Every day, we’re swamped with decisions from the moment we wake until we surrender to sleep. All of these choices hold us captive, drain our energy, and cause a storm of indecision. But why? And how can we overcome decision paralysis? Let’s explore these questions, the reasons behind our tendency for inaction, and how we can dare to decide.
The cost of choice
Take the simple choices we face daily: What are we going to eat? To snooze or not to snooze? Which show or movie to watch? While seemingly trivial, these decisions can monopolize our thoughts and energy.
As an example, when I moved into my new apartment and wanted to clean my floors, the process was anything but simple. From understanding the best products for cleaning wood floors to comparing different items based on quality and value, three days of work later, I ended up with a simple vacuum cleaner. And this was only one of the several items on my list to improve my space.
Resource constraints compounded the burden. As I tried to decide on the perfect vacuum, I had to consider my apartment’s limited space, budget, and recent struggles with removing unwanted items.
Sound familiar? We grapple with this in various forms all the time.
John Tierney of the New York Times writes of this phenomenon, highlighting how decision-making can become a debilitating process:
“[Economist Dean] Spears urges sympathy for someone who makes decisions all day on a tight budget. In one study, he found that when the poor and the rich go shopping, the poor are much more likely to eat during the shopping trip. This might seem like confirmation of their weak character — after all, they could presumably save money and improve their nutrition by eating meals at home instead of buying ready-to-eat snacks. But if a trip to the supermarket induces more decision fatigue in the poor than in the rich — because each purchase requires more mental trade-offs — by the time they reach the cash register, they’ll have less willpower left to resist the Mars bars and Skittles. Not for nothing are these items called impulse purchases.”
These findings reveal decision-making can be mentally draining and every conscious choice wears down resistance. This points to the hidden toll of our constant decision-making.
To cheat a choice
Indeed, the exhaustive nature of decision-making leads to unusual effects. For example, the abstract of a study on external factors in judge’s decisions predicted:
“Prior research suggests that making repeated judgments or decisions depletes individuals’ executive function and mental resources, which can, in turn, influence their subsequent decisions. For instance, sequential choices between consumer goods can lead to an increase in intuitive decisionmaking as well as a reduced tolerance for pain in a subsequent task. Sequential choices and the apparent mental depletion that they evoke also increase people’s tendency to simplify decisions by accepting the status quo. German car buyers, for instance, were more likely to accept the default attribute level offered by a manufacturer later in a sequence of attribute decisions than earlier, particularly when these choices followed decisions between many alternatives that had required more mental resources to evaluate. These studies hint that making repeated rulings can increase the likelihood of judges to simplify their decisions. We speculate that as judges advance through the sequence of cases, they will be more likely to accept the default, status quo outcome: deny a prisoner’s request.”
They found judges were ~65% likely to rule for a prisoner at a session’s beginning and following breaks to ~zero at a session’s end. The implications? If you desire change, get on the docket early; if you seek status quo, opt for a later slot.
Tierney reacted to the study with, “The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts.”
Choices are so agonizing that people forgo making decisions at all. This decision fatigue is why Barack Obama only wears grey or blue suits, and Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs wore the same outfits daily. They’re eliminating decisions to focus on what matters to them.
What chance do we have if decisions debilitate judges, world leaders, and tech moguls?
The shortcut of the status quo
But there’s more to decision-making than the fatigue of multiple small choices. The big decisions, like choosing a career path, whether to have children, or where to live, carry such profound implications that their weight can be overwhelming.
Therefore, we often stick with the status quo, persisting in a job we no longer love or maintaining relationships that drain us.
Why? The answer lies in our aversion to making decisions: we fear making the wrong choice, dread regret, and are terrified of the unknown.
Dissatisfaction about having to decide can create more unhappiness than any choice does. That is, having to decide is the worst outcome.
Yet, in not deciding, we make a choice—we choose inaction.
Many decisions are not between two different directions. Instead, they are between staying the same and changing.
In such scenarios, familiarity gives the status quo an undue advantage, as the unknown nature of change seems risky.
That makes changing really hard because we have to decide to change, while no decision is required to continue what we’re doing.
So we stay the same because we know what it’s like instead of opting for an unknown outcome, thus rejecting change. Status quo is our default setting when it’s too difficult to decide, like fatigued judges blanket rejecting prisoner requests.
Embracing the adventure of decision-making
However, what if we could approach decision-making differently? Instead of fearing bad decisions, regret, and the unknown, what if we saw life as a ‘choose your own adventure’ story? We’re the authors in this narrative; every choice propels the plot forward, adding richness and depth to your life. No right and wrong, instead opening doors to discover what’s behind them.
After all, what is life but making choices? If we avoid them, aren’t we avoiding life?
Lawrence Yeo’s post, The Many Worlds of Enough, said, “Whenever possible, you want to be the one directing the way your worlds branch, instead of having it be a mere reaction to events.”
Besides, few decisions matter. As Jonathan Bales, who’s made a life of decision-making, said about improving decisions, “The only mistake you can make with most choices is simply not making one: wasting time.”
By embracing this perspective, we can free ourselves from the tyranny of indecision and see decision-making as a chance to shape our lives actively rather than passively accepting what life gives us.
As Seneca said, “You will find that you are most alive when you are in movement, not at rest.”
Above all, have faith in your wisdom and intuition. Mistakes are not dead ends but stepping stones to learning and growth. You are capable, so trust yourself to handle whatever comes.
Your choices, your adventure, your life.
Dare to decide
Every day, we are barraged by decisions. Each choice and its complexity and resource constraints compound to make decisions difficult.
So we seek shortcuts, such as wearing the same outfit to remove decisions and sticking to the default option.
We get caught in this trap of indecision because we want to make the ‘best’ choice, fear regret, and are terrified of the unknown. This causes us to avoid decisions, not making them at all.
But we can transform our relationship with choices. Instead of avoiding decisions or opting for the status quo, embrace the adventure each choice presents. The best way to handle a decision is to decide.
What has been your experience with decision-making? Share your comments below. We would love to hear from you.
Remember, ‘This is my path, my adventure. Let’s see where it leads.’ May my path no longer include multiple days spent comparing vacuum specs.
Do you dare to decide?
