magic 8-ball | Bigg Success

Do you have a decision to make? Are you unable to make decisions? Here’s a tactic we heard on the To the Lost episode of Boardwalk Empire:

Flip a coin.

Whether it comes up heads or tails barely matters. What does matter is how you feel when it’s in the air. What are you hoping for?

It’s your intuition at work. And ultimately, it can be an important decision-making tool. If you prefer, you can use a Magic 8 ball to make your next decision.

(Unless you usually get it wrong. Then you may want to use
George Costanza’s technique.)

Whatever you do, there’s an important concept underlying these methods. It’s a systematic way to apply your intuition. Once you grasp it, it will help you make decisions in life.

Frame your options as a binary choice: heads or tails, yes or no, this or that, either or.

For example, let’s say you want to start a business. One question you may ask is when.

So get out your coin. Heads you’ll go into business now. Tails you’ll wait.

Flip the coin in the air. Do you feel a knot in your stomach? Which side do you want to come up?

More importantly, don’t stop there. Take the hoped-for answer and expand on it. Create a series of choices:

Part-time or full-time? Online or off? Start or buy? Independent or franchise?

Of course, the choices will be determined in part by the type of business you want to own. Step-by-step, you’re creating a decision tree.

By getting it on paper, you’ll be able to quickly see how choices now affect options later. You can weigh what you’re giving up against what you’re getting. Then you’ll be able to make a decision that leads to BIGG success!

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In a new study, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, a group of researchers surveyed 58 random people in a shopping mall. These researchers asked the participants to recall the decisions they had made that day. Then the researchers asked the participants to solve some simple math problems. They found that the more decisions a participants had made, the less likely they were to solve the problems.

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There appears to be a price to making decisions – we become less productive as we make more decisions. And boy, do we have to make a lot of decisions today!

A six item grocery list
Picture yourself in a grocery store holding a list with six items – orange juice, bagels, Philadelphia cream cheese, Crest toothpaste, Coke, and lettuce.

In 1970, with that list you would have had a choice of 50 items. By 1998, you would need to filter through 250 different products just to get all the items on your list.

This comes from the spectacular book, Simplicity Marketing: End Brand Complexity, Clutter, and Confusion by Steven M. Cristol and Peter Sealey.

Think about it – that was 1998. Do you think it’s any better now?

3 bigg action items to simplify decision making

#1 – Make a list that’s specific.
So specific in fact, that you could send someone else and get exactly what you want. Studies show that people who shop with a list don’t buy as many impulse items so they tend to spend less money.

More importantly, it saves you time and mental fatigue as the studies showed.

#2 – Set a time limit when you’re making a major decision.
Before you begin doing research for a bigg decision, set a time limit. Once you’re satisfied with your findings or once you reach your time limit, make a decision.

As an example, we recently set up the web site for Bigg Studio, a sister company to Bigg Success, for audio production services. We needed to decide on the design for the site. There were an endless number of possibilities. We chose one that fit our criteria and moved on.

Here’s another tip that we love – get out your magic 8 ball. Ask it if you made the right decision. Look at its answer and see how you feel about it. This taps into your intuition about the decision which makes getting to the decision you’re most comfortable easier.

If you like this idea, here are a couple of links you might find helpful:

Get Out Your Magic 8 Ball to Make Your Next Important Decision
This is one of our articles that explains why this works in more detail.

Online Magic 8 Ball
Here’s the real thing right on your computer screen!

#3 – Become a partner in stress relief for the important people in your life.
Get to know the preferences of the people who depend on you, like your customers, your co-workers, your boss, and your significant other. Weed through all the options and present them with just a few.

The authors of Simplicity Marketing make the point that

“the next generation of positioning successes will belong to those brands that relieve customer stress.”

So there’s a significant opportunity in the future for people and companies who are able to simplify things. This applies not just to your company brand, but also to your personal brand.

This is one of the things we try to do here at Bigg Success. We try hard to sort through all the information out there and deliver to you those few things we’ve found to be the most important.

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(Image by burnin dog)