FInding it hard to make decisions...?

[17emilyhalko]

Does anyone else find it extremely hard to make decisions? My boyfriend will ask me what I want to do, but then my mind just freezes. I literally don't know what to do. I'm afraid that he thinks that I'm just being insensitive and indecisive, but it's not the case. I literally just don't know. When I'm asked, nothing matters anymore. What I want to do and what I know will make me happy flies out of my brain, and I just can't think. I think that I fear that my ideas will be rejected. And not knowing what to do makes me feel empty, because no matter what it is in life, I never know what to do. I wouldn't do much if I wasn't forced by someone.

 

[VanM]

I do sometimes find it hard to make decisions specially when there is a lot riding on the decision I'm supposed to make. I think for me it's the pressure that adds to the difficulty but I eventually end up making the decision. The other thing is the potential outcome of the decision that could trigger my anxiety. I think at some point, we will have to take ownership of our decisions, live with the consequences and not think about what other people would think of us. We need to start treating ourselves better, in my opinion.

 

[Aree Wongwanlee]

I think the root cause of procrastination is the fear of failure. We might put off making a decision for the simple reason that we worry that whatever decision we make would be the wrong one. I suffer from this problem very often. Many times, I would put off taking on an online job because I was worried that I would make a mess of it. So I have to force myself to go ahead by telling myself that the worse that can happen is that I don't succeed and I will definitely not succeed if I don't even try. That's right. If you try, there's a chance you may fail, but there's also a chance that you may succeed. If you don't try, it's 1000% guaranteed that you will not succeed.

 

[John Snort]

At times it can be hard to make decisions because we don't have a clear goal. To beat this, you need to set some goals. When you know what it is you want then next step would be to formulate some plan that will get you whatever it is you want. And once you have that plan, making decisions won't be that hard anymore because every decision you make will be to get you closer to the goal.

 

[fuzyon]

I think you're having a hard time making decisions because you feel like whatever you choose has the chance of making your boyfriend upset. That usually is a sign of low self-esteem and communication troubles. Have you tried talking to your SO about this.

 

[Alex]

When anxiety and depression kick in, it can make you indecisive and even the most confident person can sound confused and unsure, This can stem from a fear of making the wrong choice and then the anxiety around that to counteract it.


What you can try to do is discuss things and come to an agreed decision so then there is less pressure to make a decision alone. Also you have to try and think that whatever the outcome things will work out somehow and part of life is figuring that part out. Society conditions us into thinking making a poor choice makes us look weak and feeble, but many people have mad choices that weren't favorable and survived.

 

[kgord]

Yes, I have some of that as well. Even simple decisions about what to wear on a given day can be affected. It is not good when anxiety and depression can color your whole world. I think that many people


don't have too many people to talk to about decisions they want to make, and if they do, the people they talk to are not supportive of the decisions they want to make. It can be a real problem actually. I agree with what John says..but if you are ambivalent about the decisions in the first place, it is kind of hard to set a clear goal.

 

[Fae]

I often run into trouble with trying to make decisions, and the reason usually boils to one of two sides. One is social considerations. Will I be disappointing someone? Do I have read between the lines of what someone actually wants me to decide, even though they aren't telling me? I'm not terribly good with social navigation, and having to do it in order to make a decision both slows me down and wears on my mood.


The second is determining logistics. How am I going to get something done? Are the steps really the best possible steps? Struggling with logistics is actually a worse problem for me, as it happens far more often and can sometimes compound with social challenges in making decisions. Even an easy task like going to the store can turn into an hour long debate with myself about how to go to the store. Telling myself something like "shut up and do it" is the only way I can cut off the decision-making conundrum, but it only works temporarily.

 

[17emilyhalko]

I think you're having a hard time making decisions because you feel like whatever you choose has the chance of making your boyfriend upset. That usually is a sign of low self-esteem and communication troubles. Have you tried talking to your SO about this.

Yeah, I have definitely tried to talk to my boyfriend about this, though I'm afraid that he doesn't completely understand it to the full extent. I suppose that it's hard to understand unless you've experienced it yourself, and I suppose that he hasn't really experienced it, so it's understandable that he wouldn't understand it all, but I have communicated my feelings about the issue to him.

