WEBVTT - 188. Why are we so indecisive? 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:09.280 Hello everybody, and welcome back to the Psychology of Your Twenties, 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:12.280 the podcast where we talk through some of the big 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.880 life changes and transitions of our twenties and what they 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:18.720 mean for our psychology. 0:00:21.880 --> 0:00:25.560 Hello everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:29.880 the podcast. New listeners, old listeners. Wherever you are in 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.920 the world, it is so great to have you here. 0:00:32.960 --> 0:00:36.160 Back for another episode as we, of course break down 0:00:36.320 --> 0:00:41.400 the psychology of our twenties. Today, we're talking about an 0:00:41.479 --> 0:00:47.000 all too common mental dilemma or barrier that we tend 0:00:47.000 --> 0:00:49.360 to face a lot in our twenties, and that is 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:54.720 chronic indecisiveness, struggling or being unable to make a decision 0:00:55.160 --> 0:00:58.680 to save our lives, getting stuck in this rut of 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:04.240 analysis of information, seeking of hypotheticals and pros and cons lists, 0:01:04.280 --> 0:01:09.200 and then eventually making a decision, taking action, and finding 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:14.440 that we are constantly ruminating and thinking about the alternative 0:01:14.560 --> 0:01:17.360 and what might have been. It is exhausting, it is 0:01:17.400 --> 0:01:21.720 time consuming, it's unproductive, and most of all, it's really 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:29.360 mentally frustrating to have to overthink every minute, little decision 0:01:30.080 --> 0:01:33.959 or detail of our lives. There are a lot of 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:37.160 decisions that we feel compelled to make in our twenties, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.440 like what we want to do with our lives, what 0:01:39.480 --> 0:01:41.360 we want to do for work, what kind of person 0:01:41.400 --> 0:01:43.760 we want to be, what kind of person we want 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:45.920 to date, Where we want to go to school, where 0:01:45.959 --> 0:01:48.920 to live, where to travel to whether to travel or 0:01:48.960 --> 0:01:52.279 to save money, to take that risk or play it safe. 0:01:52.440 --> 0:01:56.560 Those are some really hefty choices, ones that I think 0:01:57.080 --> 0:01:59.680 every one of us struggles not to overthink because it 0:01:59.720 --> 0:02:03.360 feels like each decision we make we always have to 0:02:03.360 --> 0:02:05.800 give up something else. There is this loss of what 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.560 could have been that we're very afraid of, and so 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.680 instead of this possibility of having to recognize what we 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.000 had to give up by choosing a certain path, we 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.680 stay stagnant. We get so caught up in the benefits 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.320 that we might be missing out on that we never 0:02:22.440 --> 0:02:27.240 actually move forward. I think this decade is a wonderful 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:30.960 decade of opportunity, no doubt about that. Our adult lives 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:32.920 are really just beginning. There are so many doors that 0:02:32.960 --> 0:02:35.840 remain open to us. But it's also a decade where 0:02:35.880 --> 0:02:38.360 we feel like the stakes are really high because of 0:02:38.400 --> 0:02:41.760 how formative these years seem to be. We don't want 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:45.160 to kind of be to rash in closing ourselves off 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:49.200 or restricting ourselves to any opportunities, and in that way, 0:02:49.240 --> 0:02:51.760 we tend to borrow a lot of stress from the future, 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:54.440 and we can tastrophize and imagine a life where we 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:59.200 are unhappy until it feels like it's destiny. We also 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:02.640 tend to waste a lot of time contemplating, and that 0:03:02.800 --> 0:03:07.560 time that we spend contemplating, we could be spending actually 0:03:08.160 --> 0:03:11.640 seeing a result and being decisive. So it makes a 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:15.359 really kind of toxic cycle. Well, I think that it's 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:17.320 time that we talk about it today. I want to 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.040 get into all the nitty gritty. There's psychology, of course, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:24.600 of what makes us so indecisive at times, why we 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.920 struggle to make not just big decisions but small decisions, 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.400 daily decisions, some of us more than others, and what 0:03:32.560 --> 0:03:35.880 that contributes to in the long run, But also how 0:03:35.920 --> 0:03:39.640 to be active rather than passive in our lives. How 