My Thoughts
Stop Overthinking Everything: The Real Reason You Can't Make Decisions
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Most people think indecisiveness is about not having enough information. That's complete rubbish.
After 18 years in business consulting across Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne, I've watched perfectly intelligent professionals freeze up over decisions that a five-year-old could make in minutes. The problem isn't your analytical skills or your access to data. It's your relationship with being wrong.
Here's something controversial: the best decision-makers I know get things wrong roughly 40% of the time. They just move faster than everyone else.
The Perfectionism Trap That's Killing Your Career
I remember sitting across from a CFO in Brisbane who'd spent three months "evaluating options" for a software upgrade. Three bloody months! Meanwhile, his competitor had implemented, tested, and refined their system twice over. When I asked what was holding him back, he showed me a 47-page comparison spreadsheet.
Forty-seven pages.
The software cost $3,000 annually. Their daily operational inefficiencies were costing more than that per week.
This is what perfectionism actually looks like in the wild – not elegant precision, but paralysing analysis that masquerades as thorough preparation. It's the corporate equivalent of rearranging deck chairs while the ship takes on water.
Most decisions are reversible. Let that sink in for a minute.
You can change your marketing agency. You can switch suppliers. You can even change careers – I should know, I've done it twice. The decisions that truly can't be undone are fewer than you think, yet we treat every choice like it's permanent.
Why Your Brain Sabotages Simple Decisions
There's this fascinating quirk of human psychology called the "paradox of choice." Give people three options, they'll choose quickly. Give them thirty options, they'll spend weeks deliberating and often choose nothing at all.
Your brain evolved to handle simple survival decisions: fight, flight, or find food. It wasn't designed for modern complexity like choosing between 847 different project management platforms (yes, I counted them once during a particularly boring client meeting).
Here's what actually happens when you're stuck:
Information overload creates decision paralysis. Not rocket science, but most people don't recognise it happening. You think you need more data, so you gather more data, which creates more uncertainty, so you gather even more data. It's a vicious cycle that feels productive but achieves nothing.
Fear of judgement amplifies everything. Will my team think I'm incompetent if this doesn't work? Will my boss question my leadership? Will I look like an idiot in the next board meeting? These fears are real, but they're also mostly imaginary. Most people are too busy worrying about their own decisions to judge yours.
I once spent two weeks choosing between two virtually identical office chairs. Two weeks! The difference in price was $50. The difference in features was negligible. But I convinced myself it was "important" because it was a "significant investment." Looking back, I could have bought both chairs for less than the billable hours I wasted researching them.
The 72-Hour Rule That Changed Everything
This technique came from a client in Sydney – a property developer who made million-dollar decisions faster than most people choose their lunch. Here's his system:
Day 1: Gather the basic information you need. Not everything available, just what you need for a reasonable decision.
Day 2: Sleep on it. Literally. Let your unconscious mind process the options without forcing it.
Day 3: Make the decision. No exceptions, no extensions, no additional research.
Sounds simplistic? It's meant to be. Complexity is often just procrastination wearing a fancy suit.
This developer never claimed to get every decision right. But he got most of them right enough, and he got them made quickly enough to capture opportunities while his competitors were still "evaluating options."
The magic isn't in the 72 hours specifically – it's in the artificial deadline. Without constraints, decisions expand to fill available time. With clear boundaries, you focus on what actually matters.
What Nobody Tells You About "Good Enough"
We've been conditioned to believe that optimal decisions exist and that it's our job to find them. This is particularly toxic in business environments where "excellence" becomes code for "never ship anything."
In reality, most decisions operate on what economists call "satisficing" – finding the first option that meets your minimum criteria rather than exhaustively searching for the perfect solution.
Consider how you choose restaurants when you're hungry. You don't research every establishment within a 50-kilometre radius, read all their reviews, compare their menus, and analyse their price points. You pick something that looks decent and get on with your life. Somehow, you survive this "suboptimal" decision-making process just fine.
