Have you ever been faced with making a tough choice and felt overwhelmed by the process of simply making a decision? If you're feeling stuck in indecision, sometimes making a decision at all can feel like the hardest thing.

But why is that? And how can you make the right decision quickly?

Follow this simple decision making process to identify your options, get clear on the best choice and move forward fast without regret.

Why people are afraid of making a decision

Our society places a lot of emphasis on making right decisions. It only makes sense then that one of the biggest fears around making a decision is the fear of making the wrong one. We’re often afraid a decision is going to somehow turn into an unmanageable disaster. Then we’d have to deal with the terrible consequences, plus feeling ashamed and embarrassed that we made the “wrong” choice.

“One of the biggest blocks to making a decision is the fear of making the wrong one.”

Realistically, some decisions are more difficult to make and have bigger repercussions than others. You might be the leader of a company where your decision impacts the lives and well-being of hundreds or thousands of employees. Or your decision might make or break your entrepreneurial startup. Or making the wrong decision could have dire consequences for yourself and your loved ones.

But letting fear rule your decision making process can lead to unnecessary procrastination and last-minute decision making, which often leads to less than optimal results.

Years ago fear is exactly what held me back from making a much-needed life change for a long time… until I followed the steps I share below to make a decision that was right for me so I could confidently move forward. Unlike typical decision making processes, my approach helps you overcome the root of decision paralysis: the fear of making the wrong choice and suffering the physically, emotional, or financially painful consequences.

Before we dive into the steps of how to make a decision a lot more easily, there's something really important you need to understand first:

Staying stuck in indecision is a choice and it's a disempowering one.

What indecision means is that you are making a default decision of “no choice”. And, when you avoid proactively making a decision of your own, then you end up reacting to others' decisions. It's "decision by default", and it's far from the best decision making process to use if you want to achieve your desired outcomes.

What it comes down to is that you can either choose to proactively make a decision that hopefully goes your way… or you can reactively deal with the consequences of not deciding. Either way, you’re still responsible for the outcomes.

Here’s the mindset you need to adopt:

Making decisions is empowering.

But I understand how hard procrastination and indecision can be to overcome, especially with big decisions.

The first blog post I ever wrote was inspired by my own struggles with feeling stuck in indecision with a part of my business. Not making a decision fast cost me a ton of time, energy and money.

My utter frustration with my inability to make a decision and move forward finally ended my analysis paralysis, but in hindsight, it didn't have to be so hard. Making decisions from a clear and empowered place within yourself is a critical skill to learn how to do.

Step 1: Identify the main problem or challenge and your desired outcome

The first step you need to take is to get clear about the problem or challenge and what the desired outcome is. This step is often quite easy, as you may be right in the middle of the problem state or be experiencing the consequences of the challenge right now. If the problem were solved today, what would things be like? What do you wish were different? Now you know your desired outcomes.

Write down in a concise phrase or two:

What's the main problem or challenge?
What's the desired outcome?

Your decision is what you hope will get you from the main problem state to the desired outcome state.

Step 2: Make a list of your options

Given the information you have available to you, what are your options? What possible avenues are you aware of? What resources do you already have access to that could help you?

Make a list of all the possibilities that you can think of while trying not to judge which ones are "good" or "bad" at this point. More often than not, there is more than one way to create the result you desire.

Step 3: Face your fears about making a decision

This is where the mindset rubber meets the road and you do the important groundwork of facing your fears. If you don't, the fear of making the wrong decision or not knowing what will happen can keep you paralyzed or second-guessing any decision you eventually do make. So you're going to go at these fears head on and list out the worst case scenarios that could happen as a result of choosing each option from step two.

I'll give you an example from my own life and why this step was such an important part of the decision making process I developed.

When I was a financial planner many years ago, at a certain point it became very clear to me that it wasn't the right career for me. But I felt stuck and didn't know how to quit a job that give me the safety and income security that came with it. For a long time I was too scared to make the leap to doing something else because I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I kept slogging through my days as I wrestled with what to do.

