Issue #009: 5 Steps to Think and Live Well in the Age of AI
Your life is shaped by the decisions you make.
A meaningful, successful life is created by your 'decision quality,' repeated over time.
By decision quality, I mean how well a decision is framed, reasoned through, and aligned with long-term goals — given the information and constraints available at the time.
Most outcomes in work, health, and life are not driven by single dramatic choices. They emerge from patterns of decision-making over time, including:
- What you consistently choose
- What you postpone
- What you tolerate
- What you leave undecided
Over time, these choices compound. Small, repeated decisions accumulate into large effects — for better or worse.
Consider an artist like Taylor Swift, who made hundreds of thoughtful, values-aligned decisions over decades about her music, her audience, and her business. Those decisions compounded into the success of the Eras Tour.
Poor decisions compound just as reliably as good ones.
What “high-level decisions” actually are
High-level decisions are not bigger, riskier, or more important decisions.
They are better-structured decisions.
A high-level decision:
- clarifies the actual problem before proposing solutions
- distinguishes signal from noise
- makes tradeoffs explicit rather than implicit
- accounts for constraints (time, energy, money, health)
- considers second-order effects (what this choice sets in motion)
Leaders like Jeff Bezos have noted that the highest-value work often lies in a small number of well-framed decisions made thoughtfully over time.
Introducing the Thrive Scale — Rate Your Thriving
When we’re making decisions in service of living better — more productively, healthfully, socially, and emotionally — we need a solid structure to frame the decision and gauge progress.
The Thrive Scale, drawn from Solution-Focused Therapy, is a practical way to locate where you are relative to where you want to be.
Step 1: Rate yourself in each domain:
- Work
- Home
- Health
- Relationships
Rate yourself on a 1–10 scale as follows:
- 10 = Exactly how I want this area to be
Sustainable, aligned, effective, and consistent with my values and capacities. - 1 = Very far from the desired state
Actively problematic or misaligned. - 5 = Midway between 1 and 10
Some things are working; others are difficult.
Step 2: Now pick one domain to work on.
Example:
Charlie rates himself a 5/10 in the Work domain. He'd like to problem-solve how to thrive better in relation to work.
Step 3: Then ask yourself: Why and why now is this domain a 5?
Example:
“I need to work so many hours to get everything done that I become grumpy and exhausted with my coworkers and my family.”
The 1% Decision Principle
Large improvements are seductive — and often unrealistic.
The 1% principle, originating in Kaizen (continuous improvement), recognizes that small, sustainable gains accumulate more reliably than big sweeping interventions.
Applied to decision-making, the key question becomes:
What decision would move this from a 5 to a 6?
A 6 might look like:
- fewer evenings carrying work emotionally
- more patience at home
- less irritability without changing roles or hours
- better transitions between work and personal time
Step 4: Decide what you could change to create a 1% gain in the domain you picked (See below, this is where things get fun).
Improve Your Decision Quality with AI
AI is most helpful when it improves decision quality — not by giving answers, but by improving how the problem is framed.
Your decision quality improves when:
- the decision is clearly defined
- constraints and tradeoffs are surfaced
- choices are aligned with long-term life quality
Decision quality affects how much energy you expend, your stress levels, health behaviors, relationship quality, and professional effectiveness.
Making intentional decisions means fewer loose ends to overthink, less mental churn, better follow through, and less regret.
Over time, intentional decision making is how your life becomes more stable, effective, and aligned — without requiring constant effort.
Try This AI Prompt
If you’ve already completed the steps above, copy and paste the prompt below into your preferred AI app. (If you’re new to AI, see the quick orientation section below.)
AI Co-Thinking Prompt
I’m currently at a [enter your Thrive Scale number, ie, 5] on my Thrive Scale in [enter the domain you chose, ie, work], mainly because work pressure is affecting my mood at home.
A [one point higher] would mean I’m generally in a better mood at work and at home, without making major structural changes to my role.
Act as a thinking partner, not an authority.
Help me discern what I could change about:
– how I approach my work
– how I interpret demands
– how I structure my day or transitions
Based on that, propose three small, testable experiments I could try over the next 2–4 weeks that might realistically improve my mood and emotional carryover.
For each experiment, include:
– what I would do differently
– why it might help
– what to watch for
Do not recommend a “best” option. Do not give generic stress advice.
Be a Self-Scientist and Choose an Experiment
Step 5: Take action and run the experiment.
Once you run the AI prompt, take action on the experiment you like best. There are ways to iterate the answers you get, to mold the experiment into the best fit for you. I'll be diving into how to do that in the workshop below.
You are not committing to a permanent change. You are choosing one experiment.
This keeps you in the driver's seat and reduces risk. A well-chosen experiment can easily boost you 1% higher, from a 5 to a 6, or higher!
When you do this continuously, it's almost like living life like a science fair. I call this being a Self-Scientist.
I've used this method with over a thousand people, with all kinds of minds. It works.
Why this leads to a higher-quality life
High-quality lives are not built by heroic effort.
They are built when fewer decisions linger unresolved.
These gains compound over time — just as unexamined decisions compound strain.
This is how improvement actually happens.
If you’re new to AI...
You don’t need advanced tools to try this method.
Common options: Chatgpt, Claude or Gemini.
All offer free versions sufficient for this approach.
Your Next Step
What you’ve learned here, in this quick method to think well and live well in the age of AI, is just the tip of the iceberg.
Learning how to think effectively with AI — while strengthening your own judgment — is a skill that compounds over time.
Those who develop this thinking-with-AI skill will be increasingly valuable in a future that is not coming — it is already here.
Intrigued to learn more?
I'll be diving even deeper in the upcoming workshop:
Think Well, Live Well — with AI as Your Thinking Partner
All my best,
Debbie Steinberg, LMFT