Make Hard Decisions Easy

What to do when there's no obvious choice.

[A note from me before we get to the good stuff: these articles will now be monthly to allow me to write for other publications as well as my own. If you'd like to keep reading my work weekly, feel free to join my community who enjoy the 2-minute mid-week read. Thank you for your support!]

Remember the last time you had a gut-wrenching decision to make? Perhaps you wrote endless pros and cons lists, leant one way, then the other, asked friends and family for advice and deliberated until the deadline.

I recently watched an old episode of The Office (US version) where new manager Jim takes the diligent pro’s and con’s list approach to the difficult decision of who within the team should get a raise. Meanwhile a disapproving Michael heckles “Jim! You think too much. Sometimes the smartest people don’t think at all.”

What if the smartest way to come to a decision is not to think about the details?

Whilst pros and cons lists can provide reassurance, they don’t outweigh a strong gut reaction?—?this is the basis upon which many of our decisions are made.

Psychologist Dr. Mary Lamia explains “We ignore the fact that gut decisions have more data than anything we can put on paper”.

But what if the gut reaction doesn’t come when we want it to? Here are some ways to tease it out.

These articles will now be monthly. If you’d like to hear from me weekly, I’d like to invite you to my 2-minute mid-week read.

Trust that solutions will present themselves

When we have a hard decision to make, we tend to go hunting for the solution, rather than waiting for it to come us. It has to be in there somewhere!

Instead, like a shower thought, we can let it come to us when it’s ready. But how to ignore the nagging pressure?

Do nothing: meditate, stare into space… zen buddhists recommend occupying the mind with koans?—?impossible questions like “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” designed to awaken deeper thinking.

Not your thing? Distract yourself.

Distract: listen to a podcast, go to the cinema, pick up a good book, learn French… replace your allocated “pros and cons list” time with whatever will keep thoughts at bay for longest. Allow the gut response to settle into its new home without bombarding it with questions.

Still no gut response?

Delay: explain to yourself why you have to make this decision now. Is there a possibility it can wait? Explore the consequences of seemingly impossible waiting strategies?—?what’s the worst that will happen if we miss the deadline? Sometimes we uncover more time than we thought we had.

Broaden Your Options

If you’ve given yourself time to sit with the decision (without endless pro and con lists), pondered a whole host of zen koans and still no gut reaction has surfaced, it might be because you’ve not narrowed to any compelling options.

The gut is clearly holding out for something better?—?what other options might exist? Under pressure to make a decision, the stress will elicit a “no! Of course I don’t have other options. That’s why I’m faced with this tough decision!” in response. Take a moment to reconsider and write even the most ridiculous options down?—?do they spark any ideas? There are often more options on the table than we first think.

Know it’s not your final answer

Sometimes we put too much pressure on a decision to be the right decision. Stanford Business School coach Ed Batista explains:

“our focus on making the “right” decision can easily lead to paralysis, because the options we’re choosing among are so difficult to rank in the first place. How can we definitively determine in advance what career path will be “best,” or what job offer we should accept, or whether we should move across the country or stay put? Obviously, we can’t. There are far too many variables.”

We wait for more information, more signals that one option is better than the other and ultimately, it never comes. We’re left paralysed, trying to make a decision on the basis of too little information.

Many of these big decisions feel big because we the data we have is small. If there’s no strong gut response, another path forward from decision paralysis is simply to know it’s not your final answer.

New job? Try it, and if it’s not for you, find something else.

Renowned author and coach Martha Beck spells out the simple cycles we all go through, regardless of the decision we make.

1. Do anything.
2. See if you feel warmer (happier, more alive) or colder (more miserable and dead) if you do X.
3. If it feels colder, go and do something else.
4. Repeat as necessary.

Beck is not wrong?—?we always have the option of doing something else. The decision we make today will give us the data we need to make a better decision tomorrow. Perhaps Michael was right?—?when it comes to tough decisions, sometimes the smartest people don’t think at all.

These articles will now be monthly to allow me to write for other publications. If you’d like to hear from me weekly, I’d like to invite you to my 2-minute mid-week read.