Which options can be given up? In the novel "Xibao", there is a widely circulated saying "I always hope to get a lot of love. If there is no love, a lot of money is also good. If there is neither, I still have health.". This is a multiple-choice question. Many times, we don’t get

Which options can be given up?

In the novel " Xibao", there is a widely circulated saying, "I always hope to get a lot of love. If there is no love, a lot of money is also good. If there is neither, I still have healthy.". This is a multiple-choice question. Many times, we don’t get everything we want. We can’t have our cake and eat it too. So, we started to struggle.

For example, when queuing up to buy milk tea, should you queue on the left or on the right? By the time we finished struggling, the number of people on both sides had increased!

No matter what choice you make, you must give up the other one. At this time, we have to figure out which options we can give up.

So how do you judge which options you can give up? you have to know where your own bottom line is. This requires you to understand yourself clearly. If you want to understand yourself, you can sit quietly, meditate, reflect, and ask yourself about your true inner needs, or ask your relatives and friends around you about your usual hobbies and preferences. Sometimes others will understand you better than you do. Knowing your own bottom line is the prerequisite for making choices.

For example, Tiantian has a ticket to the United States, which is the country she has always longed for. But she only had a one-way ticket, and she had no money, no place to live in the United States, and no friends. Should she choose to take risks and fight hard, or should she find a job in China and live a stable life like ordinary people? Which one to discard and which one to give up depends on Tiantian’s bottom line.

Tiantian thought carefully for a long time. She felt that she was an adventurous person, and she hated a static life, so she chose to make a desperate move and go to the United States alone. It was very difficult at the beginning, but she got through it. Later, her life got better and better, and she was even admitted to and Harvard .

In short, only by recognizing our own bottom line and knowing what we really want can we know the general direction of our choice. But just knowing the bottom line is not enough. How to do it specifically? We must first learn to weigh the pros and cons of each choice.

Choice is a process of weighing the pros and cons.

Sometimes, different choices can allow us to live two different lives. Choosing two different careers may lead to different workplace situations and development. So, choice is important.

In fact, choice is a process of weighing the pros and cons. To weigh the pros and cons, we have to know what we will lose and what we will gain with an option. Just like costs and income in economics, how to measure them? Next, we use the concept of cost in economics to help us make choices.

First, let’s understand the opportunity cost. The so-called opportunity cost refers to the maximum value that must be given up in order to obtain something.

For example, Xiao Ai is the host of a TV station. The leaders of their TV station change frequently. Every time a leader changes, colleagues will cater to the leader's preferences and curry favor in order to get more opportunities. So should Xiao Ai follow the crowd or just focus on improving his own skills?

For Xiao Ai, the opportunity cost of choosing to fawn over is a waste of time and energy spent on improving his professional skills. The opportunity cost of choosing to focus on improving skills is more opportunities given by leaders.

It always reminds us that the choice you give up may be more precious. Therefore, for a choice, the less you give up, the better. Therefore, the smaller the opportunity cost, the better!

Secondly, let’s learn about sunk costs . Sunk costs refer to irrecoverable costs that have been incurred by past decisions. For example, Xiao Ai had flattered a leader before, but that leader was fired after only a few days of work, so the time, energy and even money she had spent before were considered sunk costs.

From this we know that no matter how big the sunk cost is, it is the part that should be discarded. If we continue to maintain it, it will not do us any good.

Finally, let’s talk about the marginal cost of and .The so-called marginal cost refers to the extra cost of producing an additional product. If this cost can approach zero, it means that we can get a return without paying any more. simply means that a choice will have a long-lasting positive impact on the future.

If Xiao Ai chooses to spend more time polishing his business skills. Even though she was sometimes temporarily ignored by the leadership, because her business was so good that the company could not do without her, she became the backbone of the company. This is the choice where marginal cost is driven to zero.

Simply put, a good choice must be made by giving up sunk costs, reducing opportunity costs and bringing marginal costs to zero.

We have already understood that making a choice is a process of weighing the pros and cons, so let's take an example to see how to make a wise choice.

The four-step method makes your choice no longer difficult.

If we want to make a relatively perfect choice, we only need to remember this four-step method.

The first step is to calculate the cost of each option.

We all know that making a choice is actually a process of considering costs, so the first step in making a choice is to calculate the cost of each option.

The so-called accounting of the cost of each option is to separately estimate the opportunity cost and marginal cost of each choice. In this way, we can clearly know what we can gain and what we need to give up by making this choice. That is, marginal cost and opportunity cost.

For example, Xiaomei has just graduated from college and is faced with a job choice. Now she has two jobs to choose from. One is a car sales job. A sales job can get you a higher salary in a short period of time, but there is little room for promotion in a sales job, and it requires a lot of time to socialize. The other job is an administrative position in a listed company. The salary is very small, but you have the opportunity to meet big people and have time to learn and improve.

