There are fourteen tabs open, and they compare two things that are nearly the same. You have asked five people. You decided on Tuesday and undid it on Wednesday. At a restaurant you order last, and then wish you had ordered what they did. Before I commit to anything new I have to research all of it. I can lose a whole day checking whether I'm choosing right.
Some decisions are hard because they are large or can't be undone, and taking a long time with those is good sense.
01
What you do with a decision
It may be the same whether the decision is a job or a lamp.
You gather more information than the choice needs. You ask around. You make lists of reasons. You decide, feel relief, and then start checking whether you decided correctly.
Sometimes you wait until the choice is made for you by a deadline or by someone else.
People call it being indecisive, or a perfectionist. I'm so indecisive and unsure.
It can cost you the time, and the things that expired while you were choosing. The people waiting on your answer may stop asking for one.
02
What the delay may be protecting
"Being wrong isn't a mistake. It feels like a verdict."
A choice can be wrong, and under Right being wrong is the thing to avoid. Not choosing may be the one way to be sure of not choosing badly. I'm gripping the whole time. Is this where I'm meant to be? Are these my people? Did I pick right?
Read about Right →"I'm still working for someone who may not even be watching anymore."
The choice may be waiting on one person's view of it. Under Approval, you may know what you want and not know whether they would accept it. Everyone else in my family has come around. One person hasn't, and that's the one I keep trying to convince.
Read about Approval →"Stillness is where it catches me."
A choice sets something moving that you can't fully manage. Under Ahead, the research may be an attempt to see the whole outcome before starting.
Read about Ahead →Others are possible, and it may be no rule.
03
What is under the rule
Under Right, the fear may be that if you are wrong about this, what else are you wrong about. What would answer it is being able to remain yourself while someone thinks you are wrong.
Under Approval, the fear may be that without their verdict you don't know what you are worth. What would answer it is an internal measure that doesn't require ratification.
Under Ahead, the fear may be that if you stop managing, something goes wrong again. What would answer it is safety that doesn't require vigilance.
More information answers none of the three. You may have noticed that the fifteenth tab did not help.
04
Two questions, in order
First, for Right and Ahead. Control the outcome, or avoid being wrong?
Control the outcome is the Ahead answer. Avoid being wrong is the Right answer.
Second, for Right and Approval. Does it matter less if the person correcting you is someone you don't respect?
Think of someone telling you that you chose badly. Yes, much less is the Approval answer. No, wrong is wrong whoever says it, is the Right answer.
There is no question for Ahead against Approval. Going by the two rules themselves, Ahead is about never being caught unprepared and Approval is about one specific person. That is a place to look and not a test.
If neither question helps, there is not enough to tell yet, and that is a result.
Plenty of indecision is not a rule. You may be missing a fact that really matters. The options may be equally good, in which case the choice is hard because it is close. What to look at is whether small choices, with nothing riding on them, take as long as large ones.
The questions above are subtraction. It removes the explanations that don't fit your own examples and adds none.
05
One thing to try this week
Pick one small decision each day for three days. What to eat, which route to take, which of two shirts.
Decide within one minute, and don't revisit it.
Each evening, write one line about what you thought would happen if you got it wrong.
What the same checking looks like after a conversation is on I Overthink Every Conversation After It Ends.