How to choose oneself when indecisive about making a decision

When faced with indecision, one can help make a decision by clarifying core needs, narrowing down options, evaluating potential outcomes, setting decision deadlines, and leveraging external opinions. Decision making difficulties may stem from insufficient information, excessive pursuit of perfection, or concerns about consequences, requiring a combination of rational analysis and intuitive judgment.

1. Clarify the core requirements

List the fundamental goals behind the decision, distinguishing between necessary and ideal conditions. For example, when choosing a job, prioritize salary, commuting time, development space, etc., and exclude options that do not meet core needs. Replacing vague feelings with specific standards can reduce the interference of irrelevant factors.

2. Narrow down the range of options

Control the options to 3-5 through preliminary screening. Excessive selection can consume cognitive resources and lead to decision fatigue. Exclusion method can be used to first remove obviously inappropriate options, and then conduct a deep comparison of the remaining options. This method is particularly suitable for multi option scenarios such as shopping or school selection.

3. Evaluate potential outcomes

Predict the short-term and long-term impacts that each choice may bring, including the best and worst cases. A list of advantages and disadvantages can be created to quantify the probability and tolerance of different outcomes. For people with lower risk tolerance, it is recommended to choose a plan with higher certainty.

4. Set decision deadlines

Provide reasonable but clear deadlines to avoid falling into endless delays. Simple decisions can be set for minutes to hours, while major decisions should not exceed a week. Time limit pressure can prompt the brain to automatically optimize the decision-making process while preventing anxiety caused by overthinking.

5. Seek objective advice from experienced individuals through external opinions, but pay attention to distinguishing useful information from personal preferences. Delphi method can be used to collect opinions from multiple professionals, or small-scale experiments can be conducted to verify the feasibility of the selection. The final decision-making power still needs to be in one's own hands.

Daily decision-making can cultivate decision-making confidence and establish personal decision-making models by recording past decision results. Ensuring sufficient sleep and moderate exercise before making major decisions can enhance the function of the prefrontal cortex of the brain and avoid making choices during emotional fluctuations or fatigue. Long term decision-making difficulties may be accompanied by anxiety tendencies. If it affects daily life, psychological counseling can be sought to adjust thinking patterns such as perfectionism through cognitive-behavioral therapy.