Sometimes decisions about the future can be exhilarating and terrifying at the same time but becoming more curious and connecting with the wisdom of others provides a powerful tool to make confident choices.
Thoughts such as “I want to make the right decision, what if I make the wrong decision?” and “this is too important to mess up” can be daunting for many, like one of my patients, Jenny*.
She was visibly anxious and distressed as she tried to explain her worry. She was at a crossroads in her life, wondering which career, relationship and financial choices to make, and struggling with a muddle of thoughts and emotions.
In her early 30s, Jenny could see so many options stretched out before her. Instead of these feeling exciting – so many opportunities! – she was experiencing all the options as frightening. By the time we spoke, she was almost frozen with fear and stuck in the dread of it all.
Compounding her distress was a pattern of thinking psychologists call “meta cognition”.
In other words, Jenny was thinking too much about her thinking. Each time Jenny experienced a worrying thought – “I don’t know what to do, what if I choose the wrong thing?” – she added another self-critical layer to the worry – “I should really know what I should do”.
This self-critical thinking depressed her mood and, on top of already feeling anxious, kept Jenny stuck in fear and indecision.
For any of us who have grappled with life decisions and worried about getting it “right”, it’s easy to feel great empathy for Jenny. Given her level of distress, my goal was not just to find her path through her choices, but to help Jenny learn some skills to navigate transitions so that the fear wouldn’t drag her down the next time she arrived at a crossroads.
Interrupt the ‘meta’ thinking
What did we try?
First up, we worked to interrupt the “meta” thinking and to observe the worrying thinking rather than getting tangled up in it. This would allow Jenny to dial down the intensity of her distress.
When people are able to do this effectively they report feeling less cluttered or overwhelmed. Jenny wrote a list of all her “meta” thoughts (not surprisingly they were all variations on the theme of “I should”):
“At this age I should know what to do.”
“I should always make a right decision.”
“I should stop wasting time and make a decision.”
Compassion for oneself
Second, to help her find some compassion for herself we designed a series of experiments for Jenny. In her family she was close to her grandmother and an older auntie, so Jenny visited them to test out her “meta” thinking assumptions.
Jenny asked her loved ones many questions: How did you know what decisions to make in your life? How about when you were a young person versus when you were older? Who helped you make your choices? How do you feel about your decisions now? Do you have any regrets?
From this, Jenny gained several different perspectives on choices and decisions. She learned that even the wise people in her life who now appeared to “have it all together” had experienced challenging life choices, and that making decisions is a process that can take some time and reflection.
Most significantly, these conversations helped to shift Jenny away from the notion that there exists such a thing as the “right” decision.
Mindset of curiosity
Third, alongside these experiments, I encouraged Jenny to practice a mindset of curiosity towards her choices and decisions.
This is as simple as substituting “I’m afraid I’ll make the wrong decision” with “I wonder where this will lead”. Because Jenny was fascinated by successful entrepreneurs and innovators, we used her curiosity to find out the detail of their choices and paths to success.
Along the way, Jenny experienced an “aha” moment.
Not one of her role models had taken a linear path to success and, like the rest of us, their histories were filled with dead ends, backtracks and many “mistakes” along the way. Jenny came to reframe that what appeared to be a “mistake” (a failed business, for example) could open the door to different opportunities.
To double down on her new “be curious” approach, I recommended some podcasts and reading.
Oliver Burkeman’s book, Four Thousand Weeks, particularly resonated with her. Burkeman starts from the premise that there will always be too much to do in the four thousand weeks that (most of us) have alive on Earth, and endless choices to make in relation to work, parenting, relationships and life in general. He suggests a lovely set of guiding principles to help us make these life decisions:
Where in your life or work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort? The aim here being to expand our lives rather than avoid challenges (because we’re too busy or fearful).
Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? “Let your impossible standards crash to the ground. Then pick a few meaningful tasks from the rubble and get started on them today.”
In what areas of life are you holding back until you feel like you know what you’re doing? “Don’t treat life as a dress rehearsal”, instead “put your bold plans into practice”.
Jenny wrote out “Let your impossible standards crash” on a sticky note on her fridge to remind her to stay self-compassionate and curious.
She then used the Four Thousands Weeks idea to help her to reflect on what she might want to choose, rather than what she felt she should choose as she navigated the next phase of her life. Most importantly, she started to feel excited, rather than paralysed, by all the exciting options that lay ahead of her.
*Name changed to protect patient privacy.
Gaynor Parkin is a clinical psychologist and founder of Umbrella Wellbeing
