How To Make Decisions When You're An Indecisive Person Who Would Rather Not Have to Make ANY Decisions
Years ago, I remember being out with this guy I’d been seeing for awhile, and we had some time to kill before our dinner reservation.
We popped into a CVS to poke around and I remembered that I needed to buy deodorant — “Oh! Score! I can run an errand AND be on a date! Two birds, one stone, LET’S DO THIS.”
Except I forgot that putting me in front of a wall of deodorants is a particular form of mild torture…
My Dove deodorant was running out at home, but maybe I should try Degree? Or Secret? Or this fancy new brand that has this cool bullshit technology for athletes that transforms your sweat into liquid GOLD!?
SO MANY SMELLS. SO MANY FEATURES. HOW WOULD I CHOOSE.
Our dinner reservation was nigh, and my guy came to find me. He promptly started to laugh.
“Wait — you’re still picking a deodorant?”
Well yes. Yes I am.
Because I need to look at them all and weigh the options and price-compare and look up reviews and consider my past experiences with deodorant and make sure I’m committing to a smell I can live with and what if it’s streaky or chalky or gives me some awful disease? Have you read the ingredients in these things??
THIS IS JUST ONE EXAMPLE OF HOW I AM DECISIVELY CHALLENGED.
Or should I say, how I WAS decisively challenged…
Because this is something I’ve had to work on. A lot.
Especially once I hit my twenties and realized, “Oh fudge. My Mom and my Dad don’t actually know what’s best for me? And not everything can be answered by Google? UGH WHYYYY!?”
Especially once I became a business-owner, and there was no designated path to follow, and no outside boss-leader-person telling me what to do or how to do it.
Especially since I continue to be an highly content, un-wed, childless woman (NOT TO BRAG OR ANYTHING BUT I KINDA ANSWER TO NO ONE 😬💁), very often I have so much fucking freedom it feels like I’m drowning in options and possibilities.
I’ve had to get really good at navigating lots and lots of decisions and choices, of all shapes and sizes and varieties.
So I’d love to give you some things to remember and fall back on in those moments when you are entering analysis-paralysis, and have zero clue what you even want anymore, and the CVS employee is coming around to tell you that your dinner date left awhile ago and they’re closing up soon so you have to buy something or leave.
Here are 5 killer tips for making decisions, when you notoriously suck at making decisions:
Consider all the decisions you’ve already made and are already making.
This is a solid, coach-y trick for any area of your life where you feel like you suck in some regard: Start building up evidence that proves that sucky assessment wrong.
Oh, you suck at making decisions?
Well how about you picking between seven different salad dressings at El Pepino the other night? Or you choosing what to watch on Netflix afterwards? Or deciding where to put that new artsy print you bought at the flea market last Saturday? Or finally (for real) breaking up with that dude who didn’t treat you well, but you kept hoping things would get better? And then you decided to delete his number from your phone so you would not text him after a couple glasses of wine at girls’ night?
WHAT ABOUT ALL THOSE DECISIONS YOU MADE AND THE ONES YOU CONTINUE TO MAKE EVERY SINGLE DAMN DAY?
It doesn’t matter if some of these decisions seem “small” or like they “don’t count”.
Any decision you make is a win. Any choice that you choose is a reason to believe that you actually can make decisions, and do make decisions, and do so quite successfully.
Adjusting habits and behaviors around anything (in this case, your decision-making ability) has a lot to do with who you see yourself as in the world, and what your identity is built around (in this case, “I’m indecisive! I can’t choose anything ever!”).
I had been telling myself I sucked at decisions for a long time because #Libra, because #openminded but #anxious, because #ICanAlwaysSeeTheOtherSide, but when I started challenging those supposed truths about myself, I saw that in many ways…
All of those qualities actually made me good at making decisions.
Because I’ve always been able to weigh all the various information, and feel deeply into the different options, before ultimately deciding.
Consider your “Decision-Making Identity” (not a thing but sounds like a thing!) and if it’s working for you. Or if it’s even all that accurate…?
Are you bad at making decisions? Or do you just like to take your time?
Are you bad at making decisions? Or do you just like doing a solid check-in with your gut first?
Are you bad at making decisions? Or are you just slow to own what you really want? (Getting ahead of myself — wait for Tip #3!)
You probably make more decisions, and have made more decisions that have gone well, than you are giving yourself credit for.
Unsurprisingly, what with our whole human NEGATIVITY BIAS thing, we tend to only allow ourselves to recall the times when we made a decision, and promptly landed painfully on our asses.
So make sure you are tipping those internal scales, and remembering how many choices you have made that landed you in a great place.
You’re awesome at making decisions! (REALLY! Just practice proving it to yourself!)
2. Give up on trying to choose “right”.
The amount of time I’ve spent in therapy unpacking my tight-gripping fears around RIGHT and WRONG are just…immeasurable.
