Exercise: “Narrow, Pick, Move On”

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Context

Tagline (Short Explanation of Value)

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Visual Diagram

Case Study (low-level, specific to this exercise)

[Optional] Warm-up Exercise (Prologue)

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Steps

[Bill Burnett] Step 1: Narrow down future paths that you find fulfilling (after assessing and prototyping)

If you have too many choices, you go into Choice Overload, and essentially have no choices. Optimal number of choices is 5-7.

If you have too many choices, just cross off choices, then revert if you have a feeling in your stomach that it shouldn’t be crossed off.

[Bill Burnett] Step 2: Choose a future path with your gut feeling

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You cannot choose well if you choose only from your rational mind. Heed your emotional intelligence.

There’s a part of your brain, in the base brain, the “basal ganglia,” that summarizes emotional decisions for you. (e.g., I did something, got a good emotional response from that, good, check. It summarizes all your emotions to tell you if your decisions were valenced positive or negative emotion). The problem is it’s so early in your brain that it has no connection to the part of your brain that talks – the prefrontal cortex, etc. It’s only connected to your GI tract and your limbic system. So it gives you information through felt sensations – a “gut feeling.” Without that, you can’t make good decisions.

[Bill Burnett] Step 3: Minimize Buyer’s Remorse by letting go and moving on.

“Wanting what you get > Getting what you want.” Dan Gilbert (Harvard Psychologist studying Decision Making and Happiness).

If you make decisions reversible, your chance of being happy goes down 60-70%. So let go, and move on.

Focus on the new paths that open, rather than the paths that closed.

Tenets are principles, beliefs, or values that significantly influence your decision making, regardless of whether you’re happy about them.

While there’s no perfect solution, we’ve found Tenets that satisfy the following criteria are often specific and actionable:

1. Tenets are foundational base-level principles, beliefs, or values that influence your decisions / shape your behavior / define your emotions.
2. Your Tenets exist in you regardless of whether you’re aware of or happy about them.
3. Tenets describe a way of living life, rather than an end-state you want to achieve.
4. Tenets are often limited to specific context(s) in your life.
5. When writing Tenets, be explicit about how they should be embodied, and by who.
6. When writing Tenets, state them as a sentence rather than a single word.

See Examples of Useful Tenets

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