Are you indecisive? Here are 6 ways to help you make decisions
We have to make decisions every single day. When to get up, what to wear, what to eat, how to look – and that's all before we even leave the house in the morning. We all know that person (or, indeed, are that person) who stares at a menu, changing their mind continuously for half an hour before settling on the same thing they always get. "I'm just so indecisive!" they cry. And we all laugh it off because what does it really matter?
But the thing about decisions is there are always far bigger calls to be made. What to do after high school, where to live, what job to get, how to handle our money, what to feed the family, marriage, children, home-ownership and overseas travel.
Indecisiveness, at the extreme end of things, can be crippling.
Dr Randy Frost from Smith College in Maryland, USA, says indecisiveness is often cited as a symptom of obsessive compulsive disorder, but little research had been done on it – so he did his own.
He found correlations to obsessiveness, perfectionism, compulsive hoarding, procrastination and even psychopathology.
Another study by Germeijs and DeBoeck, published in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour in 2003, essentially put the problem down to a kind of anxiety.
The study examined students having to make a career decision concerning their future studies and came up with three possible causes of indecision. The first was how informed the students were about their alternatives, but the more prominent were to do with objectives and the value and uncertainty of the outcomes.
As many can probably appreciate, the problem with making decisions is what if it's the wrong one?
There's this overwhelming need for being certain of both the outcome and the reaction to a choice that weighs on some people more than others, potentially resulting in worry, anxiety and a lack of self-confidence.
That said, the road to recovery is as difficult as you'd expect - the trick to becoming more decisive is to make more decisions.
In the 1980s, neurologist Antonio Demasio discovered that emotions are pivotal in decision-making and making those smaller, less worrying choices every day helped build confidence to tackle bigger things.
Much like working your way up to the highest diving board, it becomes less about blindly trusting you'll be safe when you jump, and more about trusting your ability to make a safe dive, or to deal with the unexpected if it does arise.
So while choosing an outfit or taking a risk on a different driving route may feel insignificant, every small decision counts.
Still, this is easier said than done. I spent hours trying to decide whether or not to put my own voice in this story.
Because I'm the kind of person who will spend hours researching something before I do it or spend way too long plotting routes and researching a place before I go there. The kind of person who will gather a crowd of total strangers at The Warehouse to get their opinion on a gift I know nothing about (this is, somewhat embarrassingly, a true story).
It's a far more common problem than people think. So if you too know the struggle, here are a few tips for getting through it.
1. Face the fear
Identify what is holding you back. Scared of what might happen if you pick A over B? Why? Once you figure out what the problem is, you can start moving on to step two.
2. Pros and cons
Make a list. Writing things down is an easy way to gather your thoughts, evaluate and re-order them. If your fear is that by picking A, you'll be missing out on B, write down all the pros and cons of each. You can figure out whether the pros outweigh the cons, and feel a bit more confident in your choice.
3. Set limits
The problem with researching and evaluating your options is that you end up stalling. You could get up, decide to go for a run, and then waste 40 minutes on Google Maps figuring out where to run to until you're running nowhere but late. Time flies when you're procrastinating. Think of how easily you make a meal choice when a waiter is standing there ready to take your order. Now set yourself a similar time limit for your other choices.
4. Does it really matter? (Be honest)
Think about the decision you're trying to make and whether it really matters. Is the choice you're making going to affect your life in any big way? Does it really matter which pair of socks you put on? No one's going to see them. Socks are socks, just put 'em on - you've got bigger fish to fry.
5. You may regret it, but it may also have a silver lining
What seems like a great choice now may be a terrible choice tomorrow - and vice versa. You may decide to quit your job because you're unhappy. At first it feels great because you're sticking it to the man and setting yourself free. Then you wake up tomorrow and realise you have no income and you made a terrible choice. But then you could wake up two weeks later on a yacht in the Caribbean.
The point is; you're not psychic. You can't ever tell what's going to happen in the future, so quit trying. Plan ahead, by all means, but don't waste time agonising over what may or may not happen in a hypothetical world.
6. Be selfish
Often the problem with making decisions is we spend too much time worrying about how it may affect others. Obviously, this should be taken into consideration at times, like how quitting your job will affect your family. But sometimes you just need to get selfish. If you drop out of your weekly yoga class, your friend will have to go without you. But if it's the right choice for you then you have to be willing to take it.
Written by Siena Yates. First appeared on Stuff.co.nz.
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