The idea is simple but freeing: keep deciding and doing in two separate modes, and never let them run at the same time.
Decision mode
- Be empirical: lean on the decisions (avoidance included) that made you regret before. Your own history is the cheapest data you have.
- An arbitrary decision is still a hundredfold better than an impulsive one. A choice you can stand behind beats a reaction you were dragged into.
Execution mode
- You have no other option. Once you have decided, the deciding is over — there is nothing left to weigh.
- You don’t stop in the middle.
- Whether it was a great or a bad move is for decision mode to judge — later, in reflection, with a calm head. Not mid-stride.
- Even when it turns out to be a bad decision, the follow-through strengthens your adherence, your self-worth, and your trust in the heuristic — a long-term yield. You are training the muscle of following through, and that compounds.
This way you save an enormous amount of mental energy from bounced thinking — the exhausting loop of reconsidering a choice while you are supposed to be acting on it. (A pattern I first picked up from a friend’s notes.)