3 Ways Fear Impacts Your Decision Making Abilities
Fear is one of the chief culprits to a miserable life. In decision making in particular, it corrupts your approach to and the results of your decisions in at least three ways.
1. Causing You to Overthink a Decision.
There are some people who are like the old Lexus slogan: “In the relentless pursuit of perfection.”
People like Larry. He is trying to make sure his life turns out perfect. As a result, he anxiously tries to pick the perfect career, the perfect city in which to move to, and that perfect someone who will make his life, well, perfect!
People like Larry overthink many decisions because they are afraid of making “the wrong decision.” As a result of this fear, they put way too much pressure on themselves to make the perfect decision, and to look at the situation from every conceivable angle.
It is good to carefully and deliberately evaluate a situation and try to make the best possible decision. Just be aware there are certain situations in which a very deliberate approach is the worst possible way to make a decision.
The problem with overthinking a decision
The problem with Larry is that because of his fear of making a mistake (and putting a ton of pressure on himself), he often experiences paralysis analysis.
“Hey, Larry! What did you decide to do about that situation?”
The over-thinker is afraid of making the “wrong” (regrettable) decision based on variables they can’t know.
“I am looking at other job possibilities because I don’t like my current job.”
But, what if I take a different job and I don’t like it, but then the economy tanks and I can’t find another job? Or the company has financial problems and I get laid off?
The reality of your situation
You can’t control, predict or guarantee the future. You can’t see every possible factor that influences an outcome, or every variable that may occur in the future.
At some point, likely many times, you WILL make a less than optimum decision.
But guess what? You’ll be ok, even if you aren’t experiencing your perfect world (which BTW doesn’t exist). Plus, there often are multiple good options. Don’t sweat it out over the one option that is “perfect” when there are actually several “excellent” options.
2. Putting Off Your Decision
Sometimes the fear of making the “wrong” decision leads you to procrastinating on a decision.
Once again, there is wisdom in not making a hasty or impulsive decision. Giving yourself a little time and distance can help clarify things.
But, putting off of a decision often is the product of fear. The thinking is that as long as you don’t decide, you are protecting yourself from making a bad decision.
Wrong. Not making a decision IS a decision.
It is not unusual for an option or two to disappear entirely because you put off the decision. By not deciding, you by default have decided and may have even lost some of your possible options.
Making easier decisions harder
In addition, by putting off a decision you often make a relatively easy decision more difficult.
For example, by not deciding on how to deal with a problem employee, the issues don’t go away… but get bigger and often more complex.
Warren Buffet’s business partner Charlie Munger once observed:
“The difference between a good business and a bad business is that good businesses make one easy decision after another. The bad businesses make painful decisions time after time.”
In other words, make decisions when they need to be made, in the earlier stages when they are easier and haven’t turned into big, often painful decisions.
3. Short-Term Fear = Long-Term Problems
When you let fear of making the wrong decision have its way, it can impact your ability to make good decisions far into the future.
Why?
Because decision making has a dimension of skill to it. The more you do it the better you get at it. On the flip side, if you habitually put off or delay your decisions, you end up making fewer decisions. Your decision skills don’t grow and you never get better at it.
If you want to consistently make better decisions, then make decisions often. Don’t let fear keep you from developing these skills and practices.
To Summarize:
- Fear can lead us to overthink a decision, factoring in variables you have no way to predict. This can lead to analysis paralysis and often crazy decisions.
- Fear can cause us to put off or avoid some decisions, which often results in lost options and worse decisions, not better.
- Fear can reduce the number of decisions you make so that over time your decision-making abilities do not improve. Every decision is unnecessarily hard and often comes with poor results.
Resync Mediation is built specifically to take the fear out of the decision making process and help you feel at ease with the right information, the right support and as much time as you need to consider your decisions.