There must be something we all recognize. It is a situation where you are unable to make a decision because you doubt yourself too much. It can be when you are buying pasta sauce, spending weeks comparing different laptops and not buying anything because you are uncertain. Or when you face a big decision in life such as changing jobs, breaking up with your partner or moving on.
Not being able to make decisions has many consequences which can be costly. This is where life coaching enters. Not as therapy for past trauma, life coaching is a structured partnership designed to clear the fog and build your decision-making muscle from the inside out. Continue reading to find out how life coaching can help you beat indecision and gain clarity.
Why Indecisiveness Happens?
Indecision has its roots that are not caused by some form of laziness or stupidity. They are the result of other factors. These are some common reasons behind being stuck with a choice.
- There are too many options: The human brain has a hard time comparing numerous things in its head. When a person finds themselves with 20 laptops or 50 vacation deals, their decision-making system stops functioning properly.
- Lack of clarity about personal values: Without knowing your core values and their hierarchy it is impossible to make a choice since everything starts to look equally attractive and equally flawed.
- Fear of a wrong choice: The belief that a bad decision will be permanent or catastrophic leads to choosing nothing. No choice feels safer than a wrong one, even though inaction is often the costliest option.
- Perfectionism: People who expect 100% certainty before doing anything are doomed not to do anything ever because such certainty doesn’t exist.
- Low self-trust: When people realize how many mistakes they made in the past, they stop trusting themselves and their judgement.
Ways to Deal With Indecision and Uncertainty Using Life Coaching
A life coach doesn’t offer easy answers, but it can help you build a system that works for you. Here is how that system operates in practice.
- A Structured Decision-Making Framework Replaces Mental Spinning
The human brain tends to think in circles and keep repeating the same thoughts. To prevent this from happening, your life coach gives you a tool called a decision balance sheet. Here pros, cons, implications of action, and inaction are compared against each other. The result of applying this system allows you to gain clarity. After applying this framework a few times, the client understands the process and can use it independently for any future choice.
- Core Values Are Revealed with Accuracy
People always believe they know their personal priorities. However, it is not true. Their calendars and financial accounts say another thing. Using tools such as value cards and ranking exercises, your life coach reveals your true priorities and values and puts them in order of importance. A client might claim family is the top priority, but the exercise shows autonomy or financial security ranking higher based on past decisions. Once the true values are clear, every choice becomes a simple alignment test.
- The Cycle of Perfectionism Is Interrupted By Introducing Rules
One reason why people remain indecisive is perfectionism. There is always something that is missing and needs to be considered. However, perfectionism prevents people from making progress because they want 100% certainty. That kind of perfectionism has been stopped by a simple but effective principle known as the 70/30 rule. This means that 70% of necessary information is gathered and the rest will come along the way.
- Self-Trust Is Developed by Taking Small Steps
It is impossible to increase self-trust in decision-making simply by repeating positive affirmations. Only experience and actions can do that and it happens through a carefully selected series of small decisions. Those decisions don’t have huge consequences but they still require you to put some effort into solving a problem or answering a question.
- Examining the Fear and Catastrophic Thinking Objectively
Making decisions is scary, partly because the fear of making the wrong decision is usually based on unexamined catastrophic predictions. A life coach poses some very specific questions about the consequences. What is the worst thing that could happen? What is the likelihood of this happening? What is the action to take if it happens? It reveals a lot and helps deflate inflated fears. Not every wrong decision is permanent and final. It is simply a change of direction.
Practical Tips to Apply Right Now
It is always important to know some useful theories but in reality, it makes much more sense to implement practical strategies immediately. Here are specific techniques that can be used immediately, without a coach present, to cut through indecision.
- The two-minute rule for small decisions: For any decision involving less than fifty dollars or less than five minutes of effort, flip a coin or pick the first option. Flip a coin or simply select the first thing you saw. There is no need to waste cognitive capacity on something that is of little value.
- The pros and cons list with weight: Make a list of all pros and cons, but give them numbers from one to ten, showing their importance. A single con, which is rated as seven, weighs more than three pros that are just two.
- Visualization technique: Imagine that there is a deadline of six months ahead. You already have selected one option. Visualize yourself, feeling and seeing how you feel now. Do the same exercise imagining that you chose another option. This one works great because it lets you listen to your intuition.
- The 10-10-10 rule: Ask yourself how this choice will look like after ten minutes, in ten months, or after ten years. Most people get scared of consequences that will arise right after making a decision but will forget about them in a year’s time.
Conclusion
Indecision is a solvable skill issue. Filtering through information, making choices based on personal values, tolerating uncertainty, and acting confidently according to them is a skill that can be acquired. And life coaching offers the necessary framework for building that skill. There is no need to wait for the perfect timing anymore. No need to consult ten people for their opinions.
Just practical frameworks, accountability, and results. If clarity and forward movement are the goals, Mohit Verma provides the path. Reach out and make the first decision today.