Why we avoid decision making (and how to get better at it)
Decision-making is one of the most fundamental skills in life and business. Yet, many of us avoid it, even though it’s key to success. The process of making a decision often triggers anxiety, uncertainty, and fear of regret. But why does decision-making feel so overwhelming, and how can we improve it?
In this blog, we’ll explore why we resist decision-making, the traps we fall into, and strategies to enhance how we make choices. Whether you’re leading a team or simply making day-to-day decisions, understanding these concepts will help you navigate the decision-making process more effectively.
Why we avoid decision making
At its core, decision-making is about choice, and with choice comes the potential for regret. Many people fear making the wrong decision, so they procrastinate or defer decisions to others. It’s not just about the possibility of failure but the weight of uncertainty, especially when the outcomes are unknown. This leads to decision paralysis, where the fear of future regret keeps us stuck.
Subtle environmental cues also play a role. Whether it’s following trends, seeking advice, or defaulting to popular choices, we often avoid the mental effort required to make decisions. For example, when shopping online, we may rely on product reviews, ratings, or best-seller tags, allowing others to shape our decisions instead of fully engaging with the process.
This tendency to avoid decision-making becomes more apparent in high-pressure or unfamiliar situations. The mental load of making complex decisions can cause us to overthink, which leads to avoiding the decision altogether or making choices we’re not fully confident in.
The mental load of decision making
Decision-making isn’t just about evaluating options, it also involves managing mental energy. Our brains are wired to take shortcuts and use mental models to simplify choices. These models, built from past experiences, help us make faster decisions by predicting outcomes. But when we rely too heavily on these shortcuts, we risk missing key information.
For example, consider decision fatigue. When presented with too many choices, like when browsing through hundreds of products online, our mental energy starts to deplete. As a result, we often defer to social proof, like reviews or star ratings, as a shortcut to avoid making a decision ourselves. While this may seem efficient, it can lead to choices that don’t align with our real preferences or needs.
The mental load of decision-making becomes more pronounced when choices require complex thinking or are tied to high stakes. When we’re mentally exhausted from making too many decisions, the quality of those decisions starts to drop, leading to hasty or poorly thought-out conclusions.
Why do smart people make bad decisions?
Even highly intelligent individuals are prone to making poor decisions. This is because decision-making is not just about intellect, it’s about having the right information and understanding the context in which the decision is being made. Cognitive biases, incomplete data, or emotional influences can all distort even the sharpest minds.
Take, for instance, overconfidence bias. Smart people might rely too much on their past successes, assuming that their intelligence alone will guide them to the right decision, come on, we all know someone like this. However, this can lead to errors in judgement, especially when dealing with unfamiliar or complex scenarios.
In the business world, leaders often make decisions based on incomplete data or outdated assumptions. While they may seem like rational decisions, they can still result in failure due to a lack of adaptability. This underscores that good decision-making requires not just intelligence but an ability to assess and adjust to new information as it becomes available.
The role of social cues in decision making
Our avoidance of decision-making often stems from a desire to avoid cognitive effort and risk. Instead of taking the time to evaluate options thoroughly, we let social cues influence our choices. These cues come from observing what others are doing or following trends and recommendations.
We see online platforms doing this and they use social cues to guide consumer behaviour. Think about how sites like Amazon and Netflix use features like “best-seller” badges, customer reviews, and personalised recommendations. These cues lower the brain power needed to make decisions, offering us quick paths to action without deep deliberation.
While following social cues can reduce decision fatigue and increase confidence in our choices, it’s important to be mindful. There’s a risk of letting external signals, rather than personal judgement, dictate decisions, especially when those signals don’t align with our unique preferences or values.
The power of being guided in decision making
Given the complexity and mental load associated with decision-making, it’s no wonder we often prefer to be guided. We like to be told what to do. In today’s world, consumers appreciate curated content, expert advice, and recommendations that reduce the burden of choice. Online shopping platforms are masters of this, offering personalised suggestions that make the decision process smoother.
