Have you ever spent so much time trying to make the "right" decision that you end up feeling even less certain about what to do? Maybe you compare every possible option, ask multiple people for their opinions, make endless pros and cons lists, or finally make a choice only to immediately wonder whether you made a mistake. Even relatively small decisions can start to feel surprisingly high stakes.
If you struggle with anxiety, difficulty making decisions and chronic indecision can be especially frustrating. You may know logically that there is no perfect choice, yet still feel unable to move forward until you are certain you are making the right one. The problem is that certainty rarely arrives. Instead, the more you think about the decision, the more possibilities your mind generates, and the harder it becomes to choose.
At its core, anxiety can make decision making difficult because anxiety is highly sensitive to uncertainty. Every decision involves giving something up. When you choose one option, you cannot know exactly what would have happened if you had chosen another. You also cannot guarantee that the choice you make will turn out the way you hope. For someone who is already uncomfortable with uncertainty, that can make even ordinary decisions feel threatening.
Your mind may start asking questions such as: What if I make the wrong choice? What if I regret it? What if there is a better option? What if I overlook something important? What if this decision negatively affects someone else? These questions can create the feeling that you simply need more information before you can decide. Sometimes more information really is useful. But with anxiety, there is often a point when gathering more information stops helping and becomes another way of postponing uncertainty.
This is where overthinking decisions can become a cycle. You may believe that if you think long enough, research enough, or analyze every possible outcome, you will eventually reach a point where the decision feels completely safe. Instead, every new piece of information gives your anxious mind something else to consider. You find another possible downside, another alternative, or another reason your original choice might be wrong. What started as careful decision making turns into decision paralysis.
One of the most difficult parts of this cycle is that overthinking can feel responsible. You may tell yourself that you are simply being thorough, thoughtful, or careful. There is nothing wrong with considering your options, especially when a decision has meaningful consequences. The difference is whether the thinking is actually helping you make a decision or whether you are repeatedly analyzing the same information in an attempt to eliminate uncertainty.
Perfectionism can make decision making even harder. If you believe there is a "right" choice and a "wrong" choice, making a decision can feel like a test you have to pass. You may put enormous pressure on yourself to choose the best job, the best relationship, the best house, the best graduate program, the best response, or even the best way to spend your free time. Instead of asking, What choice makes sense based on what I know right now? you may find yourself asking, How can I guarantee that this is the best possible choice?
The problem is that many decisions do not have one objectively correct answer. They involve competing values, incomplete information, tradeoffs, and circumstances that can change over time. You may make a thoughtful decision and still experience disappointment. You may make the best choice available to you and later learn information you could not have known at the time. A good decision does not guarantee a perfect outcome, just as an uncomfortable outcome does not necessarily mean you made a bad decision.
For people pleasers, decisions can become even more complicated because you are not only considering what you want. You may also be trying to predict how everyone else will feel about your choice. You might worry about disappointing someone, appearing selfish, creating conflict, or making a decision another person does not understand. Instead of asking yourself what you actually want or value, you may become preoccupied with finding the option that keeps everyone else happy.
This can make it difficult to trust yourself. If you are accustomed to looking outside yourself for approval, you may feel uncomfortable making a choice without first checking with other people. Asking for advice is not inherently problematic, but it can become a form of reassurance seeking when you repeatedly ask others what they think because you do not trust yourself to tolerate the possibility of making a mistake. Even after receiving advice, you may continue asking until someone gives you an answer that finally makes you feel certain.
For some people, difficulty making decisions can also be connected to OCD. OCD often involves an intense desire to resolve doubt and uncertainty, which can make decision making particularly challenging. Someone with OCD may repeatedly analyze their feelings, compare options, research possibilities, mentally review evidence, or seek reassurance in an attempt to determine what choice is "really" right.
This can show up in many areas of life. Someone experiencing relationship OCD may become consumed with determining whether they should stay in a relationship or whether their partner is "right" for them. Someone with moral or responsibility-related OCD may worry excessively about whether a decision could harm someone or reflect poorly on their character. Others may become stuck on everyday decisions because choosing one option means accepting the possibility that another option might have been better.
With OCD, the decision itself can sometimes become less important than the need to feel certain about it. You might finally make a choice and experience relief, only to begin reviewing the decision afterward. Did I really want this? What if I chose for the wrong reason? What if I regret it? Should I change my mind? The mind begins treating uncertainty as evidence that something is wrong, when uncertainty is actually an unavoidable part of making decisions.
This is also why repeatedly checking how you feel about a decision can sometimes make things worse. You may expect the right decision to produce a clear internal feeling of confidence or relief. If that feeling does not arrive, you may interpret your anxiety as evidence that you have chosen incorrectly. But feeling anxious about a decision does not necessarily mean it is the wrong decision. Sometimes it simply means you are making a choice without having complete certainty about the outcome.
When you struggle with anxiety and indecision, it can be helpful to shift the goal of decision making. Instead of trying to make a decision that guarantees you will never experience regret, disappointment, or doubt, the goal can become making a reasonable choice based on the information and values available to you right now.
This requires learning to distinguish productive problem-solving from anxious rumination. Productive thinking generally gives you new information or moves you toward action. Rumination tends to recycle the same information while promising that just a little more thinking will finally make you certain. A useful question to ask yourself is: Am I gathering information that could meaningfully change my decision, or am I trying to make the uncertainty disappear?
Learning how to make decisions when you have anxiety also involves becoming more willing to tolerate the possibility of being wrong. That does not mean making impulsive or careless decisions. It means accepting that no amount of planning can completely protect you from regret, disappointment, or unexpected outcomes. You can make thoughtful choices without knowing exactly how they will turn out.
It can also help to practice making smaller decisions without excessive checking, reassurance seeking, or reconsideration. You might choose a restaurant without reading every review, send a message without rewriting it repeatedly, or make a purchase without comparing every possible alternative. These everyday moments provide opportunities to practice trusting yourself and experiencing uncertainty without immediately trying to eliminate it.
Over time, the goal is not to become someone who never doubts a decision. It is to become someone who can experience doubt without automatically treating doubt as a problem that needs to be solved. You can feel uncertain and still move forward. You can wonder whether another option might have been better without needing to investigate it. You can regret part of a decision without concluding that the entire decision was a mistake.
If you spend significant amounts of time overthinking decisions, seeking reassurance, researching excessively, changing your mind repeatedly, procrastinating because you are afraid of choosing incorrectly, or feeling unable to trust your own judgment, therapy can help you understand what is maintaining the cycle. Depending on what is driving the indecision, treatment may address anxiety, OCD, perfectionism, people pleasing, intolerance of uncertainty, or difficulty trusting yourself. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) when OCD is present can help people develop a different relationship with doubt and uncertainty.
Ultimately, becoming more confident in your decisions does not necessarily mean becoming more certain. Often, it means becoming more confident in your ability to handle whatever happens after you choose. You may make a decision and later wish you had done something differently. You may disappoint someone. You may discover that another option would have worked out well too. You may never know whether you made the absolute "best" choice.
The goal is not to eliminate those possibilities. It is to learn that you can make thoughtful, values-based decisions without knowing exactly how everything will turn out. Sometimes moving forward means allowing yourself to say, "I don't know if this is the perfect decision, but I know enough to make a choice."
