I Don't Know Which Decision to Make

“I don’t know which decision to make” is perhaps one of the most common sentences spoken by people who are insecure with themselves.

Making decisions means being responsible for their consequences. That’s why they’re usually not made lightly, especially if they’re really important decisions.

Why can’t we make decisions?

In reality, we all know how to make decisions. But we doubt which decision is the correct one, and that paralyzes us.

Making a decision is easy, as long as we feel secure with ourselves.   It’s our insecurity that prevents us from making important decisions in life. That, and our fears.

What does it mean to be insecure?

Feeling insecure means not being focused on ourselves because we’re too worried about what other people will think of our decision. We don’t know how to make decisions when we base them on what other people want from us or how they’d feel about it.

In this situation, insecurity just grows and grows, and so does our indecision and fear, entering into a vicious cycle with no way out, making us feel more and more paralyzed.

How can you start to feel secure with yourself?

Feeling secure involves having a good self-esteem, having good relationships with others, valuing who we are, and knowing our strengths and weaknesses. It involves knowing ourselves, our values and desires.

How to make decisions

When we’re faced with various options that we have to choose between, in the first place, we must feel connected with ourselves and know who we are and where we want our lives to go. That way, we’re not focused on what other think about our options; we’re focused on ourselves.

And secondly, it’s important to take time to reflect on each option, evaluating all the pros and cons. We should contrast the things that convince us with the things that limit us. The best way to evaluate the pros and cons is to give them a numerical value so that, depending on the importance of each one, we assign them a value between 0 and 5, for example.

This way, it will be easier to use the numbers to contrast how important the reasons behind each option are and see what would be more beneficial to you.

In order to be useful, it’s important that the values you assign are sincere, that they’re based on your own interests, and not on the interests of other people. They’re not the ones who have to make the decision, you are.

Going from making the decision to acting on it

Once you’ve evaluated each option, you should act according to the results. All that’s left now is to communicate your decision to others, explaining your reasons, how much you valued each one, and how you came to a conclusion.

Afterwards, act on the decision you made so you can guide your life to the right path, and always remember the reasons that brought you to that point.

What about fear?

Any change in life can cause fear, which makes you doubt whether you’re making the right decision or not.

But who knows which decision is the right one? The only person who can decide what is right for you is you.

The mistakes that we make serve as opportunities to learn. People walk through life blindly, not knowing what lies ahead. So once we’ve evaluated the reasons for our decisions, it’s best to move forward, overcoming and facing our fears.

The worst decision would be to not make a decision at all, because it stops us on our path, and the consequences of that are much worse than the consequences of our chosen path, which corresponds to our deepest desires and values.