“It’s actually very easy to give people good advice. It’s very hard to follow the advice you know is good….If someone came to me with a list of problems, I would be able to sort them out very easily.” Sam Harris

There it is: The clarity of distance. I, like everyone else, get so bogged down in my own brain that I can’t see the answers clearly right in front of me.
Even worse is knowing what to do and zigging when I should be zagging. Ah, those humans!

But read on for – if not a quick fix – at least a workaround to help us avoid all those “I knew I shouldn’t have said/done that.”

Tammy Swift Is a writer for the Fargo Forum. She penned a column a while back that touched on this very thing. This is the essence of the piece:

“My friend — let’s call him Jehoshaphat — had a mother who gave him arguably the best advice ever rendered by a parental figure. She told him that whenever he struggled to make a decision, he should ask himself what a smart person would do.” You can read the entire column here.

What would a smart person do? You probably already know. But this a great way to take ourselves out the moment and try to look at the issue with fresh eyes and without the emotional component that can escalate things to the point of no return or huge regret. A word said is a word said. Some things can’t be undone.

You can even take this a bit further, just slightly modify the question and apply it to virtually any situation:

“What would a kind person say?”
“What would a brave person do?”
“What would a calm person think?”
“How would a confident person react?”
“How would a good parent respond?”

I think we are all pretty smart people. This is just a little mind hack, if you will, to let us help ourselves. Because we like us.

Thanks for reading so far. I appreciate it and feedback is welcome! If you know someone who might like to receive these notes, just have them send me an email and I would be thrilled to add them to the list. You are supposed to be able to sign up on my site, but there are some technical difficulties – namely me – because I can’t figure it out!