The same principle applies to business decisions, career moves, and virtually everything else. The gap between "good enough" and "perfect" is usually much smaller than the time cost of bridging it.
A decent decision implemented quickly beats a perfect decision that never happens.
The Questions That Actually Matter
When you're stuck, ask yourself these three questions:
- What's the worst realistic outcome? Not the catastrophic fantasy your anxiety creates, but the actual worst-case scenario. Usually, it's not that bad.
- Is this decision reversible? If yes, the stakes just dropped dramatically. Make a choice and adjust if needed.
- What would I advise someone else to do? We're often kinder to others than ourselves. What would you tell a colleague facing this exact situation?
I learned this framework from a mentor who ran a manufacturing business in Adelaide. She claimed these three questions eliminated 80% of her decision anxiety. She might have been exaggerating, but not by much.
The Myth of More Information
Here's where I probably lost half my audience: more information rarely leads to better decisions.
Studies consistently show that decision quality plateaus quickly. The first 20% of available information usually contains 80% of what you need to know. Everything after that is often just confirmation bias dressed up as research.
I've watched teams spend months researching vendor options, creating elaborate scoring matrices, conducting stakeholder interviews, and building financial models – only to choose the option they liked best in the first meeting.
This doesn't mean you should make decisions blindly. It means you should recognise when you have enough information to proceed and when additional research is just sophisticated procrastination.
The trick is learning to distinguish between decisions that genuinely require extensive analysis (hiring key personnel, major strategic shifts, significant financial commitments) and decisions that feel important but aren't (which font to use in your presentation, whether to hold the team meeting on Tuesday or Wednesday, which colour scheme for the new website).
Practice Makes Decisive
Indecisiveness isn't a character flaw – it's a habit. Like any habit, it can be changed with deliberate practice.
Start small. Make quick decisions about genuinely low-stakes choices. Which route to take home. What to have for lunch. Which podcast to listen to during your commute.
The goal isn't to make better choices about these trivial matters – it's to strengthen your decision-making muscles. Think of it as going to the gym for your willpower.
As you get comfortable making quick decisions about small things, gradually work up to bigger choices. The skills transfer more than you'd expect.
Why Consensus Is Overrated
There's this persistent myth in modern business that good decisions require buy-in from everyone affected. This sounds democratic and inclusive, but it's often a recipe for mediocrity.
Consensus optimises for the lowest common denominator, not the best outcome.
I've sat through countless meetings where perfectly reasonable proposals got watered down into ineffective compromises because someone wanted "everyone to be happy." The result is usually a decision that nobody loves but everyone can tolerate.
Sometimes leadership means making unpopular decisions quickly rather than popular decisions slowly. The key is being transparent about your reasoning and owning the consequences.
This doesn't mean ignoring input from your team – their perspectives are valuable. But it does mean recognising that your job is to make decisions, not to make everyone happy about them.
The Real Cost of Delay
While you're deliberating, life continues. Markets shift. Opportunities disappear. Competitors advance. Problems worsen.
The hidden cost of indecisiveness isn't just the immediate impact of delayed action – it's the compound effect of missed opportunities and deteriorating situations.
That client you're "thinking about" pursuing? They might sign with someone else next week. That internal process you're "considering" changing? It's creating more problems every day you delay. That career move you're "evaluating"? The position might not exist next quarter.
Inaction is still a choice. It's just a choice to let circumstances decide for you.
Getting Started Tomorrow
Stop reading about decision-making and start practicing it. Pick something you've been putting off – ideally something with low stakes but clear benefits.
Set a deadline. Artificial is fine.
Gather the essential information. Not all available information, just what you need for a reasonable choice.
Make the decision.
Move on.
The world won't end if you get it wrong. In fact, you probably won't even remember this particular decision six months from now. But you'll remember becoming the kind of person who makes decisions instead of avoiding them.
Most successful people aren't better at making perfect decisions – they're just better at making quick ones.
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