 

[lexinonomous]

It's hard to make a decision when you take other opinions into consideration. I am a person that often thinks about what other people would want too much. I will avoid doing the things I want to do, simply because I know that not everyone will enjoy it. That is where my struggle with decision making begins. I will agree to certain things that don't necessarily sound like fun, but I feel the need to do. The worst part about making a decision is when my boyfriend asks me where I'd like to eat. We generally like the same food, but sometimes we aren't craving the same things. I dislike when someone hands me the reigns and I can't figure out where to go.

 

[111kg]

I too have had this problem, but I solved this in a pretty simple way: whenever I am asked to take a decision, I just think what would bring me the most benefits, even if I want to do that stuff or not. I choose that option and work towards it, because if it will bring any benefits on the long term, why wouldn't I use it?

 

[Aree Wongwanlee]

At times it can be hard to make decisions because we don't have a clear goal. To beat this' date=' you need to set some goals. When you know what it is you want then next step would be to formulate some plan that will get you whatever it is you want. And once you have that plan, making decisions won't be that hard anymore because every decision you make will be to get you closer to the goal.[/quote']
You have a good point there. Consider this scenario. You are at a crossroads. So which road should you take? That depends on where you want to go, right? In our daily life, we are at crossroads all the time. There are many decisions which we make automatically without thinking about it. Like waking up in the morning. If it's a working day and we have to go to work, getting out of bed is an automatic decision. Reason being that we have to go to work. However, on a weekend, we may lie in bed wondering whether we should get up yet. Of course, if you have a picnic planned for the weekend, then there's no delay in deciding to get out of bed. Maybe this is the way to get ahead in life. Decide what we want out of life. Set long term goals. Set medium term goals. Set short term goals. Then wondering what to do becomes a thing of the past.

 

[DDNatureLover]

For me, it depends on the situation, and whether it's just me, or if someone else is involved. I have some things I don't enjoy doing, but other than that, I'm pretty open, so if someone else has a preference and I don't, i will often let him/her decide. Because I am so easy going about certain things, i do have a tough time deciding, but mainly because of my current situation. I didn't have as difficult of a time making a decision say of what to eat at a restaurant when I knew I'd be back there the next week, but these days, money is so tight, it could be a year or more before I get to eat at a restaurant again, so everything seems critical. If I have a few 'extra' dollars after the bills are paid, it's a choice among several necessities, and the decision is which is more critical, which is sometimes difficult to determine. This is why I say much of (not all of) my anxiety and depression are situational. If and when my financial situation changes(for the better), much of the stress caused by struggling over these decisions will disappear.

 

[djanx]

Well, my girlfriend can't take decisions either. I think its quite normal to be indecisive. You see, as long as you are indecisive about inconsequential things, its fine. But, if you are indecisive about important life changing decisions, then you should take the help of decision making models. I know it sounds strange, but the decision models that businesses use are effective, otherwise they wouldn't be using them. And so, you can borrow these models and use them to decide. I bet you've used a few of those models already.

 

[explorerX7]

Sometimes it will be difficult to make quick decisions. There may be a number of crucial pros and cons to consider before one may decide. Sometimes you  are forced  to make an instant reply. In this type of  situation, some people will just reply without giving much thought and hope it will work out positively,some others will just freeze up and not be able to give a decision because of anxiety issues. I usually follow my instincts when it comes to instant decision making.

 

[MandyMarieB]

This is one of my biggest issues! I'm so indecisive, and flipflop on things constantly. Resultingly, I get so worked up that I just crash. And its over silly things, too, like whether or not to go out to dinner with my family. I get so stressed, so frazzled, that I end up in bed crying for the rest of the evening. I hate it.

 

[Choochoo]

This happens to me all the time. Even the simplest decisions feel so huge to me or probably just looks that way on the outside since I do spend a lot of time thinking about what to do even for the smallest of things. Sometimes I'll be in a grocery store and couldn't decide how best to spend my budget and I'll spend minutes just walking around the same areas trying to calculate how I'll spend my money, which sometimes just leads me to getting tired and just buying anything mostly at random since I feel there's not much I could do even if I do think about it for the whole day.