The Consequences of Indecision

Truth is, I’m pretty bad at making decisions. Well technically, the bad bit is that I just don’t make the decision at all. I’m very experienced in the full range of decision avoidance strategies - I go into a mini-panic, flip flop between choices, over-stretch myself to compensate, hope it’ll just goes away and/or that someone else (who’s so annoyed at me taking so long) will make the decision for me

You might wonder if this is really true but I’ve been doing it for so long now that I’m a master at cleverly hiding what I’m actually not deciding

Of course, the intention of my indecision is to avoid the pain of not make the ‘wrong’ choice. Can you imagine the shame I’d bring on myself - a human being who made a mistake and failed . And of course, the result of using indecision as a way to avoid pain is that I create a huge amount of pain, for myself and others who are wondering what the heck I’m doing (clearly, nothing)

Actually, making the decision is not that tricky. I know how to be a better decision maker - I just need to decide to be one. But when you’ve tied your worth very tightly to how many times you get things ‘right’, there’s a big knot to be untangled before any decisions can even be considered. I know, I’m not super-human and don’t get to have all my decisions miraculously be exactly right every time - I’m working on that one

There’s also the decision aftermath that has to be navigated. I need to be ready to back myself to handle whatever consequences come from my choice.

That I can do. I’ve made enough mistakes now to learn how to get myself out of very deep holes. And I’ve lived through enough crappy stuff (lots of it caused by indecision) to know that I can get through the patches of pain too.

So I wasn’t doing nothing during all those years of indecision - I was actually learning how to be a better decision maker, and live with the consequences. Don’t you love the human mind!