But the power of being guided extends beyond shopping. In business, strategies like storytelling, testimonials, and social proof have long been used to build trust and guide decision-making. These tools offer reassurance and reduce the perceived risk of making a bad choice.
Guidance works because it offers a way to mitigate risk while easing the cognitive strain that comes with decision-making. The more complex the decision, the more we crave direction. While it’s helpful to lean on guidance in certain situations, it’s important to maintain awareness of when to rely on external advice and when to trust our instincts.
How to avoid traps when decision making
Even the smartest decision-makers can fall into traps, which lead to poor choices. Adam Robinson, an expert on cognitive biases, defines stupidity as “overlooking or dismissing conspicuously crucial information.” In his research, he identified seven key factors that can lead to poor decision-making:
Being outside your normal environment: In unfamiliar settings, we are more likely to overlook key details because we’re not operating in our comfort zone.
Being in a group: Group thinking can cause us to conform to the opinions of others, even when we know better.
Being in the presence of an expert: Ironically, expertise can blind us to alternative perspectives or new information.
Doing tasks that require intense focus: When we’re hyper-focused, we can miss important details outside of our immediate attention.
Information overload: Too much data can cloud your judgement, making it difficult to focus on what really matters.
Physical or emotional stress: Stress reduces our cognitive capacity, making it easier to miss important information.
Rushing or urgency: When we’re in a hurry, we are more likely to make impulsive or ill-considered decisions.
Recognising when these factors are at play can help us step back and avoid falling into traps that lead to bad outcomes. Being self-aware and slowing down the decision-making process can prevent critical oversights.
How to pivot when necessary
One of the most valuable skills in decision-making is knowing when to pivot. People often stick to a decision because they’ve already made it, even when evidence shows it’s not working. However, the ability to pivot and change direction is so important for long-term success.
Effective decision-makers understand that flexibility is key. It’s important to detach from previous decisions and be open to changing course when necessary. This doesn’t mean abandoning decisions on a whim, but rather recognising when new information or circumstances call for a new approach. Successful decision-makers are those who can adjust their strategy without becoming too attached to their initial choices. They recognise that the best decision is the one that works in the current context, not necessarily the one they committed to in the past.
In business, the ability to pivot can be the difference between growth and failure. Sticking with a plan that isn’t yielding results out of a sense of obligation or sunk costs often leads to stagnation. Instead, constantly reassessing decisions and being willing to pivot when necessary allows for greater agility and long-term success.
Thinking frameworks to make better decisions
Improving decision-making often requires us to step back and evaluate problems from different perspectives. There are several powerful thinking frameworks that can help us escape our default patterns of thought and make more informed decisions. Here are three key frameworks to consider:
1. Inversion: Thinking problems through in reverse
One powerful tool for decision-making is inversion, a technique where you think about a problem by flipping it around. Instead of asking, "What should I do to achieve success?" inversion asks, "What should I avoid to prevent failure?"
This approach forces you to consider potential pitfalls and challenges that you might otherwise ignore. For example, when making a strategic business decision, inversion helps you focus on identifying actions that are likely to lead to failure, allowing you to avoid those mistakes. Similarly, in personal decisions, you might ask yourself, “What could make me regret this purchase?” before making a buying decision, or “What could make me regret this night out?”... This method helps ensure you’re not simply caught up in the positive aspects of a choice, but also weighing potential downsides.
2. Second-order thinking: Ask, "and then what?"
Many poor decisions arise because people only think about first-order consequences, the immediate result of their choice. Second-order thinking pushes you to look beyond the immediate outcome and ask, "And then what?"
For instance, launching a new product might seem like a great idea because of the short-term sales spike, but second-order thinking asks, "What happens after the initial buzz fades?" Will the product cannibalise existing offerings? Will it alienate loyal customers? Considering these deeper consequences helps prevent short-sighted decisions and allows for more sustainable long-term thinking.