I don’t know if this will be helpful for you, but maybe-just-in-case:
If you grew up in an environment with a good amount of chaos and uncertainty, where things were generally pretty tense, and anyone who stepped out of line or made a mistake was more or less vilified for DISTURBING THE NON-EXISTENT PEACE, you might be a Right-aholic. (Again, not a thing, but really sounds like a thing!)
Right-aholics are perfectionists. We want and need to be RIGHT. We want and need to CHOOSE RIGHT.
Because “right” = safe. 😳 Right = I won’t get in trouble. Right = Everyone still loves me, and I’m going to be okay.
Those of us who cling to the illusion of making the “right” decision all the time (in quotes because there is no such thing…) cannot fathom the thought of making a poor choice because oh hiii, trauma!
It terrifies us to think about making a decision that could lead us in a not-great direction, because if we choose “WRONG”, our nervous system codes it as “NOT SAFE”.
Maybe you said or did the wrong thing once, and you were punished for it.
Maybe you were yelled at. Or cruelly criticized. Or ostracized. Maybe there were were social ramifications. Maybe a friend didn’t want to be your friend anymore. Maybe a parent lost their shit on you, and it was legitimately scary.
When you learn early on that one “wrong” move can have big, scary consequences, every decision can feel like a wager for your safety (or lack there of).
While it takes time to re-code and rewire our nervous systems for a strong, felt sense of and safety, it’s worth exploring. This allows us to widen our tolerance for different experiences and emotions (yes — even uncomfortable “wrong” ones!) because on a body-based level, our nervous systems can still regulate for safety. (Somatic therapy has been life-changing for me in this regard.)
But for this moment, consider:
Knowing everything you know now as a functional, autonomous, self-sufficient grown-up (and not a small, scared, genuinely helpless child), what’s so damn risky about choosing wrong?
What’s the worst thing that’s going to happen, really?
You’ll have to make a new, different choice?
Admit you want something else, something different?
You’ll need to get yourself out of an uncomfortable or sticky situation?
Or have a hard conversation with someone down the line?
Can you be willing to do those things? Are you willing to do those things?
Basically: Can you let yourself choose (and be) wrong? Can you start to recode what “wrong” means to you? Can you explore the idea that there actually is no “wrong”; that there’s always just new information to gather, and then move through the world with?
Because being a Right-aholic is exhausting. Avoiding decisions and wrestling with options until you’re blue in the face is no way to live (COMING FROM SOMEONE WHO KNOWS).
Opening yourself up to merely making some damn decisions, knowing that they might not be “right” or “perfect”, but allowing yourself to test-drive them anyway, and remembering that you will always be able to figure things out — all of that is a breath of fresh goddamn air.
You don’t have to know that something is the right decision before you make it. In fact, you almost never will.
3. Own what you want.
This is a TOUGHIE for most women I know.
We can be so good at gauging what other people want (hi hi, codependent cuties!), so skilled in assessing what’s needed for the collective, so insidiously hardwired to avoid ourselves in an effort to appease or please others, that we won’t even let ourselves fully name or acknowledge what we actually want…
The next time you find yourself thinking, “I wish someone else would just decide for me!” I invite you to swap out that sentiment with, “I wish I had the courage to fully acknowledge my deepest desires, and trust that I’m worthy of receiving them.”
OH I’M SORRY, DID THAT JUST HIT YOU IN THE SOUL LIKE A TON OF HONESTY BRICKS?
You don’t actually want someone else to decide or choose anything for you.
You just wish you felt more permission and courage to declare what you want, claim your worthiness, and trust that things actually can work out for you.
TALE FROM THE CRYPT: I was looking for an apartment in Boston years ago. It was my first time apartment-hunting alone, and I was struggling.
I’d just left a viewing of this gosh-awful basement apartment, where you had to duck your head under a pipe to get to the bathroom (which was behind the furnace), and everything smelled like wet carpet musk. The landlord was creepy. The location sucked. The price was bananas.
I went for a walk in a nearby park, sifting through the conflicting pressures I felt. I wanted the decision to just be made, so the energy of indecision could get squashed, but I really didn’t like my my options…
Another listing wound up being a five-story walk-up glorified attic with a hot plate in the corner, and the owner asked if I would mind his two huskies wandering in every now and again because they were used to the attic as their personal play-space.
EXSQUEEZLE ME? I love dogs but not your dogs and not that much, sir.
Even though I’d only seen a few places some part of me kept commanding, “You should just take this one! It might not get better than this! You should be grateful that there’s anything on the market at all!”
The anxious, unworthy, settle-for-less wiring in me was LOUD. She was SCARED. She didn’t want to miss out on anything or yeah, CHOOSE WRONG. Probably better to just take what I could get and live with it, right?!
Instead of just owning what I really wanted (to not have to duck my head to go to the bathroom and I dunno, a stove?), I was attempting to shoe-horn myself into a situation or circumstance that felt truly intolerable to me.
