3 Habits Making You Indecisive

Indecisiveness is not a personality trait. You weren’t born with it, you’re not destined to it, and if you understand what’s really causing it—the psychological habits that maintain it—you can free yourself from it and become more confident making decisions, big or small.

1. Self-Doubt

Self-doubt is a form of overthinking that involves questioning your own ability, character, or decision-making to an unhealthy degree:

Sometimes self-doubt takes the form of imposter syndrome where you always feel like a fake because you’re constantly doubting whether you’re good enough or deserving enough to be in the position you’re in.
Another form of self-doubt is analysis paralysis where you decide on one thing but then start re-analyzing whether it was a good decision or not and end up avoiding the decision altogether.

Of course, if you struggle with self-doubt, you’re probably very aware that it’s not doing your confidence any favors. Because every time you get lost in self-doubt, you’re teaching your brain that you’re not trustworthy with big decisions. Consequently, you feel increasingly afraid and inadequate in the face of future decisions. This vicious cycle of self-doubt → low confidence → self-doubt is at the heart of most people’s struggle with indecisiveness.

But how do we break the cycle?

Well, there are a lot of different approaches, but they all depend on one key insight that most people miss. And internalizing it the most important thing you can do to break the habit of self-doubt and become more decisive:

Self-doubt is a verb, not a noun. It’s something you do, not something that happens to you.

We like to believe that self-doubt is some mysterious psychological force that acts on us, because if that’s the case we don’t have to be responsible for it and its effects. On the other hand, when you accept that self-doubt is a verb, something you’re doing, you’re also accepting responsibility for it, which is uncomfortable.

But a prerequisite for breaking any bad habit—self-doubt included—is embracing the fact that you have agency and, however difficult, you can make the choice to not go down the path of doubting yourself, and instead, choose to put your thoughts and attention elsewhere.

Is it hard? Hell yeah it is. Extremely hard in some cases. But it is possible. The key is to start small. Keep an eye out for small instances of self-doubt and use those as practice opportunities for strengthening your attentional muscles: choosing to think in one direction and not the other.

As the psychologist Williams James said:

The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.

We don’t fall into self-doubt; we choose it. And we can choose not to if we’re willing to practice.

2. People-Pleasing

People-pleasing is the tendency to prioritize other people’s wants and needs at the expense of our own because you’re afraid of how they’ll feel.

For example:

People pleasing can be as simple as saying yes to whatever your spouse suggests for dinner because you want to avoid the prospect of them feeling annoyed and then you being anxious about how annoyed they might be.
Or it might involve taking on too many projects at work—and consequently not doing an exceptional job on any of them—because you’re afraid your boss will be disappointed with you for turning one down.
It might even look like saying yes to a marriage proposal—or avoiding breaking up with someone—because you’re worried about how devastated they’ll be and therefore rationalize it to yourself as what you want.

The problem is that if you’re constantly de-prioritizing your own wants and needs, you’re teaching your brain that what you think, feel, believe, and want aren’t all that important, which erodes your confidence and makes it hard to be bold and decisive with your decisions.

Now, people-pleasing can be an especially tricky habit to break. And one of the biggest reasons why is a common misconception most people don’t realize they hold:

They think they’re responsible for other people’s feelings.

If you think it’s your fault that your husband gets mad because you say no to Italian food for dinner, you’re going to have an awfully hard time saying no and standing up for yourself because on top of being afraid of how he’ll feel, you’re also going to feel guilty for it.

If you think it’s your fault that your boss feels disappointed in you for not taking on every assignment possible, you’re going to have a really hard time saying no to excess work because on top of worrying about how she’ll feel, you’re also going to feel guilty for it.

Ultimately, we can only control (and therefore be responsible for) our actions. So, breaking the people-pleasing trap starts with allowing people to feel whatever they’re feeling and using your values, not feelings, to guide your decisions.

So, while it might seem a little indirect at first glance, one of the best ways to break free of people pleasing and the indecisiveness it generates is to get clear on your values and allow them to guide your decisions.

Remember: behind every no is a deeper yes. You’re not saying no to Italian food because you want to be difficult; you’re saying no because, for example, you value novelty and curiosity, including being adventurous with your food choices. You’re not saying no to extra work because you’re a slacker; you’re saying no because you value craftsmanship and doing exceptional work, which you can’t do if you’re overworked.

You’re saying no to what you don’t want so you can say yes to what you do.

3. Rumination

Rumination is the mental habit of dwelling unproductively on negative outcomes or events.

Rumination can take a lot of different forms, but two of the most common are complaining and wallowing:

Complaining. Complaining is when we talk about how bad something or someone is in a way that’s unproductive. Venting to your coworkers about how silly the new company messagings software is, or gossiping about how the new marketing VP is so arrogant and full of himself.
Wallowing. Wallowing is when we dwell on a mistake or failure from the past with no real intention of learning or growing. Usually, wallowing is a form of self-pity that gets reinforced either because it generates the illusion of control (if only I had done X things would have turned out better) or because it elicits sympathy from others.

Like with self-doubt and people-pleasing, rumination has a lot of negative effects, but its tendency to exacerbate indecisiveness is underrated.

When you’re constantly ruminating on what’s wrong, you create an attentional bias for negativity: you become increasingly drawn toward negative things and have a harder time noticing and holding your attention on positive things. One serious implication of this is that when you’re faced with a decision, you’re more likely to overemphasize the potential negatives and discount the benefits or positives, which then throws you into indecisiveness.

A simple way to get started breaking the habit of rumination is to personify it and give it a name and a bit of personality. I had a client once who named his tendency to dwell on mistakes from the past Pessimistic Pete and then visualized him as Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. Then, whenever he found himself ruminating, he would picture Pessimistic Pete on one of his shoulders and ask himself what a more constructive way of thinking might be.

The bigger point is that indecisiveness is often maintained by an overly negative attentional style, which often stems from a habit of rumination.