The Struggling Moment Worksheet is a structured tool designed to help decision makers efficiently organize and understand their moments of struggle. These moments, when progress seems stalled, signal the need for a shift from automatic to deliberate decision-making processes in the brain. This worksheet facilitates this shift by guiding the user through a series of sequenced questions that activate key areas of the brain, leading to enhanced awareness, focus, and motivation.

A struggling moment can feel overwhelming and lead to a state in which it is difficult to access the areas of the brain that determine the relative value of a decision to be made.  This worksheet will help to minimize the time that it takes to make a decision as well as reduce the difficulty of a complex decision to be made.  By determining that the unmet needs and roles are valuable enough to the decision makers life, then the brain will be able to provide more cognitive resources. 

Decision making, especially deliberate decision making is a costly in terms of energy and cognitive resources used.  The brain, specifically the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) needs assurance that the investment will result in improved need fulfillment today and in the future before making the full investment of energy and time.  The worksheet concludes with a clarification that this decision is worth it.  If it is not, then the decision maker can move on to other valuable decision, thereby saving time and resources.

Purpose of the Struggling Moment Worksheet

The worksheet serves to:

1. Excite areas of the brain that help to identify a struggling moment: This is done by helping to recognize and define the exact moment when progress is hindered as well as the type of outcome that is being limited and its associated needs and roles going unmet.
2. By exciting these areas, it helps to trigger cognitive resources: By activating the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC) causing it to upregulate from the automatic to the deliberate system, enabling more effective decision-making.
3. And through the sequencing of the worksheet it provides contextual information: Supplying the brain with the necessary context to understand the struggle and begin considering making a change away from the products, service, systems and actions that are no longer working to a new solution.

Process Overview

1. Acknowledge the Struggling Moment:
   • Recognize that the current methods are not working.
   • Understand that this recognition itself is a sign that the brain is ready for change.
2. Activate Awareness and Focus:
   • Use sequenced questions to bring the struggling moment into clear focus.
   • Enhance awareness of the specific challenges and obstacles.
3. Motivate Decision-Making:
   • Develop an understanding of the relevance and impact of the struggle.
   • Engage the brain’s motivational systems by framing the struggle as a step towards progress.

Functioning of the Worksheet

The Struggling Moment Worksheet works by sequentially activating different parts of the brain that are essential for effective decision-making:

• Awareness and Focus: By explicitly defining the struggling moment, the worksheet engages the brain’s awareness systems.  This includes the IFJ, ACC, OFC, and vmPFC.  These areas are involved in considering identity and the impact of a change relative to the individuals value structures.  When it is determined that that outcome is related to ones identity and matters to them, the next step is supported.  Otherwise, the process will tend to end.
• Motivation: By evaluating relevance and desired outcomes, it triggers the motivational centers, particularly the dopaminergic system.  This system is critical for the release of higher cognitive resources of the frontal cortex.  Without adequate identification of rewards and consequences, areas of the deliberate system will be unprepared.
• Deliberate Decision-Making: By planning new strategies and assessing resource needs, it engages the prefrontal cortex (PFC), which is responsible for higher-order cognitive functions and deliberate decision-making.

Outcomes of Using the Worksheet

1. Enhanced Cognitive Engagement: The worksheet helps in fully activating the ACC and related brain areas, ensuring that cognitive resources are effectively utilized at the level of the frontal cortex. 
2. Informed Decision-Making: It provides the brain with contextualized information, improving the quality of decisions made.  It also acts to constrain information, making the quality of the data provided better, as non relevant information is excluded.
3. Decision Commitment: The final result is a decision to either continue with the Deliberate Decision Making (DDM) DIY process or to stop and consider alternative approaches if deemed irrelevant.

By guiding users through this structured sequence of steps and questions, the Struggling Moment Worksheet ensures that decision-making is deliberate, well-informed, and aligned with the user’s goals and needs.