In chinese, we have this phrase ‘知己知彼百战百胜’. This phrase means that you need to know your enemy and yourself well before you can win. I used this technique when I am making choices. Well, I do not say that I am an expert in making choices. I do have my fair bit of bad experiences when I made wrong choices. However, this techique has enabled me to caution myself against quite alot of bad choices. Thereby, lessen my bad experiences. Therefore, I am going to show you how I do it today.

Knowing how to do this is an art. Saying it is easy but doing it is difficult. Often, we are blinded by what’s happening around us and tend to board the safest boat where everybody is boarding. When we reach the coast, then we realised all of us are wrong. Even if we do not follow the crowd, we are often blinded by our own illusion. It takes just 1 or 2 people to tell you that you are good in forming illusion. For example, you are the only one who performs well in this project and everybody around you are praising you. From then on, your self esteem got boosted up and you start forming the perception that I am capable.Therefore, when any challenges come along, you start to have the tendency of overestimating yourself. That’s how bad choices come about. There are lots of pitfall here and there but we fail to notice it before making choices. I notice people have this mentality of ‘Following the crowd is always the safest route.’ Well, that may be the safest route but I can tell you that is a different route to walk through because of the intense competition. You are piting many against you.

In making choices, the things to do are

1) Circumspect your surrounding

• What mentality does the people around you have?
• What are everybody doing?

Doing these are important. Remember these are the people you are competing with. You need to know your enemy well.

2) Outcome of the different choices

• What will happen when a lot of people chose this choice?
• How strong the competition will be?

Access the outcome so that you are aware and in control of what’s going to happen.

3) Look within yourself

• What do you want for yourself?
• If you follow the crowd, what will you get?
• What illusion am I having now?

It’s important to stop your illusion. Illusion will not do you any good. You will be tricked into bad choices easily.

4) Making choices

• Now with the information gathered, which choice will be an easier way for me to attain my goals?

Using the above 4 steps, you will find yourself making better choices.Not only that, you may even make choices that do not follow the crowd. Sometimes, the other way is a much easier way to attain your goals. Below, I will give you 2 examples on how I have used the above 4 steps and made really good choices for my life.

In my university, they started having this opt in S/U option for electives modules. Basically, if you opt in for this, the grade gains from this module will not be counted towards your hons degree. The grade for this module will just be reflected in your transcript as pass or fail. Without doubt, for difficult modules, people will start opting into the S/U option. Well, this is what happen in my accounting module. When people opt in for this option, they will treat this module as less important than their other modules. They pay less attention on this module and study this module half-heartedly. Their aim is to pass this module. As a result, less people fight with you for an ‘A’. (P/s: The school awards grades according to the bell curve. Only the top few percentage of students will get an ‘A’.) My aim is to get an ‘A’ obviously. Though I do face difficulty in this module, I do not follow the crowd opting into the S/U option. Most of my friends opted in and think that I am insane not to do so.

I have my reason for not doing this. If I don’t opt in, it is a win-win situation. Less people compete for an ‘A’, it is easier to get an ‘A’ now. Even when the paper is a difficult one, there will be moderation of marks. If I put in my 100% for this module and others just put in their 60% for this module ( opt in people), who will get better grades? Obviously, I am the one. I will still be the top. I don’t have to be afraid that it’s a difficult paper like what many people are afraid off when they looked through previous years exam papers. See by knowing your enemy well, you can actually make a choice that is different from others. Well, all these are based on my analysis. I do note that this will backfired. However, you need to understand all choices come with a risk. You have to recognise the risk and get prepared for it.

Another great choice I made for myself is during my admission to university. Right from the start, I placed mechanical engineering as my first choice of study. (P/s: Due to my lousy grades at that time, I only have engineering faculty to bet on for university admission. There are many engineering to choose from so my main concern is what to choose.) There are several reasons behind it. When I talked to others, when they heard of the word mechanical, they ask me what does these engineers do. Do they deal with machines and work in factories? Well, the truth is no. Based on this, many said that they won’t be interested in this field. This resutls from their lack of research. I got into my choice utimately because the competition is not as stiff as other enginnering faculty. Now, in university, I have friends in the common engineering pool and they have to be streamed to their respective choices after year 1 based on their year 1 results. I asked round what their first choice will be and many answered mechanical engineering. They chose this because they have a better understanding of what mechanical engineers do during their 1 year study in the common engineering pool. See, I have esacaped this streaming excercise. Even if my year 1 results are not that great, I still get to hold a place in the mechanical engineering faculty.

Therefore, start practicing the above 4 steps and make really great choices now!

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