Indecisive? Flipism Will Change Your Life
All those years I spent glued to the TV watching Disney cartoons actually paid off in my adulthood.
Who said animation was a waste of time? I have learned the art of Flipism decision making from one of the most intriguing characters … Donald Duck.
Flipism* appeared in 1952, when professor Batty convinces Donald to flip a coin to make decisions; saying: “Life is but a gamble! Let flipism chart your ramble!”.
Off course in the comic Donald Duck takes it literally and uses the coin flip to make every decision, which leads him into a streak of random trouble.
What I am suggesting is, not to follow suit and rely on heads or tales rather, the logic behind flipism, that I want you to consider when you are at a crossroad and don’t know which decision to take. Not because the question is, should I go right or left? But rather because the crossroad you are at gives you two valid options, that in principle are both lucrative to you, but you are torn by which one will be the better choice.
For example, you have just been presented with a promotion at your current job and a new employment offer elsewhere. Your promotion means you finally get recognition for your hard work but you would have to still work under the same conditions and office culture. The new job offer is a lower salary but presents a lot more perks in a company that you have been after for a while.
You have weighed the pros and cons of both and find options equally attractive so what do you do?
YES, Flip that coin!
Here’s the science behind: Donald Duck calls it Flipism, I refer to it as the emotional binary decision making process and before moving on I want to clarify that I am not referring to a heuristic approach to making decisions nor a probability based one. Both of which rely on the understanding of probable outcomes where when one event is observed several times, then it is only likely that the opposite or expected event will occur. What I am referring to uses one probable outcome mixed with an emotion attributed to it.
The emotional binary decision making process works because, our brains are geared towards inaction rather than action. The easy way out is to do nothing, change is hard and so when you are faced with a decision to make the brain naturally wants to veer towards “can I just sit here and do the same thing I’ve been doing all along?”.
The coin flip therefore challenges that effect and engages three distinct but interrelated components:
Your Gut
Your basal Ganglia
Your insula
There is a gut and brain connection that exists since your inception; as a seed in the making within the utero, a ball of tissue splits into two part. One grows to become the brain and the other becomes the gut. This nervous system is connected by a nervous pathway called the vagus nerve which helps information travel between your gut and your brain. You know when you are nervous because you are about to make a life altering decision and you feel knots in your stomach. Thats the vagus nerve sending and receiving signals to insure communication between the gut and brain.
When faced with decision making, as depicted by Friederike Fabritius, and Hans W. Hagemann* the basal ganglia is the space that stores your past experiences which in turn helps you make better decisions in the future after having suffered ill fortune. The basal ganglia is the part that is responsible for saying “we did that before and it didn’t work out so well”
Then, there’s the insula which is a tiny hidden gem in the brains cerebral cortex. The insula, by hypothesis* registers and manifests your body’s awareness. You know, how you felt when your girlfriend dumped you for that bad boy who wore a black leather jacket and rode a loud motorcycle.
Yes that feeling of pain is the work of your insula: the exciting feeling you get when you listen to your favorite song, the butterflies in your gut when you experience falling in love, and those midnight sandwich cravings among other emotions and feelings are the work of your insula.
The trio acts in synergy when you are faced with a decision to make, and the interesting thing is, that the brain kicks into a higher gear to analyze the decision to make and you don’t even know it because all the work is done in your subconscious mind.
So when you flip a coin to decide, you suddenly engage the conscious and unconscious mind, and … are you ready ? here is were the real magic takes place:
If the coin toss results in an outcome that your subconscious mind and your conscious mind agree on, then your insula triggers a happy gut feeling and you know you made the right call.
But, if they disagree then you have the, not so good feeling, because your insula is connecting dots with the help of the ganglia in relation to past experiences and telling you “nope, we don’t have a good feeling about this, and we are going to let you know by tying knots in your gut”
This is why flipism works! from a seemingly random and banal action, you have a scientifically backed way to make decisions.
In conclusion, I want you to know that I am not suggesting you attribute life altering decision to a heads or tales outcome, far from it. Rather, what I am sharing with you is a tool that allows you to evaluate decisions. When you flip that coin and you get that “feel good deep down in your gut” then you know you are making the right decision; but if you feel uncomfortable then it means you should choose the other option or it’s time to go back to the drawing board; either way…
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Written by Tarek Azmi Founder of Here’s Good News, a leadership and development company dedicated to your personal and professional growth, offering learning modules, coaching solutions and personal training.
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Notes:
Flipism, Walt Disney’s Comics & Stories, #149, February 1953 (reprinted (#365)
Flip Decision, Donald Duck, Comic Story
Friederike Fabritius, and Hans W. Hagemann, 2018, The Leading Brain, Penguin Random House LLC,
https://www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2013/05/what-is-insula based on Craig AD (2009). How do you feel--now? The anterior insula and human awareness. Nature reviews. Neuroscience, 10 (1), 59-70 PMID: 19096369
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