Our brain starts off life with a number of features, but a complete decision system is not included. What we get is a rudimentary program for basic urges – I want and I don’t want. The rest of the decision template is left for us to encode ourselves.
As we gain more and more life experiences, we take short-cuts by turning them into unconscious decisions in the form of preferences and habits. They, in turn, become encoded brain patterns.
Encoded Brain Patterns
It’s easy for your brain once you have a pattern of preferences and experiences encoded. It knows exactly what to do and delivers consistent results that turn parts of your life into predictable and stress-free decisions. It can be a mundane and unnoticed decision in the order of your morning and bedtime routines, or a slightly more definitive decision as to whether it is going to be a large or an extra large coffee today.
Most of your daily activities are easy decisions based on the encoding of your preferences and prior experiences.
Only if life remained as simple as the brain decisions we are comfortable making. Click To Tweet
However, life is complicated and with that comes more complicated life decisions. Your brain wants to be as efficient as possible and deliver up a quick decision, but many times it has to multi-track through numerous different preferences and experiences.
Your preference may be to make a quick decision, but experience tells you it needs to be the right decision. It may be to make the best choice among many, but still a decision that produces the most desirable results. Or, the ability to make a difficult decision without regret.
Most of these major decisions boil down to a compromise that you perceive as being made on a conscious level. In reality, what’s really happening is that your brain is in the background processing everything.
Sometimes when there is a lot of conflicting information, it gets stuck trying to figure out what’s most important to you based on what it knows about you. And, that’s when your brain goes into delay mode.
10 reasons why your brain delays making a decision
- not enough information and needs time to gather more
- overwhelmed by too much information
- becomes more complicated with multiple choices rather than just two
- confused by too many points to compare with plus or minus values
- needs more time to process and decide
- pressured by outside forces to finalize a decision
- uncertain about whether if this is the right decision
- fear of the consequences of making the wrong decision
- needs to methodically consider all the consequences before making a decision
- rejects the responsibility – someone else should be making this decision
As they say, whether you made a decision or not made a decision – you made a decision.
What are your favorite brain reasons for not making a decision?
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The number 8 and 10 are the most common ones I see on my students. It is not easy to make a decision when everyone is depending on you. The fear of failing gets stronger and that leads to procrastination. Even a simple decision like getting ingredients for a recipe can be stressing for some people. I have been to that procrastinating trap years ago and I would never go back to that. Thank you for this great article Joyce!
Zaria
Yes, some are paralyzed by the fear of making decisions even on the most basic level. We pressure kids early on to get the right answers and then punish them with bad grades when they don’t. For those that are sensitive, it can carry on into adulthood. Rather, we should be promoting the value of learning from mistakes. It doesn’t mean then that every decision thereafter will be the right one, but it does mean that we can continue to learn how to navigate in our world without fear. Thanks for your comments.
I think fear of making a wrong decision is one of the biggest for me and for others. What I do is list out the pluses and minuses and see which list has more weight.
The fear of making the wrong decision is a leading reason for not making one. But, as I point out not making a decision is a decision also. The Ben Franklin pro and con list is one method and works for most situations. However, it has its downside too. Will be writing more about that.
Some interesting points to why one is not making a decision. And often I think that fear as well as not wanting to take responsibility is the culprit in the situation etc.
There’s a big element of fear when it comes to decision-making. It can become a deeper problem when subconscious triggers are activated, and consciously a person may not recognize those reasons and offer some other explanation. Thanks for adding to the conversation.
I don’t think I have too many issues with making decisions as I am pretty decisive. I usually just need more info or time to do whatever the decision is. Great tips though because MANY folks out there are so indecisive, it is irritating! lol
Kristen, you will probably have to give those folks a break, because it sounds like you were in the right place when they handed out the good decision-making brains. When I get ready to do my decision-making interviews, I’ll be contacting you for sure.
Joyce, this is fascinating to read for me right now as i am stuck on moving on with a project and those 10 points are really good to reflect on thank you
Suzie, we tend to focus on the analytical part of our brain to help us decide. Often, it’s better just to give it up to inner wisdom and let things unfold as they are meant to be. Best of luck on moving forward with your project.
Awesome and interesting Joyce! Very informative! Our brain is amazing isn’t it? Thanks for sharing these wonderful reasons for why our brain delays making decisions. Good to know 🙂
Absolutely right Joan. Our brains are amazing and we still have a long way to go to figure out how everything works. In the meantime, we can learn to use it the best we can to our advantage. Thanks for comments.
Very interesting Joyce. I think you’ve done an excellent job of covering the reasons for delaying on a decision. There’s always that tricky line between thoughtful consideration and outright procrastination, but, I try to keep the process as simple as possible. When a choice is not obvious I weigh the pros and cons and write about it in my journal, which really helps me to clarify everything, then I decide.
