Running Head: THINKING TRAPS 1

Thinking Traps Reflection

Name

Institution of Affiliation

Professor

Date
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Introduction

Recently, I made one amongst the critical decisions in my life to pursue a Master’s in

Business Administration (MBA). I must admit that it was not easy to make the decision

following my previous attainment of a bachelors program in business administration and I

daresay that I felt in my academic utopia after securing a decent job! However after noticing that

I have more potential and the promising growth in my job I decided to enroll for a master’s

program in what seemed like a battle to make the decision or stay within my comfort zone and

enjoy the fruits of my bachelor’s degree. First I had an overwhelming feeling of success after

landing a job in one of the recognized corporation in the states! Second I was doubting my

academic capabilities for the successful completion of a master’s program. At this point, I

realized that I was becoming a victim of thinking traps with an overwhelming feeling of

achievement battling with the desire to advance and at the same time doubting my capabilities in

advanced studies.

At this point I decided that a plan would be the best approach to power my decision-

making process. I wanted to maintain an objective approach towards my decision making and

avoid these thinking traps. First I explored the purpose of enrolling in an MBA program. There

were many reasons that gave me an adequate meaning to the pursuit of an advanced program in

business administration. Professional growth, scholarly growth in business administration and

staying competitive in the job market became the significant reasons as to why I could not reject

the temptation to enroll for the program. The main purpose in this context is professional growth.

I get dull easily after an overwhelming sense of achievement and I understand that challenge is

what keeps me going. After securing my job I noticed that a higher position closely linked to

business administration was being advertised for the application. I asked myself whether I could
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secure myself a more lucrative position within the same company or in another corporation with

my contemporary level of education.

I went forth to question whether my experience level in the company would be

considered in the future job adverts. Secondly, I questioned myself whether I could achieve

professional growth simply by gaining years of experience and climbing the professional ladder

based on experience. This lead to the next step and I sought to research on career growth

techniques. I enrolled sought an online consulting career firm which aided in providing a

professional view and support materials in form of PDF files. I gathered statistical evidence to

show that advancing in relevant academic fields often led to professional growth. Surprisingly I

noticed that climbing the professional ladder based on experience often took longer than

pursuing advanced studies coupled with the experience in the field! Therefore, my desire was to

take less time to achieve professional growth and thus I had no better choice than embarking on

the pursuit for advanced studies.

It is imperative to notice that the concepts being implemented in this scenario are based

on research findings and can be arguably justified for the attempt to leverage information.

However, I made a few assumptions in the decision-making process. First I assumed that I will

be able to balance between my job and pursuing my MBA programme. I understand that at times

meddling between tasks might be difficult but my assumption is that I will have adequate time

slices for each task. I also assumed that my current earnings will be adequate to cater for all my

fees and associated costs bound to the pursuit of the program. An MBA program is most likely to

secure me lucrative positions in the near future. This would be the most logical approach even

though experience can be an alternative to achieving professional growth. However, the latter
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option overlooks the possibilities of increased competition in the job market that can deem me

unfit for those positions of desire.

I cannot deny that I have placed more focus on being employed than initiating my own

startup. I have spent a significant amount of time studying and I can only reward myself better by

landing on my dream job! I can agree that my viewpoint, in this case, ignores the potential of

utilizing my current knowledge I business administration to initiate a start-up. I can account for

this ignorance due to my past experience after initiating a start-up way back in campus and it

failed. Since then I cannot help to think that I wasn’t made for initiating start-ups. Labeling since

then became a thinking trap I always have to fight. If I take the course I think there will be more

benefits in the near future and if I don’t stick to the program then probably I would have to work

harder and use performance as the ladder to professional growth.

Thinking traps case

My cousin dropped out of campus following his alleged claims that he wasn’t that good

in a computer science degree program he was taking. He dropped from the program when he was

in the third year and I must admit that his family was irritated by his decision. The problem

started when he encountered other units which he often termed as irrelevant in the course and

this led to frustrations. Some mathematical units and general units hindered him from pursuing a

program which according to me was the best for him. Astonishingly, he had developed his first

website way back in the first year and his programming skills were unquestionable! I tried to

reason with him that when he develops a program he uses mathematical skills to accomplish an

algorithm. In my opinion, I could not understand how he could use cryptography without

employing mathematical concepts.

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In fact, I was so disturbed and I wanted to prove to appoint to him and therefore I

researched and found out that ciphers were the application of pure mathematics! This is one of

the most respected disciplines of mathematics. So he did was good ate mathematics after all and

he was a victim of minimization thinking trap. He was referring to his poor mathematical grades

since high school but his mathematical application was way far beyond average! He did not

agree to resume his program but he secured himself a decent job with an online firm that needed

graphics developers. According to Campbell and Finkelstein, the brain can mislead our decision-

making process especially if we do not pinpoint the red flags while making decisions (Campbell

A , et al.). The brain integrates data and information from different parts and this leads to a

pattern recognition that we often use in the decision-making process. When new situations

emerge, the brain scans through sequences of events checking their consequences and thus we

easily make assumptions based on prior experiences "Thinking traps," 2018). In some scenarios,

the subconscious mind guides athletes and professionals to make critical decisions as if we

possess an innate capability to decision making.

In simple terms, the process capitalizes on past experiences to make decisions based on

new stimulations. Emotional tagging is responsible in the way re react or rather respond to

stimuli. This is the attachment of emotional information on thoughts and past experiences and

the process elicits flight, flight, immediate or delayed response. In the process, the attachments

can be distorted due to the presence of distorting attachments when we become bound to places,

people, and things ("Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions," 2009). These attachments deter

our decision-making process and often we make emotional decisions rather than logical

decisions. Thinking traps are closely tied to these distortions and misleading memories which in

most cases are used to make current decisions "Thinking traps," 2018).
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References

Campbell A , et al. (2015, March 14). Why good leaders make bad decisions. - PubMed - NCBI.

Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19227556

Rothwell, E. J. (2016). Avoid the Worst Thinking Traps. Engineering Writing by Design, 33-57.

doi:10.4324/9781315222547-4

Thinking traps. (2018). Thinking Good, Feeling Better - A Cognitive Behavioural Therapy

Workbook for Adolescents and Young Adults, 111-120.

doi:10.1002/9781119397298.ch10

Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions. (2009, February 1). Retrieved from

https://hbr.org/2009/02/why-good-leaders-make-bad-decisions