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:44.280 do we let go of out indecision and accept all 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.480 the possibilities for what could happen, all the different options, 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:52.280 and still feel confident that we are kind of making 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.800 the right one, still feel confident in ourselves and our intuition, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:03:59.480 even if it feels scary, How do we kind of 0:03:59.520 --> 0:04:04.440 break our of the procrastination and the contemplation cycle. And 0:04:04.480 --> 0:04:07.400 as someone who deals with this on a daily even 0:04:07.440 --> 0:04:10.440 when it comes to this podcast and questioning, you know 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.120 what topics to do, what to write about, what studies 0:04:13.120 --> 0:04:16.240 to quote, what decisions I need to be making. Trust me, 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:17.960 we are in the same boat. I have a lot 0:04:17.960 --> 0:04:25.640 to say about this, So let's get into it. Okay. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.840 So firstly, what is the actual problem with being indecisive? 0:04:29.320 --> 0:04:30.880 Why are we even talking about it? 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:31.479 Well? 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:36.400 I think there are obviously a few problems with chronic indecisiveness. Firstly, 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:40.320 you never really gain a sense of agency or mastery 0:04:40.400 --> 0:04:43.839 over your life, your choices, and your experiences. You leave 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:47.359 them up to chance because you never feel ready to 0:04:47.440 --> 0:04:51.360 make a decision. Secondly, I think chronic indecisiveness allows us 0:04:51.360 --> 0:04:54.719 to be ruled by fear, and that fear means that 0:04:54.760 --> 0:04:57.400 we aren't always actually going to make the best choices. 0:04:57.800 --> 0:05:00.600 We're just going to make the easiest one, the one 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:05.239 that leaves us feeling safest. And I think indecisiveness also 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.599 is huge time raiter, right, I think we become very 0:05:08.600 --> 0:05:11.920 conscious of all the things that we could be doing 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.960 in the time that it takes for us to make 0:05:15.080 --> 0:05:19.080 a decision. Now, I often encounter this misconception that people 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:22.760 who are indecisive are lazy, But I actually think that 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:25.719 that is the furthest thing from the truth. When you 0:05:25.760 --> 0:05:30.640 are someone who struggles deciding between things, making decisions, making choices, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.120 actually what you're getting caught up in is the constant 0:05:34.240 --> 0:05:39.360 mental equations that you're doing, where you're considering every possible outcome, 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.000 every possible scenario. I think a lot of the time, 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:50.440 our indecisiveness comes down to this very unconscious fear of 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:53.960 choosing wrong, a fear of making a mistake, of not 0:05:54.080 --> 0:05:59.560 being perfect, of disappointing others or disappointing ourselves. Now, this 0:05:59.640 --> 0:06:02.839 is some that psychologists do have a way of measuring. 0:06:03.240 --> 0:06:06.040 One of the most common question is is the Frost 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:11.200 Indecisiveness Scale, and this essentially asks participants to great a 0:06:11.279 --> 0:06:15.120 series of statements between strongly disagree and strongly agree, and 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.680 they include things such as like I try to put 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.960 off making decisions, I have a hard time planning my 0:06:22.080 --> 0:06:25.640 free time. I often worry about making the wrong choice. 0:06:25.720 --> 0:06:29.040 And it seems that deciding on the most trivial things. 0:06:29.360 --> 0:06:32.880 Takes me a lot of time. These questions really get 0:06:32.920 --> 0:06:36.160 to the bottom of not just how indecisive we are, 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:40.520 but why we are indecisive. Here's the scary thing. The 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.680 higher that someone scores on this scale, the lower that 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:48.880 they tend to score on measures of life satisfaction. Now, 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:52.240 this is based on a study conducted in the Netherlands 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.320 a few years back, whereby they wanted to see if 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:00.160 there was any correlation between indecisiveness and our own for 0:07:00.279 --> 0:07:05.600 all well being, and there definitely were some people who 0:07:05.640 --> 0:07:08.920 were self reporting that they put off decisions that they 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.600 were worried about making the wrong choice. They were also 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:15.600 the same kinds of people who were more likely to say, 0:07:16.320 --> 0:07:19.200 if I could do my life over again, I would 0:07:19.200 --> 0:07:22.360 do it. The conditions of my life are not great. 