This is a tale about two choices.
I’ve been thinking about these two choices quite a lot recently.
For my birthday last year, I was lucky enough to be earning really good money. So I took myself into London for the day, for a treat.
Ahead of the day, I’d been dreaming about a birthday cake. I rarely get a birthday cake, they’re too large to justify buying for me to eat. But this year was different, I’d been lusting over the instagram feed of Cedric Grolet for MONTHS.
If you don’t know who Cedric Grolet is, he’s a French pâtissier whose instagram feed is cake eye candy. I’ve been a sucker for French patisserie since my dad would bring them back on his way back from jobs in Europe. But these, are out of this world.
I planned to make a day of it. Go wander round expensive department stores, have a nice lunch and pick up the cake.
All of this went to plan. Until I decided on a whim to treat myself to a new wallet, from Louis Vuitton.
A purchase that I’ve felt guilty about ever since. It was an absolute extravagance (that I could afford) but I’ve felt ever since that I didn’t deserve.
The thing is, it’s not like me to regret a choice I’ve made, and I was finding myself doing it more and more.
So, I thought “what gives?”.
The psychology of a choice
As it goes, I’m actually really good at making choices, for the most part. I always keep my options pretty narrow, I’m clear on what I want to use to constrain things, and I take past purchasing decisions into consideration (total baller move).
I also know that my choice style is largely unperfect (the technical term is satisficer but it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue when you say it).
So why on earth would the choice that I'd made suddenly become an absolute disaster that I was regretting left right and centre. It wasn’t even for something massively consequential, it was an (overpriced) wallet.
Well, it turns out that it really is a thing.
Perfectionist choosers are more likely to regret the choices they make. And when an unperfect chooser steps outside that initial comfort zone, they too can make choices they later regret.
But on top of that, research has shown that when you make a big or expensive choice, if you’ve taken the right amount of time to consider it or saved up for it, you’re more likely to enjoy the choice.
What’s your style choice?
Do you want to know if you’re a perfectionist or unperfect chooser? Well, now you can, take my handy quiz to find out where you score.
Cake always wins
Back to my terrible choices.
The cake that I’d been dreaming of buying for months, that I still think of 11 months later was worth every penny. I managed to make it last 4 days too. I can remember the texture, the taste and the absolute perfection (I get the irony here) of it.
The wallet on the other hand, not so much. I found it to gauche, and swapped it out for one of my work horse Mulberry purses (in Kermit the frog green if you can believe it). Every time I see the bag on the shelf I feel a pang of regret.
I’d like to say that these two choices were the reason for me designing the Unperfect Method, but I’d be lying. And lying gives me the ick, for the record. But I have been testing my choice canvas tool with these choices.
We make better choices when we understand how we make them.
We make better choices when we pause to reflect on how we make them.
Understanding how to make better choices helps us to be a little less perfect. Why? because I bet you one of those cakes that the sticky to-do list tasks that slow you down or hold you up are because you’re struggling to make a decision.
And as I’ve gone on ad nausea about cake, here’s the beauty in question. I’d like to say I’m getting another one this year, but money is a bit tight, so for now I’ve got the memory of it.
Housekeeping
The reason why I’ve become more unperfect in the last 15 years is because I’ve worked in the tech industry. When we build products these days, we live by the principle of “fail fast, fail often” and “build, test, and learn”. So for the first few months, Unperfect Choices will be a series of mini experiments to learn what works for you, and me.
If there’s something you like, don’t like or would like to see, start the conversation.
I don’t know what the publication day works, yet.
I don’t know what format works, yet.
But I do know I love writing, so this is a good outlet for me.
