Making, recording, and evaluating predictions is a simple way to improve your thinking and decision-making. But the way to properly make and record predictions isn’t obvious. In this article, I’ll share some predictions I’ve made, what I’ve learned, and how you can improve your thinking by making predictions.   Making predictions has grown my business  Five years ago, I had been running my business for  ten years, and it wasn’t going great. Then, I started publishing monthly income reports, and along the way, making predictions. My income has nearly doubled, and I attribute much of that success to my habit of making predictions. I began by predicting how much money I’d make in a product launch, and grew to predicting how much traffic articles I had written would gain, and how many copies books I’d written would sell. I now routinely make predictions for things as seemingly mundane as whether I’ll enjoy a conference, whether I’ll still be publishing on TikTok a year from now, or whether an avocado is ripe.  On the surface, making predictions seems like a pointless game. This is, indeed, true of making predictions the wrong way. But making predictions the right way helps you deal with uncertainty you otherwise have no hope of handling.  Predictions help you bet your life, better  Each of us has limited resources, such as time, money, and mental energy. We’re constantly making decisions about how to use these resources, and when we make those decisions, we are expecting outcomes.   If we go on this date, will we find the love of our life, or wish we’d stayed in? If we write this book, will we achieve fame and fortune, or feel as if we’ve wasted years of our life? If we spend an hour on social media, will we make valuable connections, or spiral into self-hatred over our lack of discipline?   As Annie Duke, author of Thinking in Bets wrote:   In most of our decisions, we are not betting against another person. Rather, we are betting against all the future versions of ourselves that we are not choosing. —Annie Duke, Thinking in Bets   Each decision we make is a bet. We bet a resource, and expect something in return. Most of us don’t recognize or express the expectations of our bets. But we should.  Some bets are clearer than others  If you bet a dollar on a coin flip and only win $1.50 for guessing correctly, you’d easily recognize that as an unfair bet: There’s a 50% chance of guessing correctly, so you clearly should receive two dollars. But the more variable the odds, and the more vague your wager and winnings, the more difficult it becomes to think clearly.  What’s the value of finding the love of your life? What other benefits can you get writing a book besides fame and fortune? What are the chances that during this hour of social media you’ll make a life-changing discovery? Making objective decisions taking into account all these variables becomes so complicated you might as well throw up your hands, surrender

299. Why Make Predictions? (and How)

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