How do I make the "right" decision?
A question that I’ve often heard in therapy is ‘but how do I make the right decision?’. I’ve seen many people (and even noticed myself!) stuck in indecision because we don’t want to make the wrong decision. We put off deciding or acting with the hope that the answer will become clear - and sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes we even put off making a decision for long enough that we don’t have to make it anymore – the moment has passed, someone else has decided, or our choices narrowed to one.
Indecisiveness, in many ways, makes sense! Humans have a strong drive to avoid pain and seek pleasure – that is, we want to avoid disappointment, failure, rejection, stress, sadness etc. All these feelings are often labelled as or accompany the ‘wrong’ decision. ‘Wrong’ decisions, if able to be reversed, take time and effort to ‘un-do’, and if they can’t be reversed we can sometimes be left with regret.
However, indecision is really frustrating! We can spend lots of our resources going around and around in our minds – our time, our emotional energy, sometimes even money. It can also lead to feeling ‘stuck’ or ‘trapped’ at times, or even just a sense confusion or of lack of fulfilment and purpose.
This blog won’t give you the answers to the question that you’re struggling with right now, but it may help you explore your indecisiveness more. When struggling with indecisiveness, we can:
1. Explore all possible options
Sometimes our brains don’t work as well as we think they do. They are fallible - we’re often prone to thinking errors, thought distortions, or heuristics (a word basically meaning brain ‘shortcuts’) which lead us to not see the ‘full’ picture or evaluate risk and reward poorly.
I often get clients to write down all possible outcomes or options to their decision or dilemma, no matter how unlikely it might be. When we force our brain to explore all possible options we might come up with other solutions we didn’t initially consider. Seeing multiple options written down on a page can also remind us that we aren’t as stuck as we think we are – we have options! I often then get clients to give each option two % ratings (from 0-100) – a % for how preferential each option is to me and a % for how likely they objectively think each situation is. This allows us to engage both the rational part of our mind and the emotional part of our mind in tandem, creating our ‘wise’ mind.
2. It’s often not as simple as the one ‘right’ decision (make a pros and cons list!)
We often have to move away from black and white thinking with decision making – it’s often less rigid than one decision is 100% ‘right’ and one or more are 100% ‘wrong’. We can switch up our language to asking ourselves what is the ‘next best’ thing for me to do? We can think about what is the easiest option, the most helpful option, the most challenging option, the most costly option, the most risky – all of these words move us away from right vs. wrong.
Making a pros and cons list isn’t ground-breaking advice, but it can also assist us in moving away from thinking about decisions as ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and can move us towards thinking what are the possible benefits and possible consequences of every option (knowing that all options will have pros and cons).
3. Look at what’s important to me
Evaluating our core personal values and goals can be a helpful way to assist in decision making. Ask yourself – ‘what am I working towards and how can I get there?’ It might be a financial, relational, travel, emotional/psychological, career or educational goal. Which option moves me closer towards that goal? Asking ourselves ‘what do I value?’ can be equally important. Sometimes our goals and available decisions don’t always align, or sometimes our possible choices might even contradict with our goals. By knowing your own values you might gain more clarity about how to come to a decision. It can be reassuring to know that even if the outcome of the decision doesn’t work out, you made that decision based on a core value. For example, perhaps you value ‘growth’ and so you take a new job that’s very challenging – knowing that it aligns with your value to grow can assist in pushing through the learning curve and self-doubt. Maybe you value ‘connection’ and so you decide to spend Friday nights of your HSC spending time with friends – perhaps your results don’t end up being ‘perfect’ but instead of leaning towards telling yourself ‘I should’ve studied more’ you can remind yourself of the benefit of your friendships.
4. Examine underlying causes
What’s contributing to this indecisiveness? Yes, decisions are can be tricky to make, but sometimes there are other factors that are confounding our ability to make decisions. Perfectionism means we’re often less tolerant of perceived failures, we set the bar very high for ourselves to not ‘fail’, and we have unrealistic expectations of success. Depression, anxiety, stress and trauma often drives ‘worst case scenario’ thinking so that we are unable to accurately weigh up realistic and probable options. People pleasing can often disconnect us from our true self (meaning that we don’t know or are unware of our core values), and make us more likely to try and make decisions based on other people’s wants or expectations. Avoidance of discomfort can mean we often let other people take responsibility for our decisions so that we don’t have to feel fear or regret, but can reduce our autonomy and independence. Fear of change and the unknown might mean we take the ‘safe’ and familiar option rather than pushing ourselves into new challenges and environments. Procrastination or lack of planning might mean we don’t give ourselves enough time to make informed or considered decisions, and increase stressful, last minute decision making.
5. Take action!
Inaction contributes to indecisiveness because we aren’t gaining more information. When we takes steps, even small ones, towards making a decision we get feedback about that decision making process. Maybe it’s as small as writing down a list of options, drafting a pros/cons list, sending a text message, researching online, speaking to someone else. Make sure your action is leading you forward, rather than just leading you back around the indecisiveness merry-go-round.
