Successful or better decision-making requires thoughtful deliberation and attention to detail. Many ignore don’t have time for the details — they make shallow decisions and live to regret the consequences of their choices.

You can learn to make better decisions without regret. You can be less wrong more often. You can’t have a 100 percent success rate, but you can improve your chances of making fewer errors significantly.

Many people are okay with first-level thinking — they prefer quick wins and think less about long-term consequences. They make simplistic and shallow decisions without thinking about the future. They look for quick solutions to a long-term problem. You can do better than that, especially if you want to live a life with fewer regrets.

First-level thinkers look for immediate results but pay for the long-term effects. “…first-order consequences often have opposite desirabilities from second-order consequences, resulting in big mistakes in decision making,” writes Ray Dalio says in his book Principles: Life and Work.

Second-level thinking is profound, deep and thoughtful. It’s not rushed.

If you are choosing a career, partner or changing jobs, don’t take the decision lightly. If you are moving to a different town, buying a property, or investing a considerable amount of your savings, it pays to ponder the many consequences of the options you are considering.

In other words, think about both the immediate and long-term impact of the decision you make. It’s how you reduce errors and design the life you want for your future self. Second-level thinkers deliberately and proactively think more about the future consequences of their present actions.

Improving how you think is a skill

Five percent of the people think; ten percent of the people think they think; and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.” ― Thomas A. Edison

To achieve the best possible outcome of life-changing decisions, make time to analyse the upside and downsides of different scenarios.

That’s what great decision-makers do. They don’t just consider the best possible outcomes. They also think deeply about the harmful consequences five or ten years down the road.

Second-level thinking can be applied in choosing habits to build for a better future. It can serve as the basics for deciding what to eat or how to create an exercise habit.

Choosing to make healthier choices for your body and mind will improve your life in the long term, but first-level thinkers are too busy thinking about satisfaction now (as fast as possible). So, they choose fast foods over healthy and nutritious choices (which sometimes take time).

Second-level thinkers think about the accumulation of harmful fat over time which can cause heart and brain complications in the next five or ten years. They make connections about almost every habit or choice. They deliberately think about the tiny details that could become a problem in the future.

“A lot of extraordinary things in life are the result of things that are first-order negative, second-order positive,” argues Shane Parish.

If you fail to consider the terrible consequences of your decisions today, your future self will pay a massive price for it. You could spend years trying to correct the mistakes of your past.

If you invest a small amount of time thinking through your options, not only will you have a much better life in the future, you will also save yourself a lot of regrets down the line.

Immediate outcomes may feel good today, but if you are not thinking about your present action’s second and third-order consequences, the adverse effects will soon make your life harder in the future.

You can achieve superior results in almost every area of your life if you activate second and even third level thinking.

Ray Dalio explains it beautifully, “Failing to consider second- and third-order consequences is the cause of a lot of painfully bad decisions, and it is especially deadly when the first inferior option confirms your own biases. Never seize on the first available option, no matter how good it seems, before you’ve asked questions and explored.”

Here are some questions to help you think deeper about your decisions and choices in life:

What are the likely outcomes of the decision in the next 5 or 10 years?

What is the most likely outcome if I choose option A, B or C?

If I am wrong, what will I do to minimise the negative impact of the decision?

If I am right, what are the possible benefits of the choice, decision or new habit for my future self?

Will I still be happy with the decision I am about to make in the next ten years?

Make second-level thinking a way of life or a way of making decisions about choices with consequences. It can help you achieve superior results in life.

Second-order thinking takes time and practice. Do it more often and it will become second nature. Every decision has a price. Thinking through your life-changing choices is how you design a better future.

This article first appeared on Medium.