3 Key Ways to Avoid Making Decisions
Be Decisive about Indecision
Some persons are very decisive when it comes to avoiding decisions.
-Brendan Francis
If you ask the people who’ve known me for a while, they’ll tell you I used to be a professional procrastinator. During my initial stint at University, I regularly played video games until all hours just to avoid studying and doing homework. Then, once I was perpetually exhausted, I would notoriously sleep through assignment deadlines and final exams and eventually take a semester or two off. That’s why it took me 9 whole years to get my BA. Honestly, when I look back, it all seems so ridiculous, but that used to be my reality.
Procrastination was a completely misguided way of attempting to exert control in my life. Here, life was careening forward, and I was digging in my heels, trying to stop it. It was all from misplaced frustrations, regret, and my own inability to communicate and police my boundaries — even though I had no idea what the issue was at the time. So I resisted most everything (not really knowing, however, what I wanted to do instead), and as a result, my levels of anxiety and overwhelm went through the roof, ending in emotional gridlock.
Since I have a lot of expertise in this area, I feel compelled to share the best ways to avoid making a decision (which, ironically, is a decision unto itself). If you feel your life is just way too productive, too meaningful, too fulfilling, allow me to inject some molasses into it and SLOW THAT SHIZ RIGHT DOWN:
1. Assume every decision you make will be wrong no matter what.
If you treat every decision as a life or death matter, you’ll die a lot of times.
-Dean Smith
This is a crucial step if you’re going to embrace decision avoidance: assume that nothing you choose is going to make things better for you. Even worse, be afraid you’ll have fewer options now that you’re locked into a particular choice. Convince yourself that regret is likely around every corner and hiding just out of sight past every juncture. Make all your thinking short-term and react accordingly to try to undo your choice as soon as you hit the first bump in the road. Then, to finish the process, complain bitterly to anyone who will listen and never stop even after their sympathy for you has completely run out.
2. Get into the “making mountains out of molehills ” business.
If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.
— Bruce Lee
There’s nothing like an unhealthy dose of overwhelm to make any decision seem impossible. Fault-finding and perfectionism are two of the key processes to sabotage any new plan of action. Ask yourself these questions: What if something goes wrong? What if someone gets upset? What if I hate the outcome? Then, nitpick and criticize the solution to convince yourself it’s better to do nothing. People with a conservative viewpoint can take this mindset to whole new levels by citing religious interpretation, bigotry, cries of tyranny, and threats of violence just to protect the status quo. You should see every change as a personal attack, as a blow to your ego, and as some “nightmare” scenario. Then, I can pretty much guarantee you that any decision won’t get made.
3. Rely solely on motivation to drive every decision.
Motivation is fickle. It comes and goes.
-Jocko Willink
Motivation and staying motivated is an uncertain business. To think we always have to want to do what we set out to do is a shaky foundation at best for any change or decision, so make sure your feelings are always the only reason you decide to do things. Also, be ready to change your mind if you don’t like how you feel on any given day. The last thing you want is to carry through something you hate just to have some theoretical “positive outcome” at the end of the process. Don’t trust anyone who tries to convince you otherwise. You know best. Only do what feels good. Life will always work itself out later.
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Based on my extensive experience, those are the key foundations of decision avoidance. Keep in mind, change is uncomfortable and, therefore, bad. Take it from someone who lived that way for years. So what that I was in a state of arrested development well into my 40s? At least I knew what I didn’t want. I never hit my stride in my career because I thought it wasn’t really my passion, not understanding that passion is actually secondary to and the result of repeated accomplishment. But, what am I saying? Just do what feels right at this moment, and everything else will work out fine. The last thing you want to do is decide anything other than not to decide anything. Riiight?
Remember that avoidance is a lifestyle choice. Happy resisting!
