{"id":102006,"date":"2019-02-27T11:09:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T17:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=102006"},"modified":"2026-09-28T13:39:42","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T18:39:42","slug":"making-life-changing-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/making-life-changing-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Podcast #486: How to Get Better at Making Life-Changing Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"
How do you make the biggest decisions you face, the ones that have significant consequences and can change your life? Choices like whether to get married, move, attend a certain college, take a particular job, and so on? If you’re like a lot of people, you just kind of wing it, and maybe draw up a basic pros and cons list.<\/div>\n
\n

My guest today has studied the latest research in decision making theory and formulated a better approach. His name is Steven Johnson, his latest book is Farsighted: How We Make the Decisions That Matter the Most<\/em><\/a>, and today he walks us through how to move beyond listing pros and cons to using a more effective 3-step decision making process. We begin our conversation discussing how most people make decisions and how it hasn\u2019t changed much in hundreds of years. Steven then walks us through the phases of a better decision-making methodology, including developing a more creative map of the possibilities before you, accurately predicting the outcomes of those options, and questioning the narratives you have about your choices. Steven then makes the case that reading novels and watching quality television shows can be a great way to train our brains in the skill of decision making. We end our conversation discussing what the raid on Osama bin Laden can teach us about making good decisions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How do you make the biggest decisions you face, the ones that have significant consequences and can change your life? Choices like whether to get married, move, attend a certain college, take a particular job, and so on? If you’re like a lot of people, you just kind of wing it, and maybe draw up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":195381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[502,156,42388],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102006","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-podcast","category-self-improvement"],"featured_image_urls":{"large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/486-538x280.png","medium_large":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/486-768x432.png","aom":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/486-372x230.png","reactor-320":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/486-320x180.png","reactor-640":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/486-640x360.png"},"yoast_head":"\nHow to Get Better at Making Life-Changing Decisions | Art of Manliness<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How do you make the biggest decisions you face, the ones that have significant consequences and can change your life?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/character\/self-improvement\/making-life-changing-decisions\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Podcast #486: How to Get Better at Making Life-Changing Decisions | The Art of Manliness\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How do you make the biggest decisions you face, the ones that have significant consequences and can change your life?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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