LADIES, WE DO THIS A LOT. ALL OVER THE PLACE.
We unconsciously downplay what we want (because who are we to ask for XYZ?!), ignore how we feel about the options available (NOT GOOD), and tell ourselves we need to just make a decision because everyone has to do things they don’t like and we’re not special and that’s not how life works.
I am sorry but I am not sorry: When we make this way of living and deciding our modus operandi we SUFFER. And our lives get smaller and smaller, and more and more stifling. And we become even more confused about what we want. Everything starts to feel like hot chafing awful-ness.
So remember that you are allowed to raise the bar and claim your preferences and desires.
You’re allowed to admit when something is genuinely intolerable to you (cleaning up someone else’s dog hair for $1500/month?).
You are allowed to make decisions that feel good to you. Or at the very least good enough, knowing that you’re allowed to change your mind and make new, more aligned decisions down the road.
If we as women felt more empowered to own what we want unequivocally, and acknowledge our inner knowing instead of settling for some watered-down, “I can live with this” version of life, I truly believe the world (and our lives as a whole) would be a lot less messy and confusing.
4. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Okay okay okay — who’s ready for some tough love?!
This is especially for my beloved single ladies, but the sentiment applies all around.
Falling into a pit of self-pity because you have to make decisions by yourself, or for yourself, is a disrespectful waste of time.
I fall into the self-pity pit on occasion because I’m a human and I get overwhelmed and I think bullshit thoughts like, “Ugh if I had a husband this would be easier!” (which ain’t even true — depends on the husband 😐) but I DO NOT LET MYSELF HANG OUT THERE FOR VERY LONG. Because what kind of whiny 1950’s housewife nonsense isssss thatttttt?!
Our generation of women is Patient Zero in a slow-shifting paradigm that is finally offering women more freedom to design life on their own terms, and do what the fuck they want, when the fuck they want.
Lest we forget: Here in America, white women were given permission to vote only one hundred years ago. Black women didn’t get that same right to vote all across America until 1965. That means there have been NUMEROUS MAJOR NATIONAL DECISIONS that many, many women were not even allowed to participate in.
This option and invitation to participate in big decision-making processes can still feel new and strange, on a generational level. Not to mention that discrimination is very real, and so is sexist legislation. As recently as 1988, a woman in America could not receive a business loan unless it was co-signed by a male relative. (I was born in 1987. Wt actual f, y’all!)
And as our society currently stands, there are myriad ways in which all women remain not free to live life on their own terms, not free do what the fuck they want when the fuck they want, and not free to make their own decisions financially, professionally, lifestyle-wise — specifically because of the color of their skin, their gender identity, and/or sexual orientation.
So if you are a woman who has the freedom, privilege, and power to sit with a decision like, “Should I buy this house?” or, “Should I start this business?” or, “Should I freeze my eggs?” and you feel overwhelmed and unhappy that you have to make these choices, PLEASE CHECK YOURSELF.
These choices are freedoms that you possess. They are not here to overwhelm and upset you. They are here to ask you to rise into a greater version of your womanly power, and light the way for others to come with you.
You’re allowed to have fears and feelings, of course. But you are not allowed to paint yourself into a corner of self-victimization in order to avoid stepping up to the plate of living on purpose, and making hard choices. You are simply too good for that shit.
If you have options (even if they are imperfect options), try to count them as blessings. Because ZERO OPTIONS was the only option for women for a long-ass time, and ZERO OPTIONS continue to be the only option for many.
If you are struggling to make decisions for yourself on your own, consider how many women through time and around the globe have not been allowed to make decisions for themselves ever.
Think about the limitations and lack of freedom placed on generations of women past, consider the lack of options available to your grandmother, or her grandmother, or hey — think about the women of Saudi Arabia who weren’t granted the right to drive until 2017.
We have to stop making ourselves victims here. We have to stop feeling sorry for our own independence.
Your freedom and privilege to decide, choose, or even assess your options — it’s someone else’s dream.
5. Remember that nothing is permanent.
One of my faaaavorite things to remember when the sting of, “WHAT DO I CHOOSE!?” hangs heavy in the air:
Pretty much everything is fix-able, change-able, and figure-out-able.
With the exception of kids and face tattoos, you can takesies-backsies on just about anything in this life. (And the face tattoo removal technology is getting better all the time!)
You can make a decisions, and then make a new, better, more informed decision down the road.
And honestly — no one is watching you as closely, or grading you as harshly, as you are in your own pretty little head. 😉
Life is generously willing to grant you lots of do-overs, and future opportunities for new decisions to be made. So try not take all this DECISION-MAKING stuff too seriously or strenuously…
Step back, take a breath, and remember:
You really, really can’t fuck this up. You can weigh the options, tune into yourself, trust your intuition, and just let yourself decide already.
And then decide again…and then decide again…because there will always be more to choose and expand into.
You/we/all of us…we got this.