How I Overcame My Fears Of Making The Wrong Decisions

I used to obsess over making the best possible decision, no matter how small.

Blaming the long walks on the dog, so I could buy by myself time to ponder on the perfect solutions, never feeling any closer to knowing what I wanted.

I debated the question at hand with friends and experts online.

I couldn’t stop wondering if I had made the right choice and was never satisfied with the choice I made.

Was there a better product out there or a better way of doing this that I had missed?

Could I be happier with something or someone else?

I approached every decision as a problem that needed to be analyzed and made an endless pros and cons list.

I reasoned; Why settle with an average decision when I was only a few hours of research away from the perfect decision.

Of course, the perfect decision never saw the light of day, and I was always left in the darkness walking the streets of wonderland.

Obsessing if I had made the best possible decision.

In this article, I would like to share a more constructive approach to making good decisions so that you can feel more at peace.

Maximizers

The American economist’s political scientists and cognitive psychologists Herbert. A Simon was the first to describe maximizers as a personality profile and a 1956 paper:

Maximizers are a special type of perfectionist:

They explore every possible option before making a decision.

This compulsion becomes intimidating or overwhelming.

On the other end of the spectrum are satisficers:

When faced with a vast number of possibilities, they have standards, but they don’t lie awake at night concerned that there might be something better out there.

They know their preferences and dealbreakers, and they investigate different options until they find a good enough option.

In the eyes of the maximize, they are settling, but in reality, they are satisfied making a decision once they have found some evidence and identified a satisfactory option.

Like all things in life, I can fall on the spectrum between these two extremes, or I may be a maximizer in some parts of my life and be a satisficer in others.

In short, if I am a maximizer, I obsess over all my decision-making.

I used to be convinced that my analysis would ultimately make my life better, but that is not only incorrect but harmful.

Satisficer

The tipping point for me came when my maximizing tendencies negatively affected my relationships.

I had dated a woman for several years, and while she was ready to get married and start a family, I was still wondering if maybe there was some better option out there that I had missed.

After waiting for me to catch up for an entire year, she made a good decision;

She left me. That was 27-years ago. After that, I was done maximizing my life, it didn’t work.

I won’t lie. The transition was brutal at first, and to burn my old self at that age was uncomfortable, but so was being a maximizer.

After a while, I started to see evidence that indicated that I could make good decisions, resulting in a more peaceful and happier me.

I always thought if I settled, I wouldn’t keep my high standards.

The most frightening story I told myself was that being satisficers meant my standards wouldn’t be met.

Life called bullshit on my delusions, and I had now were to hide.

One day after making a decision, I found myself satisfied and not wondering what else could be out there.

That was the first time that had happened since I was ten years old.

Without looking back, I emerged myself in a new mantra:

Good enough.

I slowly started to reframe my old belief that if I just put down the right amount of work into it, I would arrive at the perfect decision and have absolute confidence in my decision.

The voice in my head started to question perfect decisions and complete certainty.

One day after making what I usually would have considered a hard decision, I found myself writing the following:

The perfect decision and complete certainty don’t exist + It’s better to be a satisficer.

I felt a huge relief as the tears ran down my face. I could see how badly I had treated myself my whole life.

Why was I like this?

I was plagued by anxiety, not just FOMO (fear of missing out), but I had a deep-seated fear of making the wrong decision.

I had lived in the delusion that maximizing somehow would help me make a perfect choice, and if I just made a perfect choice, It would alleviate my anxiety and discomfort.

But you know what? Perfection never comes, and chasing perfection always generates feelings of failure.

Summary

Today I am a proud satisficer and try to inspire and support others to join my club.

For most of human history, religious leaders, our families, and communities have been the ones who tell us what to think, what to wear, what to consume, how to act, what to believe.

Today social media has become the religious leader.

It might seem that I have the freedom to express myself more fully, but behind all these choices, lies pressure, to get it right, and display my perfect story.

In the past, I got caught up in analysis, paralysis so easily, setting myself up for a miserable life.

The bottom line here is that I have no one to blame, and everything is up to me.

I can choose to think about this question in two ways:

⊢ The objective result

OR

The subjective experience ⊣

One is the quality of my choice and the other how I feel about it.

I was constantly second-guessing myself as a maximizer, creating suffering for myself not once but twice.

The first time was chasing the perfect choice, then the second time around the anxiety I felt after making my decision.

Sounds familiar or painful? Well, that is because it is.

Author Barry Schwartz explained what separates maximizers and satisficers like this:

As a Maximizers, I might make good decisions and end still end up feeling bad about them.

As a Satisficer, it is not the quality of my decisions, and it’s how these decisions make me feel. To make good decisions and feel good about them.

Dr. Schwartz has developed a 13-step test to assess a person’s decision-making orientation.

Each statement is scored on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).

The higher your score, the more of a maximizer you are.

No matter how you did on your test, know this friend:

I used to get 7 on all 13 questions.

My satisficer decision-making style is not something I was born with, and it is something I have cultivated over years of trial and error, and so can you!

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope this was helpful, and please share it with the world.

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Previously Published on medium

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