An excess of choices can not only impair your effectiveness at the bargaining table but also reduce your quality of life. In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz offers these strategies for limiting choice – and improving overall satisfaction:
1. Choose when to choose – Decide when choices really matter.
2. Satisfy more, maximize less – Learn to accept what’s “good enough.”
3. Think about opportunity costs- Once your choice is made, move on.
4. Make your decisions nonreversible – Stop second-guessing and commit.
5. Practice an ‘attitude of gratitude’ – Relatively speaking, your choice isn’t all that bad!
6. Abandon regret – Where does it get you anyway?
7. Anticipate adaptation – You’ll get used to choice, so learn to remain more satisfied.
8. Control your expectations – Avoid being underwhelmed.
9. Beware social comparisons – The heck with keeping up with the Joneses.
10. Learn to Love Constraints – Within limits, choice can be liberating.
Discover step-by-step techniques for avoiding common business negotiation pitfalls when you download a FREE copy of our Business Negotiation Skills: 5 Common Business Negotiation Mistakes special report from Harvard Law School.