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:24.200 There are a lot of things that I want to 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.280 change but I don't feel able to, which I think 0:07:28.400 --> 0:07:31.480 just shows the link between not feeling a sense of 0:07:31.520 --> 0:07:35.840 control over your life that actually contributes to you being 0:07:35.880 --> 0:07:39.720 indecisive because you don't feel like anything you do is 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.000 going to make much of a difference. It comes down 0:07:43.120 --> 0:07:46.960 to something else as well. We are faced with hundreds, 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:50.600 if not thousands of decisions every day. We have to 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:52.840 think about what time to wake up in the morning, 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:55.680 what we want to have for breakfast. We have to 0:07:55.680 --> 0:07:57.600 think about whether you know, how we're going to get 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.520 to work, what we're going to listen to on our commute, 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.600 whether we should call our friend or not, whether we 0:08:03.600 --> 0:08:05.760 should reply to that text, when we should reply to 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:08.120 that text, what to have for lunch, what we're going 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:12.840 to wear. The list is honestly endless, and some estimates 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.320 suggest that in a single day you and I are 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:23.160 making around thirty five thousand decisions. That honestly sounds ludicrous, 0:08:23.240 --> 0:08:27.400 that sounds so excessive, But when you break down just 0:08:27.480 --> 0:08:30.320 how much we have to decide on in our daily life, 0:08:30.920 --> 0:08:33.760 that makes a lot of sense. That is a lot 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:37.360 of information to process and a lot of decision making 0:08:37.880 --> 0:08:40.679 for one small brain. And what it can lead to 0:08:41.240 --> 0:08:45.200 is decision fatigue, whereby the more decisions we feel we 0:08:45.280 --> 0:08:48.680 need to make, and the more important those decisions feel, 0:08:49.160 --> 0:08:54.679 the lower our quality of decision making. Is That occurs 0:08:54.840 --> 0:08:58.640 for quite obvious reasons. Right when we have a million 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.720 things to think about, Eventually we have to start to 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:06.600 cut some corners or we begin to behave impulsively because 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.360 we don't quite have the necessary cognitive space to rationally 0:09:11.600 --> 0:09:17.640 and logically think everything through, or the other alternative is 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.040 that we just don't make the decision at all. You know, 0:09:20.080 --> 0:09:22.079 Think about when you come home from a long day 0:09:22.080 --> 0:09:25.960 of work. You're exhausted, you're tired, you're sitting on the couch, 0:09:26.040 --> 0:09:27.960 and you have to decide whether you want to go 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.240 for a run, whether you want to see your friend 0:09:31.000 --> 0:09:33.880 clean your room, or I don't know, go out for dinner. 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:38.600 But suddenly, like two hours pass and you realize you've 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.480 spent that whole time on your phone, sitting on the couch, 0:09:41.920 --> 0:09:43.720 and so you end up doing none of those things. 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:47.000 That is an example of what happens when you face 0:09:47.120 --> 0:09:51.439 decision fatigue. You end up choosing the path of least 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:55.319 resistance because there's been so much else in your mind, 0:09:55.400 --> 0:09:59.440 on your mind, bothering you, consuming your limited cognitive space, 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:02.840 that you just end up doing the thing that is easiest, 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:06.120 and that is mindlessly scrolling on your phone. Now, I 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:11.760 will say not all indecisiveness is necessarily negative. There is 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:17.000 definitely an important line between being decisive being someone who 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:21.320 gets shit done, and being impulsive or being rash and 0:10:21.400 --> 0:10:24.679 not thinking things through. I think when it comes down 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.280 to big decisions, it's important to have some caution. It's 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.240 important to actually have a clear idea of what you 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.880 want and why. And that is kind of the lucky 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:38.679 balance that we need to strike, not getting too caught 0:10:38.760 --> 0:10:41.560 up in the what and the why, but actually making 