Transcriber: Hao Dong Reviewer: Maria Pericleous
Have you ever wondered
what the odds are
that you’re sitting right where you are right now,
meanwhile, listening to this TED talk?
But not only that,
what are the chances that you are precisely the person you are right now
with all your experiences,
all the people you know
and all the things you own?
If you do not totally understand what I mean,
think about these questions.
Would you be exactly the same person you are right now,
if you would have decided to drop out of school after 10th grade
and move to Africa to work with an NGO building wells?
Or would you know all the people you know right now,
if you had decided to study in another city, for example.
Or would you look exactly the same way, right now,
if you had decided to put on a different T-shirt this morning?
I don’t think so.
There is nearly an infinite amount of different possibilities
of how your life could have turned out so far.
And to make it even clearer how many possibilities there really are,
I want to have you think about this simple example.
If you had been able to make one single decision
since your 16th birthday per day,
then you would already have way over eight unique scenarios
after just one week.
After one month, you would already have over 30 different scenarios.
And after one year,
you would already have over 350 different scenarios.
The thing is, this example is even hopelessly understated.
In fact, we do not only make one single decision every day
but dozens of them.
It starts when you wake up.
Do you choose to hit the snooze button or do you stand up right away?
The next decision comes right ahead.
Do you choose to scroll through your feed for ten minutes and waste your time,
or do you choose to do a morning routine that truly benefits you?
The same way, small and big decisions are threaded throughout your day.
You see, my previous example shouldn’t be labeled with days,
but rather with hours or even minutes.
I think you're starting to understand where I'm going with this.
If you think about it,
you would always have chosen the most optimal option
for all the couple of years before,
then you would obviously be the best possible version of yourself today.
I’m afraid, though,
that no one can really say with full confidence
that they’ve always acted optimally,
and that’s totally fine.
If you picture all the possible scenarios that you could have achieved so far
with your life-improving decisions pointing upwards
and your life rather worsening decisions pointing downwards,
where do you think you are at this very moment?
What percentage of your potential have you fulfilled so far?
I think most people will say that they are at around 60 to 70 percent.
It’s not perfect, but two out of three decisions are totally on point,
and every third decision could have been done
a little bit better.
What I want to achieve with today’s talk
is to light the fire in each and every one of you
to always thrive for making the best decisions
for yourselves from now on.
You cannot turn back the past,
but you can make sure
that when you think about this TED talk again in two years,
you can say, well, the last two years were a really good streak,
I did significantly more to improve my life
than in the two years before that.
Right now, there are about infinite possibilities open to you.
One possibility could be that you start your own startup
that is already worth over ten million dollars
by the end of next month.
Of course, this scenario to happen requires making a lot of right decisions,
but it’s definitely within the realm of possibility.
Another scenario would be that you, let’s say,
lose four pounds by the end of next month.
Again, this scenario is totally within the realm of possibility
and probably way more likely than the last one.
You see, you can achieve nearly anything
and all you have to do is set the course,
which scenario will happen with your daily choices.
Now, there are two types of choices.
The first type of choices are choices for goals,
where it’s not totally clear what choices are the right ones
in order to achieve that goal.
These are usually goals, but also luck plays a minor role.
For example, with our previous example
with a startup that is worth over 10 million dollars
by the end of next month,
it’s not that obvious which choices are the right ones
in order to achieve that goal.
I mean, one right decision
could be that you enroll in a coding boot camp today
and then next week you meet up with some brilliant Harvard students,
and then you get one of the ideas programmed,
maybe you will have a startup that is worth 10 million dollars
But it’s not obvious,
and I don’t even want to get into those choices right now.
What I want to get into
are the second types of choices we make all day long.
These are the choices where it’s pretty obvious to all of us,
at least after a couple of minutes of thought, what the right choice is.
For example, our other example,
with losing four pounds within a week or within a month,
it's pretty clear what we have to do.
We need to exercise more
and we need to eat more healthy food,
and overall probably less calories than we burn.
So, when we have to decide whether we take the stairs or the elevator,
it’s clear that we have to take the stairs.
If we decide between eating a burger or a salad,
it’s pretty obvious that we eat the salad.
It’s that simple.
And the same principle applies to numerous other daily choices.
We should be kind to those around us.
We shouldn’t directly speak what pops into our head,
but be aware of the consequences first.
We shouldn’t waste too much time in meaningless activities
like binge watching and so on.
Just imagine,
that for the past couple of years,
you would have always chosen the right option,
when deciding between this and that.
How great would your life be?
How much could you have improved yourself?
However, even in such apparent positions
where it’s pretty clear which choices are the right ones,
we often tend
to go for the one that will lead us to a worse me in the future,
instead of the one that will lead us to a better me in the future.
This is mostly because oftentimes, unfortunately, the worst option
is the one that is simply more comfortable for us.
Evolutionists drilled into us that we think that we survive the longest
if we always choose the path of least resistance
and don’t waste any energy unnecessarily,
and as Neanderthals that made total sense.
I mean, it was much smarter
to order a calorie dense burger from a fast food chain
instead of going for a hunt and be probably killed by a mammoth.
Today, however,
we probably will not be killed if we resist our urge
to go for the comfortable option
that is associated with the most dopamine release,
but instead focus on the option
that will lead us to a better me in the future.
We just have to force ourselves to do that.
So how can we do that?
The first thing I would recommend to each and every one of you
is to recall this picture as often as possible.
It’s best to hang it over your bed so you can have a look at it
in the morning when you wake up and in the evening before you go to sleep.
And always remember, every day counts.
Every decision counts.
If you waste one day
by choosing the wrong option instead of the right option,
you cannot reach your optimal potential
in the future.
Another thing I would recommend
to each and every one of you is to keep yourself accountable.
That means, for example,
start filling an Excel sheet with all the daily choices
and To Dos you have to do, in order to achieve your goals.
For example, not hitting the snooze button
doing a good morning routine,
meditating, working out, being kind to other people,
And then every evening you go through your Excel
and you make a checkmark beside every To Do you fulfilled.
By doing that constantly, you build up more and more momentum
and at the same time you would be frustrated
if you haven’t done your checks.
And the thing is,
those kind of choices are far more common than the other kind of choices.
Those are the choices we make all day long.
And by systematically trying
to put in more and more of your daily choices
into that Excel sheet, and in the evening
always trying to check all the sheets,
you will improve yourself significantly.
By doing that, you will already have achieved
the best result for 80 to 90 percent of your overall decisions.
The remaining few decisions where there is no default, correct option.
These are the choices that distinguish the best from the very best.
And here I cannot tell you what the right choices are,
because it always depends on individual factors.
What tip I would like to give you for those kind of choices
is that you always have to think about
which option will help you fulfill more of your type two choices.
For example, when you think about buying
a brand new Mercedes or a used Toyota,
and you don't have that much money,
it makes far more sense to go with a Toyota,
because with all the money you will have left,
you can make sure that you, for example, fulfill your healthy nutrition goals,
and have enough money for buying good quality food, for example.
But it’s also totally fine to make the wrong decisions sometimes,
because, after all, if you do it consciously,
this is what makes life also so worth living
because it’s unplannable and interesting.
Finally, I just want you to make more conscious decisions,
more right decisions, and that you don’t waste too much of your time
with meaningless, unconscious decisions.
Thank you.
(Applause)