But here’s the really important thing in my mind, don’t waste time and energy beating yourself up if a decision goes bad. You did the best you could with what you had to work with so if you have to pivot later, look for the lesson in the experience that can help you make better decisions in the future and you’ll still come out stronger and more resilient for the effort. 🙂
You’ve touched on a very important point about not beating yourself up. So many try to avoid making a bad decision for fear of the consequences. I try to get across that whatever decision you make, you have to be ready to accept the consequences, even if they are one’s you can’t anticipate. It’s all a learning experience and you just do the best you can. Thanks for commenting.
“Overwhelmed by too much information” caught my attention first because, in my work, I find that my clients were not getting much done done and were in a state of “option paralysis”. Especially when you consider that a confused mind doesn’t invest (or purchase). A confused mind walks away and goes somewhere less confusing and less overwhelming.
Totally agree, Rachel. When the brain is overwhelmed a mental paralysis sets in and many will just shut down. That’s why it’s important to know how much people can handle and keep it simple.
You’ve given us a great list of how to write – or how not to – so that our target audience can see clearly what we offer. Great post.
Yes, clarity is the key Beth. Always start with the KISS principle as the foundation and then build upon it.
Yes, our brain is quite an interesting, fascinating and complicated organ…I can definitely relate to a few on that list.
It’s funny how much we depend on our brains to make our life run smoothly, yet even it leaves us in idle mode from time to time.
Joyce – I’ve given this considerable thought in the past. I tend to look at all options when purchasing anything over about $20 – but I know several other people who make financial decisions much more quickly and with seemingly much less thought. In the end, I’m not sure my decisions are any better or worse than theirs are! I’m plenty quick enough as a nurse and when driving my car, etc., but there are just some things that seem damned near painful to decide upon! It took me FOREVER to decide that my book was good enough to go to print – and honestly, I think the thing that spurred me on the most was my son saying, “You’re never going to finish that book, are you Mom?”
Each brain has its set of parameters of how it will react. When it comes to spending money, some proceed with caution more than others. When it comes to putting ourselves out there, the brain’s inner critic can assert itself and question everything. Glad to hear you eventually ignored it and got your book out there. Bravo!
For many years I truly believed that I was a very left-brain oriented person. I was analytical, I had great deductive reasoning abilities and carefully weighed all the information I received after asking many, many questions. As it turns out, once I learned to trust my right-brain more intuitive part of myself, my choices and decisions were less about “thinking” about them and more about trusting my “gut” on what to do or not do. Having learned that our memories actually live in our etheric body, not our brain, I do trust that we can sense and feel the correct choice for us, but often our brain and our thinking capacity gets in the way of making the right choice for ourselves in that moment. It is a fascinating topic and with all the new information and research, it will be interesting to see how we look at our brain in the future. I loved the work HeartMath and many others are doing that shows that our heart is actually running the show and has its own brain, functioning independently of the brain as it turns out. Thanks for the food for thought, Joyce! We all are quite fascinated with both our brains and our hearts.
I usually focus on the brain and it’s something most people can relate to due to all the research started under the decade of the brain in the 1990’s. However, for the advanced souls like yourself, HeartMath and the intuition are showing us that conscious awareness, subconscious activity, and out-of-body experiences are part of a far more complicated energy network that transcends the physical body. It’s more about the energy than the physical structure which serves as the conduit.
You hit on all the points I delay making a decision. The main reason I have issues making decisions is the fear of the consequences. It stops me often but I have learned to trust myself more as my business gets bigger. Thanks for sharing!
Working through decisions in business is challenging. No questions about it Sarbrina. Sounds like you’re on the right track by learning to trust. No decision is ever perfect, you just make the best one at the time and allow yourself some wiggle room to make changes if you have to.
Very interesting, Joyce! I’ve learned that my brain can get quite overwhelmed when offered too many choices. (You should see me at a Mexican restaurant with pages of menu! LOL.)
When that happens, I sit back, take a breath (or a sip of margarita), and go back to the choices in a bit. Funny thing–they seem to narrow down to the good ones.
Thanks for this!
Ah,… I see you have learned the take a breath (or slip of margarita) technique. Depending on the circumstances, if you feel all the choices are close in value, then you choose one and see where it takes you. If it doesn’t work out, you can cross it off your list of viable choices and choose another. The funny thing about life, there will always be another choice to make.
Over the years, I have observed that people try making decisions without enough information. I am usually decisive & if I find myself stuck, I get more info. Works every time. The other factor is many think a decision made is forever & I have fortunately learned I can change course, action, change my mind, etc. To me, the worst place to be is indecisive- creates anxiety unnecessarily. Interesting topic. Thanks.
You raise a good point Roz about being willing to change. Sometimes people get stuck in trying to make the right decisions and then continue to have anxiety once they have made it. Rather than modifying their choice to meet the circumstances as they unfold. Thanks for sharing.