Do I, or don’t I?
The Why: Dilemmas & Tough Decisions
Do I stay in this city – or leave?’ ‘Do I quit this job – or do I stay?’, ‘Do I enroll in that course – or the other one?’, ‘Do I have to pursue PhD – or not?’, ‘Do I buy this one – or the other one?’, ‘Do I want to live here – or there?’
Those questions sound simple and might seem obvious with an answer.
But many people fail to make their decisions. Why? They don’t spend quality time providing valuable information for the brain.
When I’m in these situations, my mind easily goes into overdrive, trying to figure out what to do. It makes me feel as if there has to be that one right decision hidden in my head, and I just don’t see it. But through extreme thinking, I believe I can crack the code to open it. If only it could really help. Unfortunately, it often makes things worse.
As a result, it can take days, weeks, months—or even years in some cases—before you finally choose one option over the other. The truth is, if you’re currently facing a significant dilemma or decision in your life, you are not likely to resolve it in the next 24 hours. Sorry not sorry.
Meantime, your life still goes… . Think how easy it is to spend days wandering around in a psychological smog – endlessly chewing ‘Do I, or don’t I?’ – and, in the process, to make yourself miserable, and to miss out on life, here and now.
The How: 10 Steps to Make The Process Easier
These steps are adapted from Dr. Russ Harris’s approach and can be recycled daily or multiple times a day to gain clarity and move forward in your decision-making process:
Step 1: Accept the Reality
It is highly unlikely that you will make your final decision today, and the same holds true for tomorrow. While it is not impossible, the probability is extremely low.
Can you accept and make room for this reality? Struggling with it will only exacerbate the situation and make it worse.
Step 2: Provide More Information For The Brain
The simple truth is that your brain may be lacking information.
Sometimes, a dilemma can be resolved through the old-school method of a ‘cost-benefit analysis’: write down a list of all the benefits and costs for each option.
Writing it down provides a different experience for your brain compared to merely thinking it through inside your head or talking it through with a friend. It may help your brain to notice important details.
Keep in mind that often (though not always) the issue can be resolved by gathering more information from reliable sources such as books, people, websites, or organizations. So, ensure that you have conducted sufficient research to make an informed decision.
If you have already done this and it hasn’t helped, at least you tried. Repeat step 1.
But if you haven’t done this, or if you have done it half-heartedly (be honest with yourself), or if you have only considered it mentally without putting it on paper, then give it a try.
If it helps – you’re lucky. However, the greater the dilemma, the tougher the decision, the less likely these methods are to be helpful. Why? Because if one option was obviously far better than the other, then you wouldn’t have a dilemma in the first place. That’s reasonable!
Step 3: No Perfect Solution
Do you remember the meme with the skeleton: still waiting…? Find it.
The image captures the idea that if you wait for the day when there are no feelings of anxiety or thoughts about making the wrong decision, you will likely be waiting forever.
Recognize there is no perfect solution. Our complex world is just that, complex (if there were a perfect solution, you wouldn’t have had a dilemma in the first place, right?).
So, whichever choice you make, you are likely to feel anxious about it, and your mind is likely to pull at you, “That’s the wrong decision,” while pointing out all the reasons why you shouldn’t do it.
Step 4: Not to Choose is a Choice
Recognize that whatever your situation is, you’re already making a choice. Acknowledge that staying in the current situation is a choice in itself.
Here’s a couple of mental images to help you understand:
Each day you don’t make healthy lifestyle changes, you are choosing to stay in your current habits. Until the day you commit to a healthier lifestyle, you are remaining in that state of being.
Each day you don’t confront your fears, you are choosing to stay limited by them. Until the day you face your fears head-on, you are staying within their grip.
Step 5: Follow Today’s Lofty Choice – One Choice at a Time
Following the previous step, kick off each day by acknowledging the choice you are making for that particular day.
Choose to commit to a specific timeframe, such as the next 24 hours. If 24 hours seems too long, then make a choice for the next 12 hours, or 6 hours, or even for 60 minutes. For example, for the next 24 hours, I choose to keep this job.
Reassess and make another choice at the end of that timeframe. Obsreve what emerges from this experience.
Step 6: Take a Stand
Given your choice in step 5, what do you want to stand for in the next 24, 12 or 6 hours (or even 60 minutes)?
What values do you want to live by in this situation? If you’re staying in your job for another day or another hour, what sort of a worker do you want to be for that one day or hour?
Step 7: Make Time To Reflect
Set aside dedicated time to mindfully reflect on the situation. The best way to do this is as described in step 2: using paper or a computer, write down the costs and benefits of each option, and see if anything has changed since the last time you did this.
The key thing is to make it focused deep work. Spend time visualizing the negative outcomes. Why negative? The visualization exercise focuses on feelings of failure to recruit neurochemicals to boost your levels of arousal and focus, leading to increased clarity.
Step 8: Name The Story
Throughout the day, your mind will try to pull you back into the dilemma, over and over again.
But if this were truly helpful, you would have already resolved your dilemma, wouldn’t you?
So, practice the cognitive technique called ‘Naming the story’. Say to your mind: “Aha! Here it is again. The ‘stay or leave’ story. Thanks, mind; I know you’re trying to help, and I will think about it during my scheduled time.” Then, focus your attention on engaging in some meaningful, values-guided activity.
Step 9: Open Up and Make Room
Feelings of anxiety will definitely arise, no matter which option you choose.
So, practice being open to experiencing and making room for those feelings.
Take a step back and acknowledge to yourself, “Here’s anxiety.” And this is normal. It’s what everybody feels in a challenging situation with an uncertain outcome.
Step 10: Be Kind to Yourself
Last, but not least, be kind to yourself.
Treat yourself gently. Talk to yourself kindly.
Remind yourself that you’re a fallible human being, not some high-tech supercomputer that can coldly analyze the probabilities and spit out an answer.
Sometimes (actually, quite often) it doesn’t come easy to be kind to yourself. In such a case, it’s helpful to quiet your judgmental voice by applying defusion techniques and then do plenty of kind, caring, nurturing, considerate things for yourself; things that soothe, nurture, or support you in this time of hardship.
What to expect?
- One option may become clearly more appealing than the other, eliminating the dilemma.
- One option might no longer be available, removing the dilemma.
- Your dilemma remains unresolved.
If the third scenario happens, there is a silver lining. You can embrace each day by mindfully living according to your values, rather than getting lost in a cloud of anxious indecision.
Additionally, this presents an opportunity to practice and develop healthier ways of living.