I recently heard a story of a young man that dropped his cell phone while crossing a busy intersection of traffic. He instinctively raced back into the traffic to retrieve it and was almost hit by a car. While he didn’t want to lose his valuable phone, he almost lost something that was irreplaceable, his life.
Many people are killed or injured by all sorts of impulsive actions. While in retrospect they would likely admit that it was a bad decision and they might even commit to not doing it again, the truth is their brain is trained to react impulsively and to ACT before they think. Making split second decisions requires training to rewire the brain to make the best decision in a particular situation. That is why special forces has drills to practice “shoot” or “don’t shoot” in life threatening situations.
If you want to change your behavior, you must have the intention of doing it and then practice it systematically each day for 30 days to help the brain react differently in the future.
So, our young man who leaped into the street to retrieve his cellphone would need to rehearse a new response. Perhaps, seeing his FIRST reaction to LOOK before he LEAPED and perhaps deciding to risk losing the cell phone rather than his life”. So, his first reaction becomes looking both ways and DECIDING rather than REACTING. Imagining the same situation but reacting differently is the key to being able to make better split second decisions. It might save a life: yours or someone you love.
