Why do we find it difficult to decide?

Let's see what are the psychological causes that often make it difficult for us to make a decision.

Making a decision implies adopting an active attitude towards the opportunities that life offers us and being able to improve our situation to a greater or lesser degree... as long as we make the right choice. It is therefore not surprising that something as simple as choosing between a few options is capable of making us very nervous.

It is not only an intellectual activity, nor does it consist of getting closer to the truth, but deciding usually has material consequences in our lives.

However, although we humans are good at making decisions (thanks to our capacity for abstract thinking), this set of skills does not come "for free". This is something that becomes very clear when we see that many people find it very difficult to make decisions. But... Why does this happen?

So... Why do we find it difficult to decide? In the following lines we will address this topic.

Why making a decision is psychologically demanding?

Making a decision increases our chances of adapting better to a challenge or problem that has come our way, but this psychological process has a cost. Let's see why.

1. It sets us up for failure

Every decision we make is an experience in which our mistakes can potentially come to light..

This fact alone is already a cost of decision-making: although technically making mistakes is raw material for our learning and perfecting certain skills, it wears down our self-esteem to a certain extent, although most of the time it is only temporary (we stop remembering most of the decisions we make in a relatively short time).

It may be that the opportunity to progress and learn from our failures allows us to be better at what we consider important and, in the medium and long term, reinforces our self-esteem, but some people adopt a more short-term logic and focus on trying to avoid making it obvious that they are not always right.

That is why, many times, in psychotherapy, part of the intervention program in patients consists of training in decision making.so that the aversion to the risk of being wrong is not a limiting factor in personal development and in the person's ability to be happy.

2. It requires effort

It may seem silly, but the fact that making a decision implies making an effort to think about something and to effort in thinking about something and reaching conclusions in a deliberate way. (i.e., reflecting to generate new information from what we already had) means that sometimes we prefer not to go through it.

In recent decades, a great deal of research has been conducted on the two main chains of cognitive operations: the automatic, spontaneous and agile, on the one hand, and the deliberate, slow, detailed and systematic, on the other. The latter requires much more concentration, time and energy, resources that we are not always willing to concede (if only because the situation does not allow us to do so).

3. It may be based on emotional ambivalence

Many decisions are not based solely on a pragmatic and instrumental assessment of which option to choose in order to reach a specific goal. Sometimes, what we have to choose between are schemes of interpretation of reality that are very emotionally charged for us..

For example, practically no one who is considering whether or not to leave his or her partner does so assuming it as a purely rational operation.

In these cases in which the choice is between perspectives that touch us in a very personal and/or practically existential way, it is easy for what is known as emotional ambivalence to arise.

In situations like this, we have developed a high degree of emotional connection with two possible scenarios, so that we do not fully dare to take a step and choose one of them, nor can we afford to give them up (at least, that's how we feel at the beginning)..

In the example of the hypothetical breakup of a couple, it is very common that those who are considering ending their relationship have fantasized about returning to singleness and have even convinced themselves that they have already decided to do so, feeling a sense of freedom... only to, five minutes later, discard that possibility completely and even feel bad for even having considered it. And so it goes on all the time, in a constant tug-of-war of expectations, emotions, personal priorities, future plans?

So, as some of these emotions are closely linked to the way we see ourselves, our future and even the physical or social reality in which we live, making a decision that forces us to choose is complex not only intellectually, but also in terms of managing our feelings, moods in general, etc.

4. It does not provide us with a clear reference on when to take action.

The process of making a decision takes us from one idea to another, as we move towards a conclusion about what we should do. However, it does not include any clear does not include any clear reference as to when it is time to move from thoughts to actionsThis is also part of the challenge of deciding what to do.

This lack of reference as to when we should take the final step means that we are sometimes caught in a vicious circle of indecision, because as time goes by, we extract more information from what we are thinking about, and this new information is accompanied by new questions. And although by pure statistics most of these new secondary or tertiary questions are not very relevant for deciding what to do, it is not always easy to detect which are important in a given situation and which are not.

That is why, some people get used to thinking about an idea all the time before making a decision, or they get used to thinking about what to do until they lose the opportunity to make a choice. to make a choice. The result of these unpleasant experiences can lead them to pay even more attention to the decision-making process, gaining a certain fear and feeding the vicious circle.

Are you interested in having the help of a psychologist?

If you are interested in having professional psychological assistance, please contact me.

My name is Javier Ares and I specialize in emotional problems addressing them from the support oriented to the individual patient and / or couple therapy. If you are interested in my services, you can do it either in person at my center located in Madrid or through the online modality by video call.