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.400 sure that we're conscious of what we actually desire. So 0:10:45.480 --> 0:10:49.400 there was a really interesting BBC article published a couple 0:10:49.440 --> 0:10:54.160 of years ago, and it made the argument that indecisiveness 0:10:54.240 --> 0:10:59.240 actually makes us smarter because we tend to engage in 0:10:59.320 --> 0:11:03.280 more complex decision making when it comes to our choices 0:11:03.360 --> 0:11:06.480 and what we want from them. We take a lot 0:11:06.480 --> 0:11:09.680 more time to pause, to think things through. We think 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:12.800 about things from a different perspective. Right, It's kind of 0:11:12.840 --> 0:11:15.040 like you have this ball in your hand. Either you 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.120 pick it up and throw it, or you take time 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.440 to examine it, you look at it from all different 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:23.240 angles before you end up throwing things away, before you 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:25.800 end up just tossing it anywhere. I want to throw 0:11:25.920 --> 0:11:28.640 something else into the mix as well. So, according to 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:33.480 a recent paper from two researchers out of Germany, what 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:37.320 matters in our life satisfaction like that research paper was 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.080 saying before you Know it said that if you're indecisive, 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.880 you're not as happy. What they found was that it's 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:47.520 not about being indecisive, it's actually about being ambivalent, and 0:11:47.600 --> 0:11:51.960 the two things often get confused when we overthink what 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:55.280 the right choice might be, what's going to make us happier. 0:11:56.000 --> 0:11:59.480 That is an indicator that you're actually thinking about your future, 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.960 You actually care, You care about doing the right thing. 0:12:03.559 --> 0:12:06.679 When you're ambivalent, though, and that's why you're not making decisions. 0:12:07.200 --> 0:12:10.000 That kind of demonstrates that you just, you know, you 0:12:10.040 --> 0:12:14.600 have this level of apathy whereby maybe there's something else 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:18.360 going on in your life. You're unhappy, you're self sabotaging, 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:21.920 maybe you're even depressed, which means that you actually don't 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:25.080 have the energy or the motivation to care about what 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:29.960 happens to you. And that is the worst kind of indecisiveness, 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:35.480 indecisiveness that comes from not caring about your future. The 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:40.240 indecisiveness that we typically think about, though, is indecisiveness about 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:44.760 caring too much. And I think it's super fascinating because 0:12:44.800 --> 0:12:48.520 it face value. Society tends to see people who struggle 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:52.719 making decisions as just being lazy, right, But really they 0:12:52.720 --> 0:12:55.880 can be anxious, they can be perfectionists, they can be 0:12:55.920 --> 0:12:59.920 struggling with this concept known as choice overload depression. There 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.760 is so much more nuance to be had in this conversation. 0:13:04.480 --> 0:13:09.000 So what causes us to become chronically indecisive or chronic 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.800 overthinkers when it comes to our options and our choices. Well, 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:18.240 we're going to focus on four explanations, starting with the 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:22.160 biggest one, which is the fear of failure or the 0:13:22.200 --> 0:13:26.440 fear of choosing wrong. A lot of us experience decision 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:32.160 paralysis because we are very innately aware of the possibility 0:13:32.200 --> 0:13:36.199 of screwing up right when it comes to being life choices, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:41.320 even small ones. We cannot mentally handle the possibility of 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.280 being wrong and then eventually regretting our decision. A lot 0:13:45.320 --> 0:13:48.280 of us fear regret, especially in our twenties, and we 0:13:48.400 --> 0:13:51.480 know that a fear of regret contributes to an action 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.200 when we are trying to make a choice between option A, B, 0:13:55.840 --> 0:14:00.800 C D. What we're judging these choices by is the outcome. 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.480 And all of this is based on hypotheticals. We don't 0:14:04.520 --> 0:14:07.800 actually know what's going to occur, right, So we are 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:12.920 like subconsciously running this like mental pro con equation in 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:15.720 the back of our mind to determine what we think 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:20.240 will maximize the things that we want, whether that's happiness, wealth, pleasure, 0:14:20.680 --> 0:14:23.920 and minimize the things we don't want, like pain, disappointment. 