Your brain often plays tricks on you and takes mental shortcuts. Nothing wrong with that per se. Our ancestors needed those shortcuts to decide in a split-second on fight or flight. Without those shortcuts, our race never would have survived.
In our modern times, those genetic shortcuts, nevertheless, often lead to unfavorable and costly consequences.
Being aware of those cognitive biases will help you to slow down and think a bit longer before making impulsive decisions.
You can never be immune to them, but the more you know, the safer you will be from self-deception. You should work to reduce your biases, but to say you have none is a sign that you have many (jump straight ahead to Bias Bias).
As there are hundreds of biases, I have focused only on biases that make you do dumb things with your hard-earned money.
We are all dumb, but only the smart ones learn from it.
Now I would like to invite you to learn how you can get the upper hand over those nasty biases, how to achieve a more neutral viewpoint, and how to use good judgment to Tacomob in a more effective manner.
I hope you remember them because there will be a test—it’s called the rest of your life.
Read critically keeping your mind open to the possibility that it does not work the way you think it does:
Attentional Bias and here
Bias Bias or Bias Blind Spot
Failing to understand Exponential Growth and Compound Interest
Ignoring long-term importance of money
Money-Can-Not-Buy-Happiness-Bias
My-Current-Trade-Must-Be-A-Winner-Bias
Neglect of Prior Base Rates Effect
Normalcy Bias and here
Regression to the Mean Fallacy
Self-enhancing Transmission Bias and here
Stubborn-Insistence-On-Comparing-The-Present-To-The-Past-Bias
All the above biases are singularly powerful on their own. But when they are involved in combinations, they are even more potent and create lollapalooza effects. (A lollapalooza effect is a combination of factors, filtered through multidisciplinary models, that leads to an outstanding result or an outrageous example of its kind).
But with practice and conscious awareness (awareness is the greatest agent for change), you become more alert of these biases and can prevent them from getting you into too much turmoil.
How much turmoil?
Well, the amount that you are swayed by each of these biases depends on how much you believe in them. So, just reading, remembering and believing (!) these posts should allow you to fight back against the belief biases, helping you to make decisions that will increase your future happiness.
Want to learn the ultimate cognitive-biases-life-hack? That post contains a link to an awesome info-graphic with all biases categorized and at one massive glance.