Everyone — yes, I’m including myself in that adorable crowd — cheerfully broadcasts their “delulu problem” on social media. Cute. Except if we translate literally, delusions are, well, delusions in the psychiatric sense. That’s not nothing.
Beyond the ethical issue — mental health really shouldn’t be our meme-fodder, even if I get the appeal — I recently read something shared by Maheva Stéphan-Bugni (you might know her as astrotruc or seum contre tous). She pointed out how casually psychiatric diagnosis terms keep popping up in our everyday vocabulary. It’s worrying, and also says something about the place mental health now holds in our society and economy. She was talking about the links between capitalism and mental health. It was fascinating, but it was an Instagram story, so poof, gone. What’s undeniable is that mental health — like spirituality, new-age practices, and wellness more broadly — is booming. That could be a huge step forward if this boom weren’t stamped with the royal seal of social networks and the trends that rule there. I follow a lot of psychology accounts on Instagram — some more scientific than others, many very satirical (yes, mostly memes). We laugh together about our issues and then… carry on. I won’t dig deeper here; the topic deserves its own article with proper research.
I picked this example because the trending mantra “delulu is the solulu” basically glorifies shirking responsibility and denial as a way of operating. Sarcasm aside, what does that say about our culture?
So I wanted to dig into what sits behind taking responsibility and facing what’s in front of us: making decisions.
Why decisions matter
I’m not here to state the obvious, but a little reminder won’t hurt.
A few years ago, after the first lockdown, I went through a rough year (fine, maybe two). I questioned a lot. I remember telling my therapist, more than once, “I wish I could hand in my free will.” Sounds extreme, but I was so exhausted and lost that I couldn’t make decisions — not even basic ones like what to eat, what to watch on Netflix, where to go on vacation.
Why am I telling you this?
Because our days are paced by choices, almost constantly. Even tiny decisions shape the rhythm. Under too much pressure, it’s understandable that we abdicate in our own little kingdoms. Then decisions get avoided, rushed, or handed to the nearest person.
Yet our choices, our decision-making, our free will are the guardians of our freedom. And there is no freedom without responsibility.
One of my favorite books — the first gift I got when I went freelance — is Darren Hardy’s The Compound Effect. It’s full of nuggets. The biggest one that’s stayed with me for five years is this: own it 100%.
You alone are responsible for what you do, don’t do, or how you respond to what’s done to you. This empowering mindset revolutionized my life. Luck, circumstances, or the right situation wasn’t what mattered. If it was to be, it was up to me. I was free to fly. No matter who was elected president, how badly the economy tanked, or what anybody said, did, or didn’t do, I was still 100 percent in control of me. Through choosing to be officially liberated from past, present, and future victimhood, I’d hit the jackpot. I had the unlimited power to control my destiny.
Darren and his toothpaste-ad smile aside, go watch a couple of his videos if you’re not going to read the book.
Realizing how essential responsibility is changed how I saw my situations. It helps me, every day, question myself and make decisions, even the hard ones.
When we decide, we’re taking responsibility. You can’t outsource your decisions to others, unless you also want to hand them your freedom.
On that note, my sex therapist asked me a few months ago to acknowledge my desires. Not just sexually, but in every area of life. I realized I often didn’t know what I wanted, so I let others decide for me. I’d slid back onto that dangerous slope where I wasn’t taking 100% responsibility. So she gave me a simple exercise I now swear by: stop regularly during the day (yes, I set timers) and ask myself what I want in that exact moment — stretch, drink water, eat, get some air, whatever. This very basic practice made it much easier to tell people around me what I want and, by extension, to make decisions about the most elementary parts of my day. Decision-making is more complex than it looks, yet it’s essential for building and asserting our identity and independence.
How to make decisions
Sometimes decisions can feel almost intuitive when you practice staying connected to your needs and wants. Here, though, I’m talking about the bigger, messier ones.
I’ve watched far too many people hand major decisions to folks who were often better at marketing than at actual business strategy — or at the field they were hired for. The coaching and mentorship market leaves me jaded, whether in entrepreneurship or wellness and personal growth. I stopped working with entrepreneurs at the “emerging idea” stage because the belief in magic solutions, one-size-fits-all recipes, is everywhere, and it’s a mirage.
Look closely at the trainings, programs, digital products, and all the hype around them and you’ll see a pattern: methods in X steps to go from point A to point B. Can that help someone move forward from A to B? Sure. But do the hundreds (sometimes thousands) of people buying the trending course all have the same project with identical components? Are they all at point A? Do they all want the same point B? Exactly.
These offers deny the uniqueness of each entrepreneur, their context, and their project. Our craving for shortcuts and the relief of not having to make all the hard calls push us into the trap of marketing promises that sound irresistible. Which brings me to the two essentials I come back to for decision-making: mental clarity and situational assessment.
I subscribed to Shane Parrish’s Farnam Street newsletter and always learn something. A few months ago he published Clear Thinking, which is a gold mine for decision-making.
His starting point: position yourself well. In other words, design your lifestyle so it puts you in the best possible conditions. Maybe you haven’t done that so far. Fine. Start now.
The classic example of good positioning is saving money for a rainy day. If the storm hits, you’re in a better spot than the person who didn’t save — very ant and grasshopper.
Good positioning comes from lots of small actions that compound: sleep, decent food, invest in your relationships. Those put you in a far better place when hard decisions arrive. It’s much easier to stay calm in an anxious stretch if you’ve been practicing nervous-system regulation before it hits. Think of every tiny daily decision as prep for the big ones. The future can show up whenever it wants. That’s the deal.
