Is Indecision the New Smoking? The Silent Threat to Mental Health and 4 Approaches to Overcome it

By Austin Dowling

So you’ve just reconnected with your former mentor who has offered you a role in his new Series-C funded startup.  You weren’t really planning a career move, you’re secure in your current role and you have a reasonable runway for progression where you are.  Still, the opportunity to build a team from the ground and implement the creative ideas you’ve long stifled is, well, seductive.  So you wake up before dawn with your inner monologue debating the pros and cons of a move, and find yourself increasingly dreading making a decision, before spiraling into exhaustion and self-doubt. This is a recent (true) story of a paralysis occasioned by two attractive options. This phenomenon, known as "decision fatigue," occurs when the mental effort required to make choices exhausts us, leaving us feeling mentally drained and incapable of making even simple decisions.  In this entry, we briefly review the causes of indecision and suggest 4 steps to overcome it.

This is a true story. And it's a familiar one.

When we're faced with two genuinely attractive options, our minds often don't become clearer with more thinking—they become paralysed. The mental effort required to endlessly evaluate possibilities drains our emotional resources until even simple decisions begin to feel overwhelming. In this article, we'll explore why indecision happens, why ambivalence is more normal than we think, and four practical ways to loosen its grip.

Okay, the smoking analogy may be pushing things a little. But in a world where information bombards us constantly and our choices seem almost endless, indecision—and its close companion, ambivalence—have quietly become significant drains on our mental health and resilience. They leave us stuck, anxious and overwhelmed. This phenomenon, often called analysis paralysis, traps our brains in an endless loop of evaluating options. And it doesn't just affect major life decisions like the career dilemma above. It quietly infiltrates almost every corner of our lives: how we show up in relationships, how we spend our weekends, how we unwind after work, even how we respond to the invitation we were secretly hoping would disappear.

Breaking Free from Indecision

Overcoming indecision is less about willpower (so self-blame is particularly unhelpful here) and more about understanding the psychological mechanisms at work.

A major driver of decision fatigue is the opportunity cost of making a choice. The moment we commit to one option, we automatically close the door on another. Our minds then begin imagining the abandoned path in increasingly flattering terms, leaving us vulnerable to self-recrimination and regret over the imagined glory of the road not taken. It's a subtle, widespread form of self-sabotage.

Not deciding is, in many ways, your mind's logical defence against the beating it expects to give itself if the decision turns out badly.

For that reason, the most effective strategies are usually those that reduce the emotional energy we invest in a decision while limiting the amount of self-blame we heap upon ourselves afterwards.

Embrace Ambivalence

Holding conflicting thoughts about an important decision isn't a character flaw—it's part of being human.

If we're honest, most of us cycle through different self-states during the course of a week. We can feel deeply appreciative of our partner on Monday, irritated by them on Wednesday, and profoundly grateful again by Friday. The same is true of our careers, friendships and life choices.

In therapy, we often think of this as a dialectic—the capacity for two seemingly contradictory experiences to coexist. Rather than trying to eliminate one side of the equation, we learn to become more comfortable holding both.

Simply put, adopt a "yes, and" philosophy towards your conflicting thoughts, rather than forcing yourself into an either/or position.

Accept Imperfection

The pressure to make the perfect decision is one of the greatest drivers of paralysis.

Think back to decisions that initially felt like disasters but ultimately opened doors you never anticipated. Equally, think of decisions that once seemed perfect but later proved disappointing. The quality of a decision isn't fixed. It changes over time, depending on what happens next.

This is one reason the 80/20 principle is so liberating. If we can identify and act on the most important 20% of what matters, we'll usually achieve the vast majority of the benefit without becoming trapped in perfectionism.

Focus on Values

When uncertainty is high, values become your anchor.

Clarifying what matters most to you shifts the question from "Which option guarantees the best outcome?" to "Which option is most consistent with the person I want to be?"

This is why therapists so often return to values when helping clients resolve internal conflict. Circumstances change. Emotions fluctuate. Values provide both an anchor and a compass.

Set Boundaries Around Thinking

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is stop thinking.

Give yourself permission to make imperfect decisions by placing a boundary around your internal debate. Set a deadline. Decide what information you genuinely need, gather it, then move.

Psychologists sometimes refer to this as bounded rationality—accepting the limits of our cognitive capacity and aiming for decisions that are good enough, rather than exhausting ourselves searching for the perfect one.

Conclusion

The skill of decision-making is less about making brilliant decisions and more about becoming comfortable with the imperfect nature of deciding. Every meaningful choice carries uncertainty, doubt, unforeseen consequences and the occasional wrong turn. That's not evidence you've failed—it's simply the price of participating fully in life.

Ironically, many of us spend so much energy trying to avoid making the wrong decision that we overlook the psychological cost of making no decision at all. While we wait for certainty, life quietly continues without us.

Perhaps the real goal isn't to eliminate doubt, but to build a relationship with it. To recognise that uncertainty isn't a sign we've lost our way—it's often the unavoidable companion of growth, change and authenticity. Carl Jung famously wrote that "the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are." Becoming that person rarely happens through perfect decisions. It happens through imperfect ones, made with courage, curiosity and the willingness to keep moving despite not knowing exactly how the story will end.