The Decision Matrix

Fear is the mother of morality

- Nietzsche

Perhaps you have an appreciation of your core motivation and its potential to influence the course of your life. How does your relationship with the incentive fit in? The Decision Matrix, below, was designed to help you bring the contemplation stage to a head and to precipitate a decision. (This is a multipurpose tool, and we will meet it again as a tool to be used during a crisis—see Coping Tactics).

Consequences of Lapsing

Positive

 

Negative

Immediate Payoff

 

 

 

Long-Term Payoff

 

 

Click here for printable copy of the Decision Matrix

Some people continue on their destructive path because they are ambivalent. They want to follow the path of greatest advantage, but they also want to re-experience the benefits of the incentive. Changing your ways means giving up these valuable benefits so that you don’t have to continue to bear the costs. Unfortunately, appraisals are state-dependent: The costs and benefits of a lapse look different in anticipation than in hindsight. During high-risk situations, the most salient stimulus is most likely to determine your psychological state.  The exercise of will involves shifting your attention to a stimulus that elicits actions consistent with your core motivation.  The Decision Matrix will help you compare and contrast your core motivation with incentive motivation.

How to complete the decision matrix:

  • In the first row, under the word “Positive,” write the immediate positive consequences of giving in (for example, it would give me pleasure, relax me, take away the cravings).

  • In the next box, “Immediate Payoff, Negative,” describe how you would feel when you looked back on the lapse the next day (for example, “guilty, disappointed in myself, self-loathing”).

  • In the Long-Term Positive box, write the long-term benefits of lapsing. In many cases this will be an empty box, but if there are any long-term benefits you get from maintaining your relationship with this incentive be sure to record them here.

  • The last box —the long-term penalties of continuing to follow your current path—is the Dickensian box. The natural tendency is to fill this space with abstractions such as “death.” While possibly valid, such words are cheap. You have lapsed and have not died, and words such as “death,” “jail,” or “harming my family,” are not as motivating as you might think. Charles Dickens had the gift of describing bad outcomes in ways that could evoke an emotional reaction in the reader. He was a master of using the narrative form along with descriptions so detailed and concrete that it is easy to imagine the scene described (which is the essential art of trance formation).

In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge was visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. It was the Ghost of Christmas Future that changed Scrooge irreversibly. That night Scrooge saw what waited for him if he continued on his current path. Perhaps like Scrooge, you can use what you know is waiting for you to motivate yourself to awaken from your current trance and act as intended. (Note: Some people have a greater ability to utilize imagery than others. The following thought experiment will give you the opportunity to assess your ability to use your imagination to alter your current motivational state)

Thought Experiment: A Dickensian Exercise.
Imagine that you are the director of a movie about what awaits you if you continue along your current path. Direct the scene in order to elicit strikingly powerful emotional reactions. Use concrete, dramatic imagery (for example the scene of a loved one visiting you in jail or at the hospital). Make sure you capture facial expressions or key phrases that will evoke within you the intended emotional reaction.  For an audio-visual file describing this exercise, please visit Scrooge.

If you have a talent in this domain, you may be able to elicit a strong emotional reaction, perhaps including tears.  Choose the imagery that produces the greatest emotional reaction, and write some words that will elicit this emotional reaction in the Long-Term Negative box.

When you are done, the benefits of your relationship with the incentive are on the left, and the costs are on the right. Now that you are “thinking it through,” you may want to quit using this incentive forever. Alas, motivation changes with local conditions, and sometime in the future you may find yourself desiring the incentive again. Yielding to that temporary influence would be an irreversible error. At this point we are using the Decision Matrix to help you reach an irreversible decision—to freeze your intentions on the basis of this rational analysis. The objective is to motivate you to make a commitment that you will not violate regardless of local conditions. [Later, in the Action section, I will describe how to use the Decision Matrix as a tool to cope with crisis in real time].

Its Decision Time

As with most decisions there is a cost to changing your relationship with the incentive.. Ask yourself if you are really willing to sacrifice all the pleasure, relief, and other benefits the incentive gives in the service of your core motivation. If you are, you are ready to proceed. If not, then you are not finished with the Contemplation Stage.

Individuals vary greatly in their construal of meaning, how to specify their core motivation, and when they are ready to move on to the action stage. My challenge is to organize the pertinent tools so that you can access what you need.

  • For those who are not sure of their core motivation
    • Revisit the Decision Matrix and contemplation exercises
    • Dedicate some time for research. Seek guidance from those you respect; study what the great thinkers had to say, introspect on your own values and history.
    • Return to the Core Motivation Specification section often and update your provisional statement. Always have something written as your provisional Core Motivation. even if it is not in final form or you are not completely certain of it.

  • Once you have specified you Core Motivation. You have successfully completed the Contemplation Stage, and you are ready for the Decision

Core Motivation Specification Form

The Decision > >

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