior to the 2020 election, Stanley explains that to act with love, we have to work toward unity rather than succumb to divisiveness. He contends that people are divided by their fear and that we all perceive that we have a lot to fear. But Stanley warns that we shouldn’t let fear determine our decisions and that instead, we need to turn to love to guide our choices.

In All About Love, scholar and activist bell hooks articulates a similar idea and writes that choosing to love others frees us from fear. She writes that we are fixated on the idea of safety and have come to believe that differences between people signal a threat to our safety. So fear often functions to uphold the parts of our society that dominate and control people and alienate them from each other, such as capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, and homophobia. hooks contends that by letting go of fear, we can embrace our shared humanity and resist systemic oppression, violence, and injustice.

According to both hooks and Stanley, love can help us to leave behind our fear of the things that make us different from each other (whether that’s race, gender, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, educational background, or political views). Choosing to act with love enables us to open ourselves to other people’s perspectives and seek to understand what other people see in the world. That way, we can make decisions that help us to build relationships and communities, rather than isolate ourselves with fear.