How to identify realistic choices in imperfect situations

The second step in FREE-ing yourself from unhelpful health choices amidst the chaos of modern life is to identify a range of realistic choices that you could proceed with.

When it comes to choosing what to do most of us suffer from an optimism bias. Research shows that up to 80% of us are too optimistic in a number of circumstances. This unrealistic optimism means that we have a tendency to skew towards the “idealistic” end of the spectrum when it comes to deciding what to do. We believe that we can (or should) be doing more than what is realistic in that situation (or what the next person might be able to do.)

Try this example - I had been planning on going out for a run and had set aside an hour to get out and about and then come back for a shower afterwards before moving on to my next thing (which I need the shower for). Events conspire against me, previous meetings run late, the kids decide that they want the red pants instead of the blue and won’t get into the car unless we change, someone rings up with an “urgent” problem to solve. All of a sudden the 60 minutes I had budgeted for is now 28 minutes. I still want to run, so decide to tackle the 5km loop around the hills next to my house.

Pre-kids when I was running consistently I would do a 5km on the flat and get a very very quick shower in in 28 minutes, albeit probably still sweating profusely afterwards. While this is the option I’d love to take now I’m living in a world of unrealistic optimism. It’s like when I ask my wife how much work she has left to do, whatever the answer she gives I know that it’s probably close to double the time she told me. It’s not a deliberate deception, rather the hope we can squeeze the “ideal” in.

Unfortunately trying to squeeze in the ideal option into our day that has been hit by the chaos storm is a recipe for unsustainable behaviour. We attempt to do the “ideal” choice, nearly always we don’t get it all done, and we end up with a feeling of guilt floating about. Because health behaviour needs to be consistent in order to be effective, choosing the option that leaves us with a feeling of guilt afterwards doesn’t promote repetition of the behaviour. James Clear points out in his work on habits that if we want a behaviour to be repeated that there must be a strong enough reward for us to do it again. I don’t know about you, but I never feel that rewarded when I’m experiencing guilt.

So instead of doing what most of us have a tendency to do and chase the idealistic choice, we need to assess the situation and come up with realistic choices.

Daniel Kahneman suggests two helpful ways that we can identify options that are more realistic than idealistic.

The first is to see your situation from an outsider's perspective. This might be you imagining someone else giving you advice on potential courses of action. OR it might be imagining a friend, or family member, or the kids from the supermarket that packs your groceries in the situation you find yourself in, and you giving them objective advice. When you picture someone else in your situation, you are much less likely to adopt unrealistic optimism on their behalf.

The second suggestion is to perform a “premortem” before the situation occurs. Most of us can predict that things aren’t going to go to plan all day every day. It seems a daily occurrence for me that some kind of chaos creeps in. Spending a short period of time predicting potential areas that plans may be challenged, and then identifying potential compromises we can make with our health actions. By forcing ourselves to consider potentially negative outcomes we reduce the shortsightedness of overconfidence.

When we can identify realistic healthy choices and put them into action we find that they are easier to repeat. We feel good about ourselves for achieving our modified target, a reward in itself which reinforces a positive habit loop. We also start to understand ourselves and our capacity more deeply so that we can continue to move away from “all or nothing” health action and thinking.