BY JEFF CORBETT

Thomas Hobson lived in Cambridge, England, from 1544-1631, and owned a livery stable, renting horses to the public.

He began to notice that his best horses were consistently rented more often than the rest, thus becoming terribly overworked and in danger of injury. To create a rotation of all his horses, he devised a strict system in which the next customer had to rent the next horse in line. Hobson told them, “It’s that one or none of them.”

Today, we call when a single choice is actually no choice at all “Hobson’s Choice.”

Fast Forward 400 Years

Take a walk down the cereal or soft drink aisle of your favorite grocery. How many brands, flavors, and sizes are waiting there?

On a recent visit to a large Statesville grocery store, I counted the cereals. Counting every choice (different flavors, sizes, store brands, and name brands), including varieties of the same cereal (Special K had ten), it came to 202 selections.

We’ve gone from Hobson’s Choice to overwhelmed!

Less Can Be More

In his book, “The Paradox of Choice,” Barry Schwartz does an amazing job of explaining “choice overload.” As Americans, we value and demand choice, but as our choices become too numerous, we can become frozen with indecision.

“Choice overload” is the situation where having too many options makes it difficult for people to make decisions.

The Decision Lab summarized Schwartz’s findings: “He found that instead of increasing decision satisfaction, having too many options made people less likely to be satisfied that they had made the best decision.”

“Because we don’t put rejected options out of our minds,” Schwartz continues, “we experience the disappointment of having our satisfaction with (our) decisions diluted by all the options we considered but did not choose.”

Proof in the Jam

In the famous “Jam Study,” psychologists Mark Lepper from Stanford along with Sheena Iyengar from Columbia conducted an experiment at Draeger’s Market, an upscale grocery store in Menlo Park, Calif.

You’re familiar with the saying “the more choices the better?” Maybe not.

The study varied daily between two quantities. On certain days, the display had six jams. On other days, the display had 24 jams.

The larger display attracted more attention, where 60% of customers stopped to taste a sample. The smaller display did not have as many customers stop, at 40%.

However, of the 60% who visited the large display of 24 flavors, only 3% made a purchase. At the display with just six flavors, 30% of customers made a purchase, representing a tenfold increase over the larger display.

The Human Condition

Too much choice leads to purchasing paralysis. We humans have two issues that can make decision-making more of a chore:

· Decision Fatigue: Evaluating many options requires more brainpower and cognitive effort, which can be exhausting.
· Opportunity Cost Awareness: You may focus on what you might miss by choosing one option over another, increasing regret.

Recently, I went out to dinner with three of my good friends. We ended up at a very nice restaurant with a menu full of incredible dishes. I was torn between the house favorite, a seafood dish to die for, and a juicy steak.

I chose the seafood, and two other friends ordered the steak.

The seafood platter was divine, but I kept looking at their steaks, which they gushed about the whole time, and for the remainder of the meal, I thought “Man, I sure wish I had ordered the steak instead.”

I bet you have done that before, too. I shared questioning my choice with my table mates because deep down, I wanted both. One friend told me he always chooses using the “Unique Rule.” He looks for items that stand out as the chef’s specialty rather than standard dishes found everywhere.

Thus, I was a victim of decision fatigue, opportunity cost awareness, and something called “Optimization Desire,” which is the desire to pick the “perfect” dish based on value, taste, and mood that makes decision-making time-consuming.

So What Can You Do?

Newsweek’s Alice Parks argues that since we don’t have unlimited time to study every choice, the brain creates a number of shortcuts to be more efficient. In such situations, she says brands, trust, and familiarity have incredible value.

The brain’s shortcuts for making decisions are called “cognitive heuristics” — fast, automatic mental rules that help us navigate life without burning through all of our mental bandwidth. Heuristics are the mental equivalent of “quick and dirty” solutions.

They’re efficient, but they can also mislead us in predictable ways. Let’s look at several.

· The Availability Heuristic: We judge something as more likely or important if examples come to mind easily. If you just heard about a plane crash, flying suddenly feels riskier—even though nothing changed statistically.

· The Representativeness Heuristic: We judge based on similarity to a stereotype or pattern. “She’s quiet and loves books, so she must be a librarian” — even though statistically she’s far more likely to be something else.

· The Anchoring Heuristic: We rely too heavily on the first piece of information we encounter. If the most expensive bottle of wine in a restaurant is $120, a $45 bottle feels like a bargain — even if it’s overpriced.

· The Loss Aversion Heuristic: Fear of loss is more powerful than promise of gain. Losing $20 hurts more than winning $20 feels good.

· The Social Proof Heuristic: We assume something is good or correct because others are doing it. Laugh tracks on sitcoms exist for this reason.

Final Thoughts

We seldom slow down and think about how we make choices. You are who you are today because of choices you made yesterday, last week, last month, and last year.

Tomorrow will be defined in many ways by the choices you make today.

Glenn Van Eckeren, in his book “Speaker’s Sourcebook II”, says, “I am told the Canadian Northlands experience only two seasons, winter and July. As the backroads begin to thaw, they become muddy and vehicles traveling through the backcountry leave deep ruts. The ground freezes hard during the winter months, and the highway ruts become a part of the traveling challenges. For vehicles entering this undeveloped area during the winter, there is a sign which reads, ‘Driver, please choose carefully which rut you drive in, because you’ll be in it for the next 20 miles.’”

Van Ekeren concludes “Choose carefully the path your life takes. Once you choose, your choices will control you.”

So take your choices seriously, and make it point to relish and enjoy every day. Practice gratitude and help others. 

There’s an old saying: “Live each day as if it’s your last, and one day you’ll be right!”

Jeff Corbett is an experienced public speaker, meeting facilitator and sales and marketing professional. He lives in Statesville. He can be reached at jeff@speak-well.com.