Finding Liberation Through Limitation

Let's move beyond the tyranny of choice overload.

Photo by Zac Smith on Unsplash

** This article is free, with a really cool bonus for paid subscribers: text-based coaching to help you create your ideal weekly schedule. You can find more information about this at the end. **

Hi friend,

Compared to previous generations, we have an over-abundance of options today. But ironically, having too many choices isn’t freedom—it’s its own prison.

True freedom comes from being clear on what you most want in life—and cutting out all the excess.

This entire month, we will explore how to find liberation through limitation. Paid supporters can message me with questions on how to apply this to their own lives.

Conscious limitation: when less is more

I stumbled upon this concept like an explorer tripping over a hidden chest of gold. Shortly after becoming a vegan in 2012, I noticed a highly under-appreciated benefit of my new lifestyle:

Fewer choices.

Suddenly, a lot of things were off the table:

• Buying items with leather.

• Buying cosmetics that were tested on animals.

• Eating anything with animal ingredients.

It might sound like a hassle—but in a world of over-abundance of options, this limitation felt liberating. Whereas before it would take me a while to make a choice when I went to a restaurant, now all I had to do was find something without animal products.

Suddenly, I felt happier with whatever food I received. Instead of feeling the need to compare a gazillion options, I was grateful for the meal in front of me. For the first time, I grokked how fortunate I was for having enough food.

Weirdly, though, people would often pity me for my lack of choices.

I sometimes tried to tell them how liberating it was but they didn’t get it. It can’t be fully explained, only experienced… and they were too busy navigating their over-abundance of choices. Ironically, they ended up less satisfied with their meals than me.

At the time, I filed it away as a curious coincidence… but then I realized that research confirms what I had observed.

The 2 types of decisions

Over half a century ago, psychologist Herbert A. Simon (who won a Turing Award and a Nobel Prize in Economics), described how consumers relate to choices. He differentiated between:

• maximizing decisions (making the best choice, such as picking the best meal in the best restaurant in the city), and

• satisficing decisions (making a “good enough” choice, such as picking a good enough meal in a good enough restaurant).

Interestingly, people who are more prone to maximizing behavior (“maximizers”) appear to be less happy and have a harder time making decisions than “satisficers.”

And doesn’t this perfectly describe what happened to me when I became vegan? As far as food was concerned, I suddenly turned from a maximizer into a satisficer.

Choice overload

Having fewer options on the menu also freed me from choice overload. Psychologist Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less, puts it this way:

“…as the number of choices keeps growing, negative aspects of having a multitude of options begin to appear. As the number of choices grows further, the negatives escalate until we become overloaded. At this point, choice no longer liberates, but debilitates.”

The jam study, one of the most famous experiments in consumer psychology, found that less choice led to more sales: consumers were about 10 times more likely to buy if presented with only 6 instead of 24 choices.

As Sheena Iyengar put it: “Too many choices can overwhelm us and cause us to not choose at all. For businesses, this means that if they offer us too many choices, we may not buy anything.”

The takeaway

While it’s generally good to have some choices, it can be detrimental to have too many of them.

For instance, if our lizard brain gave us 30 different ways to respond to a dangerous situation (instead of just “fight or flight?”), our species would probably have gone extinct a long time ago!

If you want to increase your joy, do the counterintuitive thing and decrease the number of choices you have. This will reduce your choice overload and decision fatigue.

For instance, here are some things I have done in the past to embrace liberation through limitation:

• Getting married (seriously, being in a committed monogamous relationship is the No. 1 choice reducer).

• Picking a fitness program that tells me which workouts to do.

• Having the same 1-3 things for breakfast each morning.

• Creating a weekly schedule (see the bonus for paid subscribers).

All of these actually help me improve my happiness and productivity.

Ironically, unlimited freedom of choice can imprison us—while conscious limitation can liberate us!

Paid subscriber bonus:

One of the most important things that has helped me reduce overwhelm is having a weekly schedule. If you have flexible work or are self-employed, getting this in place is crucial.

This bonus consists of:

• a 10-minute training video (UPDATE: I am now making this available to everyone as a gift),

• a template you can use to create your own schedule (UPDATE: I am now making this available to everyone as a gift), and

• text-based coaching for paid subscribers if you have questions or run into challenges with your schedule.

Since 2018, I have helped hundreds of people as a certified habit coach via text-based coaching, so I’m super-excited to be able to offer a taste of that over here:

To access this, simply become a paid subscriber at any level.

1. Video

If you like, you can increase or decrease the speed of these videos (here's how). If you decide to speed up a video, I would recommend to aim for 1.25x speed. Research indicates that this is the listening sweet spot which will allow you to increase efficiency without sacrificing retention.

Notes:

• Here’s the link to Mind Map Maker: https://app.mindmapmaker.org

2. Template

This is a slightly prettier version of the template you see in the video above. I created two versions for you, one you can print and fill out by hand, and another you can fill out digitally.

• PDF to fill out by hand: download here

• PDF to fill out digitally: download here

3. Coaching (paid subscribers only)

Do you have questions? Want to trouble-shoot your schedule?

Simply send me a message and I will get back to you as soon as possible (typically on the next work day).

Warmly,
Louise