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.560 But we actually don't know how these things will turn out, 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:31.680 and so we're faced with a lot of uncertainty. When 0:14:31.720 --> 0:14:37.240 we face uncertainty, we tend to catastrophize, which means that 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:41.880 we focus excessively on how things could turn out poorly 0:14:41.960 --> 0:14:46.320 for us, rather than the likely chance that they will 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:49.160 turn out all right and if they don't, will be okay. 0:14:50.000 --> 0:14:53.480 The reason that we focus on the possibility of things 0:14:53.520 --> 0:14:57.360 going wrong is because our brains naturally want to protect 0:14:57.480 --> 0:15:04.040 us from emotionally and physically, mentally psychologically painful experiences. And 0:15:04.160 --> 0:15:06.680 the way that it protects us from them is by 0:15:06.720 --> 0:15:09.360 avoiding them in the first place. And the way that 0:15:09.400 --> 0:15:12.120 it avoids them in the first place, I know, keep 0:15:12.240 --> 0:15:15.800 following me here, is by trying to predict the future. 0:15:16.480 --> 0:15:21.040 We cannot predict the future, so instead we choose the 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:25.160 option that makes us feel safe and more comfortable, and 0:15:25.200 --> 0:15:28.600 what ends up happening is that we get so worked 0:15:28.680 --> 0:15:32.040 up by what could possibly occur that we just don't 0:15:32.080 --> 0:15:37.560 make any decision at all. Not making a decision makes 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.920 us feel less responsible if the worst case scenario were 0:15:41.960 --> 0:15:45.600 to happen. It's also why we kind of constantly seek 0:15:45.640 --> 0:15:49.040 reassurance from others. Right We ask our friends what they 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.680 think we should do. We get our parents or even 0:15:51.720 --> 0:15:54.520 our partner to make our choices for us, whether that's 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.440 like deciding on the restaurant for tonight, or the plans 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:00.480 or the movie. All of this is a way of 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:05.320 reducing or even eliminating our sense of personal responsibility and 0:16:05.400 --> 0:16:09.480 accountability that we believe might contribute to a greater sense 0:16:09.480 --> 0:16:12.800 of disappointment or regret if things aren't as good as 0:16:12.800 --> 0:16:14.720 we thought they would be, if the restaurant is a 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.120 let down, if we actually end up screwing up our lives. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:21.720 At least we can kind of maintain a sense of like, well, 0:16:21.720 --> 0:16:24.080 at least it wasn't my fault. At least it wasn't 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:27.040 all me. At Least these people helped me. In this 0:16:27.120 --> 0:16:31.960 day and age, we are also increasingly facing a bias 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:36.840 known as choice overload. So it is both a blessing 0:16:37.040 --> 0:16:40.560 and a curse that this generation we have so much 0:16:40.560 --> 0:16:43.360 freedom to choose what we want with our lives, more 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:46.840 than any generation before us. We have so much freedom 0:16:46.880 --> 0:16:49.360 to decide whether we want a work full time, whether 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:51.480 we want to go back to UNI, pick up a trade, 0:16:52.200 --> 0:16:56.440 or travel or freelance, or pursue our creative interests, or 0:16:56.880 --> 0:17:01.240 work behind a bar. Like I think, especially the creation 0:17:01.440 --> 0:17:04.360 invention of the Internet, our eyes are a lot more 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:09.840 open to the opportunity that this world provides. But researchers 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.600 have begun to notice that when we have too many options, 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:17.320 this actually has the opposite effect that we would assume. 0:17:17.920 --> 0:17:21.840 It doesn't necessarily make us feel more free. It actually 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:26.560 makes us feel in a really strange, counterintuitive way, it 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:29.760 makes us feel more restricted, because now now that we 0:17:29.800 --> 0:17:33.239 have more options, we start to perceive that we have 0:17:33.359 --> 0:17:36.639 a greater risk of choosing the wrong one, if that 0:17:36.680 --> 0:17:40.040 makes sense. So, if you only had two job offers 0:17:40.080 --> 0:17:45.280 to consider versus let's say six, there is like a 0:17:45.359 --> 0:17:48.200 fifty to fifty chance that you'll choose the right job 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:52.160 in the first scenario, and in the second scenario, where 0:17:52.160 --> 0:17:55.200 there are like six different options, there's only a fifteen 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:59.360 percent chance that you're going to choose the best case scenario. Obviously, 