I soon reached the point where I felt completely burned out and exhausted. I couldn’t stomach the thought of going into work and I couldn’t bear feeling so miserable any longer. That’s when I developed this process. It starts with getting your fears out onto paper where you can see them in black and white and start to dispel them.

I thought, “What if I did quit my job without knowing what's next? What are the worst possible outcomes?” I started listing out all the terrible things I imagined could happen as a result.

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These are some things that were on my list:

I won’t have any income and so I'll end up homeless.
I won’t be able to feed myself.
I’ll feel so embarrassed and ashamed.
People would think I’m an irresponsible loser.

I listed as many fears around quitting my job as I could think of. That gave me the opportunity to get some perspective and see the truth about how likely it was or wasn't that each fear would come to pass. For some people, quitting their job would actually result in them to become homeless. In my case, I felt like that wasn’t going to happen because I had enough friends and enough family who would lend me a hand if I needed it. I went through my list and started addressing each fear I had. (If you find the fears you list particularly triggering or overwhelming, you might need outside help dealing with them).

Step 4: Imagine the best possible outcomes

Now that you've faced your fears, look at the flip side. What are the best possible outcomes that could happen as a result of each option you listed in step two?

Continuing with my own example of quitting my then job, this is what I listed:

I could find work that I love.
I could feel fulfilled by my work every day.
With the right work, I’d feel like I was making a real difference in people’s lives.
I might find a career that felt more in alignment with my values.
I’d be able to inspire people to go for their dreams, too.

Even though I didn’t know what to call the job I wanted, those are the feelings and the qualities I wanted for whatever work I’d choose to do.

Go ahead and add to your own list now.

“When you’re not proactively making decisions, you end up making “decisions by default”, often in accordance with someone else’s agenda and priorities. ”

Step 5: Make a decision and stick to it for at least 72 hours

One of the huge costs of staying stuck in indecision and overwhelm is the toll it takes on your personal energy and well-being. Not making a decision keeps you from channeling that energy to something that’s more productive, not to mention the emotional stress it leads to.

That's why this step involves quickly looking at what you have listed out so far, making a decision and committing to sticking with it for at least 72 hours. Sit with your decision. See what it feels like when you’ve had a chance to breathe and start to feel unstuck. What does it feel like? What’s the feedback you’re getting? Does it seem like the right decision for you after all?

Important, far-reaching decisions sometimes need more time to see what the outcomes are and for you to get the feedback that you need... or the results may happen almost immediately. You want to let your fears settle down so you don’t throw yourself back into a spiral of indecision by second-guessing yourself too soon, which is why I suggest you stick with your decision for a minimum of 72 hours (longer is better).

In the story I've been sharing with you, just simply making a decision moved me out of overwhelm and helped me to finally move forward. The really amazing part is that less than two months after I quit that job, the opportunity for my dream job showed up (and I got it).

Just like it says in the old story about a reporter and a monk, "You can’t fill a cup that is already full."

“You can’t fill a cup that’s already full.”

Step 6: Be compassionate with yourself

There's an axiom in Neuro-Liguistic Programming (NLP) that says:

"At every moment, everyone is doing the best they can."

Basically that means that given the information, circumstances, mindset, belief systems, resources and options you're aware of the time you make a decision, the decision you make will reflect the "best" you're capable of. Always.

When you think about it, it makes sense. No one sits around thinking, “What is the worst decision I can make here? Let me do that so I can totally screw up and suffer the consequences.” We are all making the best decisions we can at any given moment, even if in hindsight some of them seem like bone-headed decisions.

Belief systems, mindset and perception are what primarily determine what seems like the "best" or "right" decision to you (which is why working with people on these things is such a passion of mine). And we're bound to make some "wrong" decisions. That's why it's so important to be forgiving and compassionate with yourself if a decision doesn't turn out the way you thought it would. You have the opportunity every day at every moment to learn and choose differently again.

Step 7: Review, and if needed, revise

After you've let enough time pass, take stock of your results. Did you solve the problem? Did you achieve your desired outcome or goal or at least come close? What were the unintended bad outcomes you didn't expect, if any? Where is there room for improvement?

Lastly, what did you learn from going through the decision-making process? Use your discoveries to revise your decision-making process to make it work optimally for you.