Thoughts on indecision

Often we find ourselves indecisive, especially when it comes to important things in our life like career or choosing a partner.

We feel indecisive because we’re afraid of making the wrong decision.

We make pro and cons list and we analyze hoping that a decision will emerge on its own.

But when we feel indecisive, what is really going on here? What is it that we’re trying to avoid? What makes it hard to make a decision?

The root of indecision is the fear of regret

We think deeply and go through all of this analysis so that we make the “right” decision. When we make the right decision we won’t regret anything and we’ll be happy….Right?

I don’t think so. Here’s why…

I want to explore a couple of different questions:

How do we define the best decision and how do we go about making it?

Where does the fear of regret come from?

What makes a right decision and what makes a wrong decision?

How can we make “better” decisions?

How do we define the best decision and how do we go about making it?

In general, we make plans because we want things to go well so that we end up in a place we want to be. For example, I may do tons of research to pick a subject I want to major in for college. Interestingly, we often make plans at the very beginning where we have little to no information about the true implications of a decision. We may research all we want, but until we have actually moved forward with a decision, it is all theory.

Technically, the only way that we can make the best decision is if we make a decision, see it through completely, then go back in time to tell ourselves if it was right or not.

Unfortunately, we don’t have access to time travel so the best we can do is collect information, iterate, and course-correct.

Where does this fear of regret come from?

The idea of iteration seems like common sense, but why is it so hard to implement? I believe it is because of our societal conditioning.

In school, our final grade is determined by a weighted average of assessments that a student must do throughout the term. If I failed every assessment but somehow aced the final and had complete knowledge of all the material, I would still fail the course because I failed previous assessments.

We are graded by the amount of mistakes we didn’t make rather than our actual competence in a subject.

It doesn’t matter that we now understand the material at the very end of the course. The fact that we failed previous assessments will live with us throughout our term. It has done permanent damage.

To address this, many of us spend a lot of time studying, researching, and practicing to ensure that we get the best outcome in an assessment. This strategy works great for school but not for how we should live life.

When taken too far, we can feel paralyzed in our life choices because the consequences of the wrong decision feels like it will live with you for the rest of your life, just as those failed assessments did.

But what about decisive people? How do they do it?

You may come across people who just make decisions and stick to them with conviction.

They don’t need to invest tons of time and effort researching and just make a decision for themselves and end up succeeding.

People like this used to boggle my mind. How are you so sure of yourself? You can’t read the future, so how do you know that this is going to work?

But I realized something. I realized that the conviction and commitment to the decision itself is what made the decision successful.

It was the way that these people committed to a decision that ultimately determined their outcome.

Their success wasn’t determined by the decision itself, but rather what happens after they made the decision.

I used to wrongly assume that the rightness or wrongness of a decision is deterministic. That once a decision is made I can feel relieved and mentally check out. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

What I had missed was the fact that we have an ability to shape the outcome. That the rightness of a decision is determined after the choice, and not before it.

So, how do I make better decisions?

The idea of the “best decision” is illusory. It is a mental model that our mind uses to help us avoid bad outcomes and achieve our goals. But when taken to an unhealthy extent, it can lead to paralysis.

To avoid this we must realize that there is no best decision. We just have to pick whatever feels best right now.

Picking the thing that “probably feels right” is a good starting point.

Most importantly, regardless of what we choose, we should commit fully to a decision recognizing that it may not be the right choice. We should be open to mistakes and have faith that if it doesn’t work out we can iterate!

Doing this will feel foreign, uncertain and wrong. But unless you can time travel or explore alternate timelines, course-correction is the only way us humble humans can make better decisions.

Over the course of your life you’ll make and commit to more and more decisions. Some will yield positive results and some will yield negative results, this is perfectly normal.

As long as we’re able to make decisions with full commitment, we can collect information and make better decisions in the future.

“Successful people don’t make the right decisions. They make their decisions right.”