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:02.600 there there are other factors that come into consideration, and 0:18:02.640 --> 0:18:06.040 things aren't always coming down to that kind of simplistic math, 0:18:06.520 --> 0:18:10.280 but that's how our brain sees it. Our brain sees 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.800 all these things in front of us and goes, okay, 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.600 more opportunities, that is more information to consider. There is 0:18:16.640 --> 0:18:19.560 more of a risk that we're going to choose the 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:23.639 wrong one. Essentially, we also tend to feel like with 0:18:24.080 --> 0:18:27.879 each choice we kind of close more doors than we open, 0:18:28.400 --> 0:18:32.040 which is really scary, especially when we are so young 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.960 and we want to feel really free and liberated and 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.760 able to do what we want. So again, we put 0:18:39.800 --> 0:18:43.440 off making a decision to keep our options open, when 0:18:43.440 --> 0:18:47.200 in fact, what we're actually doing is closing ourselves off 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:51.320 because we're never fully embracing those opportunities. We're just keeping 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:54.600 them there in case we might decide one day that 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:58.320 we want to do them. So it's really interesting because 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.200 when we are in de sip and we are forced 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.960 to make a decision, we actually tend to look at 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:09.359 less information than people who are more decisive, because we 0:19:09.560 --> 0:19:13.520 understand intuitively that more information is going to make it 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.920 a lot more difficult for us to choose just one thing. 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.919 We don't want to get caught up in this choice overload. 0:19:22.720 --> 0:19:26.920 One researcher put it really well, So, for instance, you're 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.239 an indecisive person and you're shopping for a car, and 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:34.200 what you might do is willfully choose to not do 0:19:34.440 --> 0:19:38.320 as much research as you should so that you have 0:19:38.440 --> 0:19:42.840 fewer options, so that you have fewer things to consider. 0:19:43.760 --> 0:19:48.040 That is like one way of being strategic about our 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:52.080 indecisiveness so that we don't overload ourselves. But the thing 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:54.439 is is that in those situations, we don't make an 0:19:54.440 --> 0:19:57.440 informed decision, right, We just made an easier decision. We 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.800 recognize that if we were to have all the information, 0:19:59.840 --> 0:20:02.400 to all the facts, there is no way that we're 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.480 getting through all that. There is no way that we 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:06.800 are not going to that we are going to make 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:08.920 a choice and not have some kind of doubts about 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.160 it because that's where our decision or procrastination comes in. 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:17.840 It might not surprise you either that people with ADHD 0:20:18.119 --> 0:20:21.080 are more prone to this as well, because they already 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:24.920 feel overwhelmed by a lot of information coming from their environment, 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:29.440 So making choices like this becomes agony. I think across 0:20:29.520 --> 0:20:34.879 all neurotypes in decision and indecisiveness is also more pronounced 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.440 if you are someone who just lacks a certain level 0:20:37.480 --> 0:20:40.800 of confidence in your own skills and abilities and your 0:20:40.840 --> 0:20:45.840 ability to make good choices. Now, our confidence really derives 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:49.440 from our sense of self esteem, our resilient, competent, intelligent, 0:20:49.480 --> 0:20:52.480 we see ourselves as being, and therefore, to what degree 0:20:52.520 --> 0:20:54.919 we feel that we can trust our assessments of a 0:20:54.960 --> 0:20:58.880 decision or a choice. Our level of confidence in our 0:20:58.960 --> 0:21:03.159 decision making ability comes back to how we were raised. 0:21:03.200 --> 0:21:08.359 As most things in psychology tend to do, there's always 0:21:08.359 --> 0:21:13.240 some kind of behavioral psychological mental origin in childhood. So 0:21:13.400 --> 0:21:15.720 if you were raised in a family in which you 0:21:15.760 --> 0:21:21.639 had maybe overbearing parents, that's one example, especially an authoritarian father. 