Decision Making

Making decisions is the only function of cognition. The only meaningful question is: What kind of behaviors increase our chances of survival, in other words, how do we recognize high quality behaviors? High quality behaviors usually begin with processed thinking and are reinforced with some intrinsic reward. They are designed to fade into obsessive-compulsive tracks to save time and energy, but the problem is, so can low quality ones—bad habits. Those behaviors that may have been useful in the past but lost their power to enhance survival must be changed. Change is always hard, but like any skill, you can get good at it. Mental health can be thought of as being good at recognizing and changing low quality behaviors.

Firstly, we should be in the right state of mind for change. It starts with evaluating behavior. While we are examining our behavior, we are in a state of mindfulness. There is no real trick to mindfulness; we only need to become concerned with giving an honest grade to our own actions by considering how they affected our survival. Secondly, we must decide on an improved behavior which should better suit our survival. Thirdly, we practice the new behavior until it becomes habit or proves inadequate. We tend to struggle with this last one, so it is best to practice changing when and where there is no pressure to do so, like brushing on the other side of our mouth first or move around the aps on our home screen. These little changes need the same kind of attention as the big ones, so we get all the practice we want and struggle less with those difficult changes that have been causing stress and mismanagement.