Ever taken a child to a toy store with $10 to spend? Chances are, if you have, you’ve endured the excruciatingly painful experience of watching a child who has absolutely no idea what they want, wasting an exuberant amount of time trying to pick something out from thousands of choices. Kids can be indecisive, fickle, and downright annoying. The good news is that adults can simply make decisions for their child when they’re taking too long.
But what happens when it’s other adults who can’t make up their minds? Come on, you know at least one person who struggles with indecision. You ask them if they want to go out to dinner, and it takes them 2-3 hours just to decide where to go. Then, when you finally get there, they can’t even decide between the shrimp and the lobster. They start asking you what you want, what you think might be better, what you would choose—when you’ve already decided on the lobster tail. When this person is a family member or spouse, all you want to do is shout, “Can you please make up your mind?”
The Struggle With Indecision: Small Choices Lead to Big Decisions
Or maybe you and your spouse go to Starbucks, just like you do every day. You know exactly what your wife is going to order, and yet she STILL takes 11 minutes to stare at the menu. She’s been ordering the same thing for 3 years, and you know she isn’t going to change her mind, but she still wallows in indecisiveness.
Indecisiveness. It’s frustrating, to say the least. Certainly, each of us has moments when we are unsure of what we want or what we should do. Making decisions isn’t always easy, especially when the decisions are big ones—like what kind of car to buy or which school district to send your child to. The reason so many people are afraid to make decisions, or become indecisive, is pretty clear: they worry about getting it wrong. The problem is, making NO decision, or letting someone else decide in the hopes that if something goes wrong, you won’t be the one to blame, only serves to rob you of what you really want in life.
Decision-making, a skill that should be fostered in adolescence, is a hallmark of success in life. According to Forbes magazine, women tend to be the most indecisive, veiled by a primal fear that being assertive in their decisions will make them appear “bitchy.” Oftentimes, women who know what they want, ask for it, go get it, and demand it, are the most successful—and the happiest. In truth, down deep, most of us—men and women alike—know what we want in life. We know what we want to eat for lunch, what we want to achieve, what we want our spouses to do, what we want for our children, and what we want from our careers. However, the fear of not getting what we want, especially once we clearly state it, can be overwhelming.
The flipside reality is that the only way to guarantee you won’t get what you want out of life is to never ask for it or state it aloud. Some people live by this motto, believing that by remaining silent participants in their own lives, they can either a) remain victimized or b) never be truly disappointed.
Seriously, though, that 6-year-old waving the $10 bill inside of Toys “R” Us is maddening. As adults, we need to step up to the plate and start asking for and deciding what we want—whether it’s something as simple as what to have for dinner or something as complex as our long-term goals. Consider the words of Winston Churchill:
“The only guide to man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.”
In short, what Mr. Churchill is saying is that we must be armed for life with the ability to make decisions for ourselves.
If you suffer from indecisiveness, start slow. Make simple choices every day and say them aloud. For small decisions, such as choosing a restaurant, follow your gut and give yourself no more than 60 seconds to decide. This will help you make decisions more quickly and reduce the stress of deciding between the steak special or the grilled chicken breast. In the grand scheme, small decisions don’t significantly impact your life long-term, but being able to make them swiftly and confidently will help you learn to handle bigger decisions when they arise.
When faced with bigger decisions, it’s always a good idea to write down the pros and cons in a clear and focused manner. Write what you want to happen at the top of the page, then weigh your options on paper, giving you a black-and-white blueprint of the potential outcomes.
The worst thing you can do is make no decision at all. Not only will you annoy the people in your life, but you’ll also stifle your personal growth. Start realizing that the worst thing about asking for what you want is that you may not get it exactly as you envisioned. But not asking for—or deciding what you want at all—only guarantees discontent.
