Dan Ariely (2011). The Upside of Irrationality: The Unexpected Benefits of Defying Logic.
Dan Ariely is a great thinker, scientist and story-teller. In this book, he weaves personal anecdotes and research findings together to help us gain insight into our own irrational minds.
Recognizing our own behaviors and thinking patterns is a great stepping stone towards improvement. But rather than assume we could do better and be more rational (which I do believe is important and possible too, at least sometimes…), Dan Ariely suggests we should find ways to make our own irrationalities work in our favor. I find this mindset very useful in practice. In particular, he suggests many methods of how the “right” choice can become the “easy” choice for us. Those are great strategies to set us up for success.
In general, I’m a big advocate of making things as easy as possible on ourselves. There will always be enough hard choices left, where we can use all the mental resources we have left.
by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR