Why having fewer options can make you happier

I’m sure we’ve all experienced the following at some point. It’s Friday evening and you’ve deciding to treat yourself and enjoy a fancy dinner out. In the hopes of a quick decision, you ask your food companion where they want to eat and brace yourself as the dreaded words escape from their lips – ‘I don’t mind’.

You’ve now been left with the responsibility and pressure of making the (correct) decision. Some of you may rejoice over having the freedom choose but the majority of us, in this relatively inconsequential situation, jump into action; scouring restaurant review sites, analysing menu options and prices, whilst cross-referencing with the signals from our stomachs along with an endless list of other variables, all with the desire to make the perfect place that meets our needs. 

All this overanalysing usually leaves us confused and conflicted, plagued with choice paralysis. What seemed like the freedom to choose turns into burdening indecision.   

The Paradox of Choice

Barry Schwartz explores this phenomenon in his book ‘The Paradox of Choice’. He explains that decisions are based on how people think the outcome will make them feel which is generally informed by their past experiences. The only problem with this is that memories are unreliable and prone to bias. 

The type of person who considers every available option, as described by Schwartz, is known as a ‘maximiser’. They want to make the absolute best choice and check every possible alternative, sometimes even imagining hypothetical options. Unfortunately, because of this need to make a perfect choice, maximisers are prone to buyer’s remorse especially if they discover a better alternative after locking in a decision, getting disheartened by what could have been.   

But while the cumulative opportunity cost of alternatives (what we miss out on when we make a decision) leads to buyer’s remorse and attempting to avoid it prompts an incessant search and analysis, it turns out our final decision, even if perfect, doesn’t really matter. Humans acclimate to their environment so even the shiniest of gadgets eventually blend in with the rest of our lives. This explains why agonising over a decision is futile as whatever the outcome you will get used to it.

Now, most of us are or have been maximisers at some point in time, pulling out our hair while trying to sift through the mountain of information we’ve gathered to inform our decisions.

A more effective decision making method exists

But as Schwartz explains, there is another much simpler form of decision making that will save you time and bring greater happiness. This is the way of the satisficer.

Satisficers aim to meet certain standards when making decisions instead of having ‘the best’ as their goal. They search until a solution is found that meets their needs and look no further, settling for ‘good enough’.  

If you think about this it’s a pretty solid strategy. Back to our eating out example, by committing to the first restaurant that gets the taste buds tingling and limiting the amount of information you have, by not considering other options, you make the whole experience less cognitively demanding. Plus, chances are you’ll enjoy wherever you go as the discrepancy in our enjoyment between alternatives is usually smaller than we think. You can enjoy your meal and be on your merry way, happier, heartier and with plenty of decision-making capacity in the tank. 

While the book stops there, throwing in a few more anecdotes for flavour, I’ve reflected a little further on this and come to some conclusion of my own.

Most of us likely make decisions somewhere between literal maximisers and satisficers as few can truly resist at least glancing at other options, lest they give up a very obviously better choice.

Despite this, being closer to the satisficer end of the scale is a good approach for 95% of the decisions we make, which are fairly inconsequential to the trajectories of our lives. But there are those decisions that are so seminal that it is worth, in my opinion, going full maximiser and agonising over all the alternatives. 

Let me explain. 

• Deciding what to eat out? Inconsequential. If you make a poor choice you can just shrug it off. Being a satisficer is the best approach.  
• Which phone to buy? Seeing as you’ll become accustomed to whatever device you get it’s not worth thinking too hard over (although I must confess I am guilty of this). A middle of the road approach, considering a few key alternatives but not digging too deep is sensible. 
• Which university to go to? Seeing as this decision will probably determine your future friendships, career trajectory and possibly life outlook I would go full maximiser.  

While I doubt people are putting down university choices on a whim, many prospective students are relatively uninformed when deciding and mainly consider short term effects. Thinking deeply about your motivation and desired outcomes as well as thoroughly investigating is, in my opinion, well worth the time and stress. 

Clearly, this can be expanded to other potentially life-altering decisions. I acknowledge that only in hindsight do the importance of decisions rise to the surface but if we take a moment to pause and consider the impact of non-routine decisions before we make them, we might be able to realise their significance in time. 

The important thing with all of these is that once you’ve made a decision to accept it and move on. No good will come of going back and digging deeper as that will only lead to greater unhappiness as you wallow in what could have been.   

I challenge you 

Knowing the theory is all well and good but as we know putting things into action is the tricky part. So, I challenge you to keep a journal for one week. Every evening, think about the decisions you’ve made that day. Were you a maximiser or a satisficer? Where could you have taken a different approach? This should help improve awareness of your style of decision making through conscious reflection and hopefully, in time, you can edge towards making faster decisions, leaving you freer and more content.    

That’s it. I hope this has given some insight into making less burdensome decisions. Do share your thoughts and if you agree/disagree with any of it. I’m all ears!  

Cheers!