Analysis Paralysis
Why decision making is hard (and what you can do about it)
It’s estimated that the average person can make up to 35,000 decisions a day and in the age of information, we need to make more decisions and often with a pressure for them to be made quicker. Yet making that many decisions day in and day out can lead to decision fatigue (or decision exhaustion), which is where we begin to make poorer choices after a stint of making lots of decisions. Ever got to the end of a working day and asked a partner or friend what they want to eat for dinner? Highly likely you ask this as you’ve reached the point of not wanting to make anymore decisions!
Decisions, decisions…
When we’re confronted with several valid options as part of our decision making process, we agonise over which option is the ‘best’ option, we end up in an analysis paralysis. That is, where we’re paralysed from making a decision in turn leading us to feel weighed down by it, or where fear shows up in the form of ‘what if I make the wrong decision?’. So we freeze and do nothing. Time passes… we hope that somehow the decision will be made for us and we can be free from all responsibilities - guilt-free because by not having made the decision, if it’s the wrong one then it’s not our fault as we didn’t make it. Here’s the problem; you might begin to dislike the life you have.
Harsh words - maybe. But here’s the science bit. Rebecca Shiner conducted a psychological experiment to understand what happens when people have reversible vs irreversible decisions. In her paper she asked participants to rank order posters they liked from a small selection, then offered them the chance to take one of the posters home. One group were told they could change their poster at the next session if they decided they didn’t like it once they got home and the other group were told to take home a poster they liked. (You can find the full paper here). I’ll admit, my previous understanding would have been that providing others with reversible decisions encourages their own sense of autonomy - a belief that I also applied to my parenting approach. What the evidence from Shiner’s 2015 paper shows is that the people with a reversible decision regarding their choice of poster (those who were told they could change it if they disliked it once home) were less satisfied with their choice! They disliked their poster, and all the other posters!
The participants who made an irreversible decision reported higher levels of satisfaction. Not only that, but the irreversible decision-makers expressed really loving the poster they had and when they had to rank the same posters in order of preference, they put their poster first. Demonstrating that when we make a decision irreversible then the likely outcome is one of satisfaction.
Another interesting nugget was, to quote:
“the irreversible version as a means of preventing needless worry or second guessing.” Shiner, 2015.
That is to say, when the decision is made irreversible then there’s no agonising over whether the right decision was or wasn’t made. Our anxiety and fear are less likely to show up to the after-party - or even if they did then they have less chance of gaining entry. So if the decision is final, the business becomes finished and consequently the person can move on. Ahhh a sigh of relief all round.
Often our analysis paralysis is attached to making a decision reversible. Storytime!
Recently my partner needed their first pair of glasses. In the opticians they had several pairs they’d reduced their choices down to - a plain pair, a relatively ‘techy’ style pair and a bold pair of glasses were the contenders. Inadvertently, the ophthalmologist suggested that as this was their first pair they could always come back in a year and choose something a little bolder. We continued to discuss the choice of spectacles for 45 minutes, at which point I began to clear away some of the choices. As I did so, my partner expressed their sense of loss at not having the bold pair. (Admittedly, not everyone is married to a therapist and so might not express the term loss at purchasing glasses but… ). Upon realising and acknowledging that they wanted the bold pair, they made the decision to buy them and they now sport them daily. Can you see the threads of similarity between this and Shiner’s 2015 paper?
An important theme I’ve briefly mentioned, is that of loss. Whenever we make a choice, there is a loss that also happens (for the decision or route we don’t take).
It can be hard for us to make a decision because we fear the potential loss involved.
And I think that’s important to acknowledge. Fear and loss may be around for you which prevents the clarity you need to make a decision. Or if fear and loss are around it may be a feeling you tend to avoid or dismiss in your life, which again makes decision making harder. So how do you gain clarity? There is no simple answer to that. Some people require more information to make a decision, for others it might be speaking with others who are in an arena / profession they’re considering moving into for example. The one thing I would suggest considering is… listening to your gut.
Hear me out! This isn’t a wishy-washy woolly principle but nerdily sits in neuropsychology. (You’re reading the words of a proud Steminist :p ) Your gut uses the same neurotransmitters as your brain, which is why it’s often called the ‘second brain’. But more than that, you have a part of your brain called the Basal Ganglion which is where we store habits and also serves another purpose as it encodes our emotional experiences to life, events etc. Why is this important? The basal ganglia isn’t connected to the hippocampus - so whilst it can remember the emotional response it can’t communicate with the hippocampus to recall the memory that first created the emotional response. However! The basal ganglia is connected to the limbic system which… you guessed it… is part of the ‘gut-brain axis’ (here’s another link to the relevant paper). The stored emotional responses from previous experience can literally show up in our tummies. Which is why creating a balance between brain and gut can aid with your decision making processes.
Another interesting nugget…
This paper from 2016 showed that mice who were given certain probiotics then had increased production of GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid, not the music choice from the rave era) which is a neurotransmitter that helps to lessen anxiety and fear. More GABA, less fear/anxiety. This is how the ‘gut-brain’ connection works to impact our emotional states.
Science is cool y’all!
When it comes to making a decision, it’s OK to make pros and cons as long as it aids you in reaching a decision point and doesn’t become a form of procrastination. Most importantly, show up to your decision making by becoming response - ABLE. Having others, or time, make decisions for you can leave a sense of dissatisfaction.
I’d invite you to:
Play with the different options; choosing a “what happens when…” rather than an anxiety inducing “what if”.
What occurs for you emotionally, sensationally or in your imagination when you play with having chosen a particular option?
Do certain people show up when you imagine what it might be like to have made a particular decision - and what influence does their presence have on you?
How might the decision be irreversible - and what comes into your awareness when you make it concrete?
And conversely when you need others to make a decision, perhaps in your job, education or parenting, how could you make the decision irreversible? What happens when you do that?
Well, this post is about 4 times longer than I’d planned as I got my nerd on! I hope it’s given you something to chew over and that it may prove useful in some small way.
