Greg Dixon: Why is decision-making so hard?

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10 Jul, 2015 07:00 PM5 mins to read

Are you an indecisive person? It may stem from anxiety or ageing. Photo / 123RF

Why does making your mind up only get harder as you get older and what the hell do you do about it, wonders Greg Dixon.

Where to begin?

Well if I'm honest, I have no idea. Beginning a story about indecision leads inevitably to indecision - and some procrastination, too - but I suppose admitting that means I've begun. I call that a victory.

Regular indecision, in combination with some procrastination, is something new to me. Or maybe it's newish. No, it's definitely new, well, sort of new. Whatever. What I am certain of is where once I strolled the world full of certainty about what it is I thought and what it is I wanted, these days I'm inclined to feel like someone wandering a foreign city, uncertain of where I am, where I'm going, or what I should do next.

I have no idea whether my growing indecision with some procrastination is a function of my growing age, the rapid and confusing change I'm surrounded by at work or an indication of some deeper yet to be diagnosed problem which might cost thousands in therapy. But I'm inclined towards the first: if ageing teaches us anything it is that very little is certain, and what is fixed - the eternal odiousness of Paul Henry say - doesn't really matter much anyway.

The flipside is that I've become even more suspicious of people - Mike Hosking, for example - who seem to have all the answers, people who claim to know exactly how things are, and what should be done. But that's not crippling like the indecision itself, which is slowing me down, making choices both small and big problematic. For God's sake I can't even make up my mind what I want for lunch! I can't make up my mind what to do on a relaxing day off: should I read, listen to music, watch TV, go for a walk or sit quietly? If I do eventually decide on watching TV, I can't decide on what to watch. It's hopeless. To save the uncertainty and the indecision, I've taken to doing the same stuff over and over again to avoid the problem.

And that's just sweating the small stuff. I can't make up my mind on the big stuff either, like, for example, whether to replace the car? I mean it still runs okay, but it's nearly 15 years old and I hate it, but it doesn't owe me any money and does the job, but it's slow and not very fuel efficient ... you get the sorry picture.

I'm starting to remind myself of Buridan's ass, the animal that, finding itself at an equal distance between two piles of hay, can't make up its mind which one looks the most delicious. So it starves. Buridan's ass is a jackass.

In desperation I've turned, as you do, to the internet where I've been reading that indecision stems from anxiety, which makes sense: I've been anxious all my life. There are three key indications you've got indecision anxiety, according Psychology Today: you dread facing circumstances that you think are complicated, high risk and you're not sure whether you've got what it takes to deal with (tick!), you experience self-doubt as you hesitate with indecision (tick!) and you procrastinate until you're guaranteed that it's safe to act (tick!).

There are five steps to getting through all this, according to one American clinical psychologist and former psychology professor who writes for Psychology Today, and they go something like this (I've paraphrased some of it):

Step 1: Accept there is uncertainty in new situations and that you'll learn more by taking action than by waiting for a guaranteed win.

Step 2: Decide what, when, and how you'll "pro-actively cope".

Step 3: Come up with a plan to combat things that lead to anxiety thinking.

Step 4: "Build momentum for resolving uncertainties by intentionally engaging in meaningful problems that have complexities and unknowns." (This one makes my head hurt.)

Step 5: Finally, "remind yourself that you are doing this exercise to train yourself to stop hesitating, develop a factual basis for deciding new steps to reduce uncertainty, and get yourself out of a procrastination trap".

Unsurprisingly I'm not sure whether this is useful advice or not. However, of this I am certain: in trawling around for other answers I have found history's Superhero of Uncertainty, the planet's noblest Lord of Indecision. His name is William James and he is dead. But before he died he was an American philosopher.

In his book, The Metaphysical Club: A Story Of Ideas In America, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Menand writes that James, who was born in 1842, "thought that certainty was moral death, and he hated to foreclose anything". James' solution then was to cultivate what Menand says was "self-conscious impulsivity". In affect this meant James embraced his indecision.

"He would act decisively, and then, just as decisively change his mind," writes Menand. Brilliant!

Menand continues that James spent 15 years trying to decide on an occupation switching from science to painting and back again before having a crack at chemistry, anatomy, natural science and finally medicine. Eventually he ended up teaching philosophy at Harvard University.

"In 1903 he began the process of trying to decide whether to retire," Menand writes. "His diary for [autumn] 1905 reads: October 26, 'Resign!'; October 28, 'Resign!!!'; November 4, 'Resign?'; November 7, 'Resign!'; November 8, 'Don't resign'; November 9, 'Resign!'; November 16, 'Don't resign!'; November 23, 'Resign'; December 7, 'Don't resign'; December 9, 'Teach here next year.' He retired in 1907."

Self-conscious impulsivity. From now on, this - and I'm absolutely certain, no procrastination required - is going to be my own new approach to life. Or not. No, it's definitely going to be my new thing ... well maybe ...