Amy Bonsall’s Post

Here's the conclusion to the hard decisions lesson from Love is Blind: Avoid the perfect decision fallacy and spend as much time on making the choice right as you do on making the right choice. And no shade to bachelor number 1. I've been him before and I probably will again. But the first step in recovering from "perfect decision fallacy" is recognizing it. What do you think? What would you add? What show should we discuss next? #whereishome #stoptheswirl #harddecisions #navigatingharddecisions #whatsreallyimportant #experimentdesign

You are welcome. I binged Love is Blind to draw out lessons in good decision-making. My dedication has no bounds. 🤣 Here's part 1. This season has a brilliant lesson in navigating hard decisions well. Watch these two proposals and let me know what you see in the comments. I’ll come back tomorrow with the conclusion and what I see happening as an expert in navigating hard decisions… #whereishome #stoptheswirl #harddecisions #navigatingharddecisions #whatsreallyimportant #experimentdesign #loveisblind

Why does your tenth piece of chocolate taste less good than the first? Hedonistic adaptation. It’s the brain’s bias towards noticing the new and different and getting used to something that’s become common. Thwarting hedonistic adaptation can be a path to feeling a greater sense of flourishing. I’ve been noticing that living between two places (in my case, snowbirding between north and south) is a good foil for hedonistic adaptation to where I live. I’m about 6 weeks out from my spring migration from south to north, and I’m starting to notice and appreciate everything down here with more pointedness than usual. I’m savouring: 🏖 my beach walks and beach yoga 😊 my southern friends  🏡 my sweet cottage 🚘 driving around my southern town  🥐 my favorite bakeries and restaurants  … Of course, like a good dark chocolate, this experience is bittersweet: the transitional seasons come with their own sense of loss. I’m going to really miss my friends here, and my daily beach walks, and the croissants I can’t get up north. But overall, this intense savouring of both worlds I live in is pretty cool. #whereishome #stoptheswirl #harddecisions  #navigatingharddecisions #whatsreallyimportant  #experimentdesign  #snowbirding 

Navigating hard decisions... a tip and a parable... a slightly longer video but it lets me play out a hypothesis about navigating hard decisions that I'm curious about. Please let me know how it goes if you try this... I'd love to have more data points. #navigatingharddecisions #harddecisions #elephantandrider

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.” This James Clear quote comes to mind as I share this example of how I dusted off a piece of my life that felt important but neglected. Namely, health is important to me and I'm so much more likely to get outside and do things if it's warm out, which is why I'm already feeling like I have a leg up just by living in the south. I hasten to note, your system doesn't need to mean moving to a new city, that just happened to be an important element for me. But I've buried the lede... the brilliant analogy by Brad Stulberg that helps us think about what's important in our lives: imagine your life is like a house, and each room represents a piece of your identity. Where are you living right now? What rooms need a good dusting? #whatsreallyimportant #dustyrooms #harddecisions

Uh-boy does this resonate right now as I grow my business. In this article, Michael Sattler does an excellent job of articulating why you get rose-colored-glasses (or red bus syndrome!) as a founder and how to systematically work around that in service of your startup getting stronger and stronger. It's a worthy and addicting read, from the first sentence to the last. cc ExperienceHack, Michelle Waite, Susan Beans, Bruce Ericson, Rachel Taylor, Jen L. Cohen #experiencehack #productmarketfit #founderconfidence #startuplife https://lnkd.in/eUjtmNux

This is one of the fundamental elements of my coaching... once you understand why hard decisions are hard, you can change the paradigm and make them a lot less hard... my goal is fun. #harddecisions #navigatingharddecisions #stoptheswirl

If you have high school seniors choosing colleges this month, this is for you! As I was making a related video for the kids themselves, I realized I had a message for the parents as well... Click to hear my perspective on this particular hard decision (definition of hard decision = when more than one choice can be right but for different reasons) and how to make the most of college / university visits this month. One thing I share with all my clients navigating hard decisions is this: when more than one choice can be right but for different reasons, the way you choose is not about pro-con lists but about determining what's most important to you in this phase of life. If your kid is stuck on what's most important, I'm always happy to chat. Also I have an activity I've made for my clients who are asking "where is home?" when it can be anywhere, which is a variation on "what's the right college for me?" which I'll share below. #whereishome #whatsreallyimportant #harddecisions #choosingacollege #whichschool #whichcollege

Ever heard the ole saying that you do the work you need? Physical therapists choose that profession because they want to tend to their own bodies, writers because they want to write the kind of book they want to read, etc. Well, it took me a whole long while into my career before I landed in that place, but that's exactly where I am now. I've built the products I offer because they were what I needed and couldn't find. Here's a bit about how I started, and I'll share more as I go, both about what I built, but perhaps more importantly, why and how I built it... (This is part of a series of videos which are all about me experimenting with sharing more about what I've built and how I've built it. But mostly, it's an opportunity for me to ask for feedback from you all on what resonates and what doesn't. Please share your reactions!) #navigatingharddecisions #harddecisions #whereishome

Yesterday I flew up to Maine to run a session at the annual Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions Sustainability and Water Conference. I've been building and advocating for a state-wide digital community for those focused on enhancing and preserving our lakes and waterways (if that's you, I'll link how to join in the comments). And it was such a high. Together with Susan Gallo, I ran an interactive session where participants were asked to move around the room to signal their opinions on a handful of meaty topics. We were making the point that, for the conundrums we come up against in keeping our lakes healthy, there are a spectrum of ways to approach them, not one single answer. And we were making a bigger point: that we all learn and come away with more nuanced reflections by having healthy debates and conversations about these important topics. (And so join our digital community to continue the conversation when we're all back home). In the Q&A after, someone asked about the potential for misinformation in the digital community and another asked about whether there would be disagreement. And I said: I very much hope and expect there to be disagreement, and we can't shy away from hosting conversations like this out of fear of misinformation. When I first asked everyone to get up and move their chairs to the sides of the room, there were skeptics (someone later confessed to running out of the room at that point). But I heard from many that it was a highlight of the conference, and someone else shared that they heard the laughter from another part of the building and came to join in. Discussing hard things doesn't have to be hard. It can and should be fun. One of my goals in my coaching and in every experience I create is to make it fun. We learn more and imagine more when we're having fun: our brains are in a more open and creative state, rather than the defensive fight or flight we get in when a conversation turns tense. Thank you to Elizabeth Payne and Kathryn Swacha for the invitation to present, to Ruth Hallsworth for organizing a great day, and to David Hart and the entire Mitchell Center for sponsoring this day. We were part of a three-talk session focused on Communication in Conserving Maine's Lakes, Streams, and Rivers and our fellow panelists John Eliasberg and Cheryl St Peter offered me so much food for thought: in particular, I saw a theme throughout their talks and the day of persistence and humor. Nothing important comes quickly, but with small steps and sustained energy, one day you're looking back and seeing massive change. So keep going and have fun as you go. This is such a powerful message for all of us doing things that really matter to us: keep going. If it's important, it's worth it. Do the work, have the hard conversations, but make it fun.