Category Archives: Psychological blind spots

What can we learn from the Brexit mess?

Brexit, Planning, Psychological blind spots

What can we learn from Brexit?

This blog is about personal development and trying to be the best that we can be in life and in business.  I don’t normally discuss politics.  So why then look at Brexit?  I believe that there is a lot we can learn about life and ourselves from the current Brexit mess.   Of course I am following the Brexit debate very closely.  This is because I am Irish and Ireland is the country most exposed to the Brexit fallout (after the UK itself).

The referendum

The UK economy was strong back in June 2016 when the referendum was held.  The Leave campaign portrayed Brexit as being easy and the UK would be able to take back its independence as well as strike trade deals around the world.  Payments to the European Union (EU) were said to be a waste of money and £350 million a week could be spent on the UK National Health Service (NHS) instead.  Rational voices which were saying that Brexit wouldn’t work out so easily were dismissed as ‘project fear’.

The reality of Brexit

Over two years on from the referendum and the complicated, difficult and divisive process that Brexit is has become painfully apparent to everyone.  After more than two years of difficult negotiations a draft deal has been worked out with the EU that both leavers and remainers are united in disliking.  Yet all this was plainly obvious to those who cared to look at the hard facts back in 2016.  The British border in Ireland hardly got a mention then but the so called Backstop has turned out to be one of the most contentious issues.  Back in 2016 people were swept along by emotion and simplistic and rose tinted visions of post Brexit Britain.  Brexit was from the start a fantasy project – you can have all the gain without the pain.  You can have your cake and eat it.  You can leave the EU and still have all the benefits of membership.

What can we learn from Brexit?

Lets take the lessons from Brexit into our own lives.  Where are you now in your life?  If you keep on the same path you are on now where will you end up?  Time to take off the rose tinted glasses.  Will you be broke in a year or two if you keep doing what you are doing now?  Where will you be in your business or working life?  Will your marriage and family life be degraded and might you be headed for divorce in 2 years or will your relationships actually be stronger?  If we care to look objectively the facts are there to be seen in our own lives today.  Christmas and the new year are the perfect time to pause and reflect.

So as we watch the slow motion car crash that is Brexit  take place on the world stage lets identify what lessons we can learn from the Brexit mess to improve our own thinking.  If we become more logical, deal more in fact and move away from emotional knee-jerk decisions we will end up with better outcomes in life.

Best wishes,

Tom

P.S. Check out my course 30 Experiments in personal change.  Get the course at the special price of $9.99 for readers of this blog.

You will change more than you think in the next 10 years!

Goal Achievement, Planning, Psychological blind spots

Every day we make decisions that will profoundly influence the lives of the people we become. However we are not always happy with those decisions. Dan Gilbet who is a psychologist asks a tough question:  Why do we make decisions that our future selves will live to regret?  That is a great question!

Dan in his TED talk (below) says that we are all walking around with the illusion that our personal history has just come to an end.  That we have just recently become the people we were always meant to be and will be for the rest of our lives!  This is called the End of History Illusion.  We find it easier to remember who we were 10 years ago but we find it much more difficult to imagine who we will be in 10 years time and because we find it hard to imagine we think many changes are not likely to happen!  The bottom line is that time is a powerful force and it reshapes us in every way but we seem to appreciate this fact only when we look back at our lives and not forward!  Dan says that ‘human beings are works in progress that mistakenly think they are finished’.   The one constant in life is change.

Look back at your last 10 years.  Have you changed a lot/have a lot of things around you changed?  I bet they have.  Now look ahead to the next 10 years and realise that things will change just as much.  Remember however that the future is not fixed and you can profoundly influence the life of the person you will become by the actions you take today and every day.  That thought is empowering.  Make decisions today that your future self will live to appreciate.