From Indecisive to Intrepid: Is It Possible?
Decisions are everywhere, from life-altering crossroads like switching careers to the everyday drama of deciding what’s for dinner. Some people can choose in a heartbeat. Others, like I used to be, check every item on the menu, think about how much I would enjoy each one, compare against the price, change tables, and make the waiter come three times before ordering something.
That could pass just as a personality trait, but when it comes to the big stuff — career changes, relationships, or changing cities — agonizing over every detail doesn’t just waste time; it can make you spiral into a stress saga, swallow opportunities, and leave your friends wondering why you transformed into a Doctor Strange, always talking about the 6328 possible futures that branch out from your dilemmas.
Decision-Making: The Muscle You Didn’t Know You Had
Here’s the thing: making decisions isn’t an innate talent like wiggling your ears or knowing when toast is about to burn. It’s a skill — one you can learn and train.
Most MBAs offer courses on business strategy where decision-making is a fundamental topic. It is also a field of interest in education, statistics, and psychology, because of that, the academic corpus on it is huge:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=decision+making
But you don’t have to do a master’s or read tons of papers to improve the speed and quality of your choices. After all, we all have some decision-making skills because we need them daily.
To make tough decisions easier, you need to train those skills. Think of it as a mental workout. Sure, you may not deadlift life-changing decisions right away, but you can start improving your day-to-day decisions.
First, try the basics:
- The Pros and Cons list, a trusty classic for the indecisive. There’s a version “on steroids” of this list that I find entertaining and helpful:
https://a.co/d/0MLNrbT - The SWOT matrix (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), a bit like a business meeting but for your life.
- And if you’re feeling advanced, the PrOACT framework, which turns decision-making into a full-blown strategy process.
Then, if you want to level up, some good books on the subject are:
- Smart Choices: A Practical Guide to Making Better Decisions
- Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work
- Streetlights and Shadows: Searching for the Keys to Adaptive Decision-Making
For the tech-savvy, let ChatGPT help you organize your thoughts. But tools and books alone won’t get you far because decision-making isn’t just theory, it’s a practical skill!
Getting your hands dirty
Before you become a decision-making ninja, here’s a plot twist: you can’t just read about it. Decision-making is like swimming — you can study every stroke, watch Michael Phelps tutorials, and buy goggles, but eventually, you’ll need to jump into the deep end.
Start with smaller decisions to warm up. Trust your gut when ordering at a restaurant or planning your weekend. Your instincts aren’t perfect, but they’re better than you think, and with practice, they’ll become sharper.
When Impulses Collide with Logic
Now, a word about instincts and impulsiveness. Blindly following every whim? Not great. Overthinking every step? Also not great. Most of the time, the sweet spot is around informed intuition — that magical middle ground where your gut feelings are grounded by just enough information.
It’s fine to trust your instincts but pause for a moment to check the stakes. Is this a high-impact decision or just a lunch order? Knowing the difference is half the battle.
The Beauty of Practice
Not all decisions will be winners, and that’s okay. Every choice — good or bad — teaches you something. Excessive doubt drains your confidence, while informed, quick decisions build it. The trick isn’t perfection; we live without previous rehearsals, and we learn from our mistakes, so don’t be so hard on yourself.
This approach has helped me become more determined, but don’t just trust my word, there’s scientific evidence that shows that quick decision-making is a process that can be learned and trained.
For example, investigators from Oxford University concluded that simple heuristic rules work well in a variety of scenarios like classifying patients with a high risk of having a heart attack or choosing a mate, scenarios where carefully analyzing all the variables and candidates might not be possible. [1]
Moreover, a study conducted at Mustafa Kemal University of Turkey, concluded that after participating in a decision-making skill training group, students not only improved that ability but also showed increased self-esteem and positive coping style scores of the students. [2]
So, the next time you’re faced with a decision, apart from solving the dilemma, be more conscious about the process and use it as training for your next big decision. And remember: even the best decision-makers sometimes stare blankly at a menu.