Similarly, when deciding to make a big purchase, you can apply second-order thinking by asking yourself, “How will I feel about this in a year?” or “What are the long-term costs of maintaining this purchase?” You have to make sure you’re considering the ripple effects of your decisions.
3. The map is not the territory
A common trap in decision-making is mistaking a model or representation for reality itself. This concept is referred to as “the map is not the territory.” When making decisions, we often rely on mental models or simplified frameworks to understand complex situations. While these tools are helpful, they are abstractions that cannot capture every nuance of reality.
In business, this might mean relying too heavily on data models or forecasts without considering the real-world context in which the business operates. While these models can guide decision-making, remember that no model can fully represent the complexity of market conditions, customer behaviours, or unpredictable variables.
In everyday life, we also see this with online shopping. Reviews, product ratings, and curated lists are all useful tools, but they don’t always reflect your personal experience or needs. Recognising that these are just guides, not definitive answers—can help you make more thoughtful, personalised decisions.
The decision matrix: Prioritising what matters
One of the most effective tools for decision-making is the decision matrix. This framework helps you categorise decisions based on their consequentiality and reversibility, allowing you to prioritise which decisions deserve your attention and which can be delegated.
The matrix breaks decisions into four categories:
Irreversible and consequential decisions: These are high-stakes decisions that cannot be undone and require your full attention. These should be the decisions where you invest most of your mental energy.
Irreversible and inconsequential decisions: These decisions, while final, don’t have a significant impact. They can usually be delegated or made quickly without much deliberation.
Reversible and consequential decisions: These decisions are important but can be adjusted later if needed. This category is ideal for experimentation, test the waters, gather data, and adjust as needed.
Reversible and inconsequential decisions: These are low-stakes decisions that can easily be changed. Delegate these decisions as much as possible to free up time for more important tasks.
By categorising your decisions this way, you can avoid wasting time and mental energy on trivial matters, freeing you to focus on what truly matters. This not only improves efficiency but also enhances the quality of the decisions you make by allowing you to allocate your focus where it’s needed most.
Using a decision journal
One reason many of us struggle to improve our decision-making is that we rarely receive feedback on the quality of our decisions. A decision journal can help remedy this. By documenting your decisions, the reasons behind them, and the eventual outcomes, you create a feedback loop that helps you track patterns and refine your decision-making process over time.
For instance, after making a big decision, you might note down what influenced your choice, what information you relied on, and what alternative options you considered. Later, you can review whether the decision led to the desired outcome and whether your reasoning was sound. This practice sharpens your judgement and helps you avoid making the same mistakes repeatedly.
How to improve your thinking: A two-step process
One of the simplest yet most effective ways to improve your decision-making is by following a two-step thinking process:
Think critically about the problem: Before making a decision, take the time to analyse the situation thoroughly. Gather relevant data, consider all the variables, and assess the potential risks and benefits.
Ask, “What am I missing?”: This question forces you to challenge your assumptions and identify any blind spots in your thinking. By constantly questioning your own perspective, you can avoid rushing into decisions without fully understanding the potential consequences.
Some of the smartest decision-makers aren’t necessarily brilliant—they’re simply excellent at avoiding obvious mistakes. By incorporating this two-step process, you can reduce the likelihood of overlooking important details and make more well-rounded, informed decisions.
So…embrace decision making with confidence
Decision-making doesn’t have to be something we dread. By understanding the mental hurdles that make decision-making challenging and incorporating tools like thinking frameworks, the decision matrix, and a decision journal, we can improve the quality of our choices.
Ultimately, effective decision-making comes down to being mindful of the process, using critical thinking, and staying adaptable when new information becomes available. Whether you’re making personal choices or guiding a business through uncertain waters, these strategies will help you navigate decision-making with greater clarity, confidence, and success.
By building better decision-making habits, you can avoid cognitive traps, reduce decision fatigue, and consistently make choices that move you toward your goals! Now you know a little bit about what influences decision making, you can use it to adapt your business wisely.