0:21:21.720 --> 0:21:24.520 That's what one study suggests that it's not just about 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.280 an overbearing mother, but an overbearing father in particular, if 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.359 you were raised in that environment and you never had 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:33.440 the opportunity to make decisions, or you were raised in 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:38.160 an environment where any small failure was really intensely criticized, 0:21:38.920 --> 0:21:42.159 you don't feel strong enough in your ability to trust 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.400 yourself and the choices that you're making. So in those 0:21:45.440 --> 0:21:50.360 situations when your hand is kind of forced, you genuinely 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:54.399 are paralyzed. You have this constant mental back and forth, 0:21:54.840 --> 0:21:57.480 not because you don't know what you want, but because 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:01.000 you don't trust what you want. I don't trust that 0:22:01.080 --> 0:22:04.080 this might not lead to some kind of consequence that 0:22:04.200 --> 0:22:07.720 you can't foresee. You're not used to making decisions for yourself. 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:11.000 You feel like if you are to mess up, you're 0:22:11.040 --> 0:22:13.320 going to be criticized, people are going to judge you, 0:22:13.800 --> 0:22:17.360 So you spend more time thinking things through. So family 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:22.119 is another explanation, but another component of our indecisiveness that 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.240 I find particularly interesting. I think this relates to me 0:22:25.280 --> 0:22:31.600 a lot is the interactions between indecisiveness, perfectionism, and anxiety. Now, 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:36.280 perfectionism is a very broad personality trait. It essentially describes 0:22:36.320 --> 0:22:41.040 people who are overly concerned with striving for flawlessness, and 0:22:41.040 --> 0:22:44.359 they're very critical of themselves when they don't meet the 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:48.119 kind of unrealistic standards or goals that they set for themselves. 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.359 When they fail to meet their own expectations or maybe 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:54.600 those of others, but normally they are self imposed expectations, 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:57.639 this just means they place a lot more pressure on 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:02.040 themselves to do better next time, to not make that 0:23:02.119 --> 0:23:05.440 mistake again, to make sure that we are hitting our targets. 0:23:05.440 --> 0:23:09.120 Every time we're making the perfect decisions, we cannot screw up, 0:23:09.560 --> 0:23:13.159 and so it makes them incredibly hyper vigilant to the 0:23:13.200 --> 0:23:18.400 possibility of mistakes. Perfectionism makes it so hard to make 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.840 decisions because, like we said before, you just don't know 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:25.600 what's going to happen sometimes, and it's this trait that 0:23:25.680 --> 0:23:28.600 is a lot higher in people who display anxious traits 0:23:28.680 --> 0:23:34.120 or who have anxiety. Anxiety really exacerbates our perfectionism because 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:38.879 there is this innate tendency within both to really overthink 0:23:39.440 --> 0:23:42.560 or ruminate on what could go wrong and what has 0:23:42.600 --> 0:23:45.480 gone wrong in the past. So that makes it really 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:47.800 hard to not be focused on what could go wrong 0:23:48.280 --> 0:23:52.840 in the future. So as a result, our perfectionism means 0:23:52.880 --> 0:23:55.200 that it takes a lot of time to work through 0:23:55.880 --> 0:23:59.840 small choices, small decisions, because they take on a whole 0:23:59.880 --> 0:24:02.840 new degree of importance. If everything has to be perfect, 0:24:03.320 --> 0:24:07.320 if everything has to go according to plan and be flawless, 0:24:07.920 --> 0:24:11.160 then we're not taking any chances here. We're taking all 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:13.760 the time we can get to make sure that we 0:24:13.800 --> 0:24:16.240 know exactly what we're doing and that this is the 0:24:16.320 --> 0:24:19.199 right thing. For us, because again we can't cope with 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.720 the idea of misstepping, so we delay any kind of 0:24:22.760 --> 0:24:27.399 action or movement towards our goals. We become again just 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:32.040 so paralyzed. In the contemplation stage, we think that if 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:35.520 we stay there long enough, eventually we're going to be 0:24:35.560 --> 0:24:39.040 able to see some kind of have some epiphany about 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:42.560 what we should do, that the future will reveal itself 0:24:42.560 --> 0:24:46.000 to us, will know exactly what the perfect plan is, 0:24:46.040 --> 0:24:50.080 what exactly what's going to like optimize everything in our lives. 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:52.080 If we go to this school, then we're going to 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:53.760 get this job, and we're going to live in this 0:24:53.840 --> 0:24:56.000 city and make this much money and meet this person 0:24:56.880 --> 0:24:59.359 that is never going to be clear. A lot of 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:03.320