Why deciding is usually not hard at all

What do I wear, what do I eat for breakfast, which way do I take to work? A person makes such decisions a hundred times a day without thinking much about them. These decisions are routines, automated actions. A person decides truly consciously and thoughtfully far less often.

The basic problem

Many people say they find deciding hard.

Usually it is about one of these few conscious decisions: the job change, the separation, the offer, the move. And there, in my observation, it is hard only when the decision goes against something that matters to the person.

An example

Someone is offered a promotion. On paper everything speaks for it: more money, more influence, a bigger team. But they know they would have to put their evenings and their family second. The weighing drags on for weeks, because the decision goes against something that matters to them.

Where the resistance comes from

Every person has needs. They want to feel safe, be loved, feel significant and belong. If a decision threatens one of these, resistance arises. This resistance feels like difficulty.

What the research shows

Decision research supports this picture. As early as the 1970s, Irving Janis and Leon Mann described that an inner decisional conflict arises when every option seems to endanger something that matters to a person. Studies on overload with large choice sets show a similar pattern: it becomes hard above all when someone has no clear preference, no option convinces clearly and the subject is unfamiliar to them (Scheibehenne, Greifeneder and Todd, 2010). The more clearly a person knows what matters to them, the easier the choice.

Why more information then achieves nothing

Then no fifth opinion helps, and no further list. The resistance has nothing to do with missing information. The resistance comes from what matters to the person. Whoever hopes for certainty from others receives advice on a question that is not open at all. The certainty someone is looking for, they can give themselves.

My stance

The key statement

A decision only becomes hard when it goes against one’s own needs and one’s own stance.

If it fits them, deciding is easy. If it is hard, it is worth asking what the decision goes against. Usually the real question lies there.

That is why my work begins with the decision foundation: where does a person stand, what is essential to them, where do they want to go? Whoever has established that notices immediately which decision suits them.