From the perspective of opportunity cost, the opportunity cost of choosing sales is "the opportunity for better development and improvement", while the opportunity cost of choosing administration is "the high-income opportunity in front of you."

From the perspective of marginal cost, there is no clear future for choosing a sales job, and the marginal cost is relatively high; while choosing an administrative job has greater opportunities for future development, and the marginal cost tends to zero.

Therefore, calculating the cost of each option can help us see the pros and cons of each option. Next we will proceed to the second step.

The second step is to determine the main goal.

The main goal is the main purpose of what you do. For example, learning financial management is to better manage money, and practicing yoga is to have a more proportionate figure. There may be multiple purposes for one thing, and we need to choose the one that is most important to us.

For example: For Xiaomei, making money, integrating into society, gaining experience, and obtaining development opportunities can all be said to be the purpose of work for a newly graduated college student. So which one is the main purpose? Xiaomei thought carefully about it. For her who had just graduated, accumulating experience and gaining greater development opportunities was the most important thing. Therefore, Xiaomei's main goal in finding a job is to "obtain better development opportunities." After

determined the main goal, and then combined the two cost analysis results, Xiaomei chose administrative work. This choice required giving up the high-paying opportunity in front of her, but it would gain greater development opportunities.

Identifying the main goals allows us to make truly effective choices. Now that the choice has been made, is that enough? Our thoughts and process of making choices are very clear at the moment, but we forget them after a while. So in order not to get confused in the future, you have to record the decision-making process. This is the third step.

The third step is to record the process and consequences of making the decision.

A formal record can remind us to treat every idea carefully and carefully check every cost, so that we will not be confused when we look back in the future. So what exactly do you do? We only need to record these 4 questions separately.

• The first question is, what is the goal you most hope to achieve.For example, Xiaomei's main goal when looking for a job is to "get better development opportunities";
• The second question is what do you need to give up when making this decision? What you give up is the opportunity cost. For example, the opportunity cost of Xiaomei's choice of administrative work is a temporary high-paying opportunity;
• The third question is what is the foreseeable future when you make this decision. The so-called future is the marginal cost. The foreseeable future of Xiaomei's choice of administrative work is can get better development opportunities.
• The fourth question is, what was your final reason for making this decision. The so-called reasons are the reasons why you compare each option and make a decision. For example, Xiaomei finally decided to do administrative work because after comparison, she felt that the future was more important than the high salary in front of her.

After recording these 4 questions, the whole process of making a decision will be very clear. Next, there is only one final step left.

The fourth step is to do a good review.

After a decision is made, it often takes a long time to see the results. As time goes by, we will forget the original intention of making the decision and whether the original intention has been achieved. For example, when tidying up the wardrobe, there are always a few pieces of clothing that have been sitting there without any use, and I don’t know why I bought them in the first place, and whether the mission of this piece of clothing has been completed, and whether it can be disposed of.

review means that after the choice has been implemented for a period of time, review the purpose and original intention of the choice, reflect on whether the choice is correct, whether your efforts and gains are as expected, and whether there are any long-term and short-term impacts. After doing a good review in this way, we can clearly see the results of the choice we made at the beginning, and adjust and plan the next actions in a timely manner based on the results.

If you want to do a good review, you need to pay attention to these two points:

• The first point is to choose the time for the review. You can choose the time after the goal is achieved, for example, Xiaomei has received a salary increase and promotion in administrative work. But if the goal has not been achieved for a long time, then we can choose the time when the goal is expected to be achieved. For example, when Xiaomei makes a choice, she expects that she will gain something after one year. If there is no progress after one year, then she should do a review at this time to analyze the reasons for the lack of gain.
• The second point is the practical method of review, testing and reflection. First, check whether the goals you set at the beginning have been achieved, whether the expected living conditions, work conditions or other desired results have been achieved. Secondly, let’s reflect on it. If the goal is achieved, it means that the original decision was correct. We can maintain or formulate the next goal and plan in the future. If the goal is not achieved, then we have to find out the reasons, adjust in time or even overthrow it and start over. choose. If Xiaomei's administrative work is fruitful after a year, she can continue to work for promotion; if the situation is not what she originally thought, but because the company is too big, which restricts her development, then she can reconsider looking for a new job.

In short, review is like a review. After practice, check whether the choice is correct and whether there is a remedy. If not, then overturn it and start over.

We must understand that there is rarely a "final choice". A choice does not represent a lifelong choice. We can re-select and plan at any time. If you are faced with a choice and are unable to make a decision, it will lead to wasted opportunities, a waste of time and a waste of excellent opportunities. So, after understanding this, I believe you will not be so entangled when faced with choices.