In his book, Shane Parrish names four enemies of clarity:
• the emotional flaw: reacting to emotions rather than facts and reason
• the ego flaw: reacting to threats to our personal worth or status in a group
• the social flaw: conforming to group norms
• the inertia flaw: clinging to habits and comfort, resisting change, preferring what’s familiar
People who correct for these have better odds, because they base decisions on facts and rational observations.
Assess the situation
When you decide, you need to know the environment you’re in. What are the facts? Who are the stakeholders? What’s the bigger picture?
To assess correctly, collect information. Your assessment depends on your ability to face facts while stepping back from your emotions. Yes, sometimes you have to detach from fear, resentment, bias, and affinity to make a good call.
Imagine you’re hiring a service provider for a product launch. Two experienced pros are in the running.
• A is a close friend. You share a book club and lots of coworking days. They’re talented with a strong portfolio, but sometimes late.
• B is a stranger you found through a proper hiring process on a dedicated platform. They tick all the boxes and come with excellent references.
If you don’t detach from your emotions here, you may hire someone who will delay your launch. You see the point.
Give priority to facts, which means collect quality information. Prefer sources with as few intermediaries as possible between you and the origin. Want to understand Shane Parrish’s ideas? Read him, not just my summaries. Get information that isn’t filtered by someone else’s bias or incentives. And the more expert your source, the better.
The obstacles to “good” decisions
Let’s agree on a definition: a decision is “good” when it best serves the outcome you’re aiming for.
So first define that desired outcome. What problem are you facing? In simple terms:
- define the problem
- explore solutions
- evaluate options
- decide
- execute the chosen option
At every step, the main sticks in your spokes will be cognitive biases. There are others, and I recommend Shane Parrish’s book again. What’s a cognitive bias? It’s an invisible groove in your mind that skews reasoning and actions. The idea was formalized in the 1970s by psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman, who studied irrational decision-making in economics.
Kahneman distinguishes two “speeds of thought”:
• System 1: automatic and uncontrollable, running on associations, memories, emotions, etc. It gives us a coherent but biased take on reality — a little shout-out to TikTok’s “delulu,” your System 1 seems to be at the wheel.
• System 2: slower and more deliberate. It takes effort and factors in System 1.
To go deeper, here’s a short video I recommend.
Biases are deviations often formed to protect us at a given moment that later backfire. There are many, otherwise we wouldn’t have so much fun cataloguing them.
You’ll find categories like: sensorimotor, attentional, memory, judgment, reasoning, and personality-related biases. In research, there are peer-review methods to limit bias; at our level, working on ourselves and knowing our own biases already goes a long way.
Keeping journals that track our reasoning and decision processes, as they happen, lets us study them afterward and spot the biases at work.
And I’m convinced it’s essential to surround yourself with people who hold you accountable, challenge your thinking, and won’t let you look away. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people from varied backgrounds. Their feedback sometimes goes directly against my instincts, which forces me to think longer. I’m training myself to be less impulsive, to ask for more time when the stakes are high and consequences hard to reverse.
Train your mind to get ahead of biases: mental models
Last category in our big show, the tricks that puncture delusions and illusions: mental models. My personal Laurel and Hardy of this topic, Beyoncé and Jay-Z of RnB-level power duo, are Shane Parrish and Sahil Bloom. I’m getting carried away, but thanks to them I learned this stuff.
Parrish explains that mental models are lenses to look at the world. Each model offers a different perspective with one goal: reduce blind spots so you can decide better. The mental gymnastics of picking the right model at the right time is about as tiring as the workouts Johanna puts me through… but like physical training, repetition makes it easier. It’s not about complexity but about discipline: not letting old comfortable habits suck you back in. Practice using models regularly to improve your thinking.
“The quality of your thinking depends on the models that are in your head.”
— The Great Mental Models Project, Farnam Street
The idea is that the best concepts from different disciplines, combined, lower your risk of error. You can pull from physics, economics, and more, which cultivates a multidisciplinary mindset — curiosity and, by extension, creativity. When you’ve correctly understood the context of your decision and you look at it with the most fitting model, you’re in a much better position to choose.
Sahil Bloom regularly shares mental models in tweets, podcasts, and videos. He makes a key point: a model only works if you’re using the right one. His example: “the map is not the territory.”
Two main ways your “map” can fail you on a trip:
• the map is of the wrong country — a map of Spain in Italy is useless
• the map is the wrong scale — you’re visiting Florence with a map of Italy; good luck
In both cases, your map isn’t an accurate or useful representation of the territory. Same with models.
Don’t overuse a model just because it worked in the past. Ask if it fits this new situation.
So, good decisions rest on:
• a clear definition of the problem
• a factual read of the environment
• reducing blind spots with mental models
• ongoing work to minimize clarity-killers
• taming biases and setting safeguards
• humility through the process
If you’re in a hard season and wish you could stop deciding, treat decisions like a game. A way to learn your mind’s labyrinth. Go explore new disciplines to discover new models, and keep a log of your chain of thought. You’ll weave your own Ariadne’s thread and be better prepared when the big decisions arrive.
There’s no absolute “good or bad decision,” some will say. Personally, I’d rather be prepared and make mine under the best possible conditions.
“I believe in the discipline of mastering the best of what other people have figured out.”
— Charlie Munger
Here’s Charlie Munger — a core inspiration for the people quoted in this article — whom I had the chance to see IRL in Omaha two years in a row. His portrait hangs proudly in our living room. A good reminder not to rush when the decisions that matter most come up.
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