Making the right decision can be an overwhelming task. This often comex\s from the fear of making decisions, which of course comes from the fear of making bad decisions.
We are all human, which means that from time to time we make bad decisions. It’s not a good feeling to find out you’ve made the wrong decision, is it?
In fact, it can be a bad feeling that we try to avoid it at all costs. This can be a good thing: if it allows us to evaluate our options more closely and use our willpower to do what is needed instead of having fun. But there are times when the fear of making a wrong decision can be a bad thing.
Not Making a Choice is a choice: Avoiding Decisions is often far worse than making a bad decision
Here is the problem with this fear of making the wrong choice. It can paralyze us and lead us to rethink, overly analyze and postpone a decision repeatedly. In these cases, it may be worse not to make a decision than to make a wrong decision. This can become so overwhelming that you develop the habit of avoiding decisions.
Making the right decision starts from stopping not deciding.
We have already seen that not making decisions will make you lose opportunities and fall into procrastination. So not making a choice is a choice.
Let’s take a look at an example. Let’s say you want to deposit money into a savings account every month so you can work on a down payment for your home. Make an appointment with the bank and receive three different options for savings accounts with different terms, fees and interest rates. You are afraid to choose the wrong one and postpone the decision again and again. A month passes, then three, then six, and a year has passed before you know it, and you have made no progress in saving money on this deposit.
Not Making a Choice and Avoiding Decisions is often worse than a random decision
It could sound weird, but often taking a random decision is making the right decision.
In our example, what happens if you take action and randomly select a savings account and, for example, choose the wrong account in which the earned interest has been completely consumed by commissions? You’d be better off doing nothing anyway.
Let’s say you decided to deposit $ 200 per month into this savings account. A year later you would have $ 2,400 in your account, a good start to realizing your dream of owning a home.
If you didn’t decide, you received $ 0 and didn’t come close to your goal. Do you see how idleness and the fear of making decisions can make you worse than a wrong decision?
Switching to safe-to-try decisions is making the right decision
In life, many things are a process. They are a sequence of steps the will lead you to your desired results.
This means that that every decision can be broken into a set of smaller, easier, safer decisions.
As Gustavo Razzetti points out at liberationist.org, we must shift from “right” decisions to “safe-to-try” decisions. This is also a very good cure for perfectionism.
You can safely decide for the next step and if something goes wrong, you’ll make different decisions in the following steps. Some decisions are reversible, so sometimes you can just step back and try a different option is your decision was not so good.
The current decision will propel you forward. Even if things won’t turn perfectly right, you’ll learn how things really works, and your next decision will have greater chance.
Developing the habit of making safe-to-try decisions will restore your decision-making ability.
From the fear of making decisions to making the right decision
What can you do instead? If you feel paralyzed with fear, imagine the worst result. Addressing your fear is the first step in overcoming it. It also helps to realize that not choosing can be worse than making a wrong decision.
Further, remember that most decisions are not permanent. In our banking example, it is easy to switch to a better account if you notice the mistake or notice something better.
Finally, try to put yourself under time pressure to overcome this fear and force yourself to make a decision.
Then you are making the right decision by committing to make this decision right.
This works this way:
- Give yourself a small amount of time (let’s say 5 minutes)
- Search any safe-to-try decision in this time frame
- If you got a safe-to-try decision, make that decision
- If you couldn’t find a safe-to-try decision, make a random decision anyway.
The other enabling point for your decision making ability is overcoming decision fatigue. We talked about this in various previous posts. Decision fatigue is a core inhibitor of your daily decision making and, when present, will sabotage all your decision making efforts. To overcome decision fatigue just click on the image below and engage in my free 5 day overcoming decision fatigue challenge.
Combining quick decisions as seen above and overcoming decision fatigue is the solid recipe to restore your decision-making ability and your trust in making the right decision. What you’ll gain by learning will be much greater than what you’ll lose by waiting. Try it; it will work for your life like a magic wand. Remember that this is not about making the right decision: is about taking a decision and making it right.
Developing the skill of making safe-to-try decisions is a core point in learning to make quicker decisions. Get more in my article: Discover How to Make Quicker Decisions – A Faster Decision-Making Process
Learning to overcome the fear of making decisions is also a core milestone if you want to develop your decision making skills. Make a point practicing this all days, until it will become easy and natural for you.
When you mix this with the power of making conscious choices, you’ll be able to re-create your life, and take charge of your goals. Be in charge and achieve your goals!
To go even further and turbo charge your decision making, check my new course.
See you next time!
Mark
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