How to be decisive

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1:08Hello and welcome. I'm Kimberly Wilson. I'm a counseling psychologist, and this is Complex. The psychology podcast that I hope can help you find your way through the cracks and crevices of all the information out there about our mental health. In today's episode, I'm exploring decision making. Now, I am sure that a lot of you get really fed up with all of the decisions that we have to make day in, day out, especially what to have for dinner. We call that decision fatigue. And in part, that's about the sheer number of decisions that we have to make. but it's also about the pressure and worry about whether we're making the right decisions.

1:58So I am delighted to have the chance to work through how we can be more decisive and what it takes to make decisions in a way that isn't draining. Now as usual I've invited an expert guest to help me unpick the topic and together we're going to hear a listener's dilemma. So, let me be your guide from the rotten banana of misinformation to the ripe rosy red apple of understanding.

2:31And my guest today is clinical psychologist Dr Marianne Trent. Welcome to Complex Marianne. Oh, thank you for having me. It's lovely to be here. And can you tell me and the listener a little bit about your work, please? I'm a clinical psychologist and I'm also a podcaster and an author, so I keep myself very busy. And when you're working with people, do you see a lot of indecision in their problems? I think it doesn't always present that way on paper. But once you start to kind of work with someone, you realise that people just are so used to being perhaps led by other people or, you know, they've got traumas of, you know, maybe loud or angry voices that are telling them and informing them they should or shouldn't be doing something.

3:13So people maybe struggle to trust themselves. And maybe that's what we see more of clinically, but we wouldn't necessarily know that was about decision making until we, I guess, worked through the complexity of it. Yes. I will say though, of course, you've made a great decision to be here. And we're delighted that you are. So let's get into the complexity.

3:40if we zoom out a little bit how actually would we define a decision in the first place a decision I think you can think of as do I want a do I want b or maybe I want something that's not on the table at all it might be a fork in the road or it might be you know a bump in the road that that makes us reassess where we're at that means we need to change something so it's about making a choice between a range of potential options. Yes. Okay, and so what does it mean to be a decisive person? So it might be that you are an impulsive person, so you make decisions really quickly, maybe with not much emphasis on what's happening at the moment, just what you feel or not comparing the options.

4:27But to be balanced and thoughtful, you might go out the other way and take too long to make a decision. So I think it's context specific, but it's also person specific as well. And so then what gets in the way of making a decision? You know, I've got option A, B or C. Why might I not be able to choose between them? It might be your history, it might be your trauma, might be the way you've been brought up, might be people that you've dated, or you know, even friendships that we've had that can mean that we don't trust ourselves, or that we hear other people's voices you know sometimes you want me working with someone clinically and you think whose voice are you hearing that in I'm not convinced that's your own and they're like do you know what that's my old geography teacher or that's my dad or that was someone that I thought was my friend but now I look at it they really weren't yes I see a lot of just a sheer panic about making decisions alongside perfectionism you know where if I make the wrong decision I won't be able to forgive myself or I will feel less good about myself if this decision isn't perfect.

5:39Yeah I met someone on the tube today even and she kind of was really anxious about whether she was on the right tube stop even though she could see it on the map and it's like it's okay you're gonna get there it's gonna be all right and it's it's that kind of all or nothing and what if I get this wrong and it can feel all-consuming. Yes all or nothing thinking is one of those kind of big barriers to decision making you know that either I will get it perfectly right or it's an utter catastrophe that I won't be able to recover from. And what will people say about me too? Maybe they'll even start talking about it on social media and then it will be public shame right?

6:17100 % and I suppose I just also want to bring in that there are also some conditions that make it a little bit more tricky to make decisions whether those are mental health conditions like depression or neurodevelopmental conditions like ADHD where actually that weighing up of options can feel really really fraught to the point of impossible. Absolutely.

6:47So talking about shame that actually takes us very nicely to the listener story that I want to share with you from someone I'm going to call Chloe and that's just to protect her identity and I would love you to have a listen and tell me what you think. So Chloe says, I've struggled to make decisions confidently by myself for as long as I can remember, even for really small things which don't have a huge impact. For example, a couple of weeks ago I put a wash on which I thought would be finished by the time I planned to go out and get myself a pastry. However, it still had 10 minutes to go. I knew the bakery often sells out of the almond croissant I wanted really quickly, so I decided to leave the washing.

7:35I walked down the road for a few minutes before deciding I'd made the wrong decision and headed back home. Chloe says she did this a couple of times and then she says I can't even remember whether I put the washing out before I left the house again or even what pastry I had now my friends have kindly tried to convince me that I'm just a thoughtful decision maker instead but it sometimes makes me feel so unhappy and useless what can I do to help myself oh glory I mean thank you for sharing that with us what a privilege That is such a lot of distress for someone to be holding on a day-to-day basis.

8:18And on the surface, someone could really invalidate that and make that small and make her feel quite bad about herself. But actually, this might not be about the croissant. It might not be about the washing load. It's about fear of getting something wrong and tolerating if things don't quite go to plan. And I think you're absolutely right that it would be easy from the outside to think these are just tiny innocuous decisions that don't really mean anything. But if we're going to dig into the underlying psychology, then we're thinking much more about what is the meaning of these decisions? What is the source of her distress?

8:58And what might be the things that are in play here for her? It sounds like Chloe's either in a hyper aroused, distressed state, or she's slumping down below into hypo arousal. So I'm not surprised she's not remembering the outcome, because her brain's not encoding what actually happened. Yes, so that one of the things that happens when we become hyper aroused, anxious we might say, is that we have a kind of functional disconnect to that thoughtful planning, outcome, decision making aspect of our brains. They're not talking to each other, those parts of our brains. Absolutely, it's the older parts of our brain that are in charge because it's thinking there must be something very big and important going on here.

9:42So we'll activate our kind of fight and flight response. if you are for example being chased by a lion you don't need to be thinking did I get the washing out you know am I wearing the right shoes for this occasion because that's not going to matter you're going to kick off those shoes and you're going to run and so actually when we're in that fight or flight state it makes sense that we're not necessarily paying attention to those smaller finer details so that's why we might not have access to them once we've passed through that phase. And I wonder if, and I think about Chloe here, I wonder if we're talking about fear, you know, fear of the responsibility, fear of judgment for the outcome, fear of making a mistake and having to remedy that, that actually underneath so much of our difficulty around decision making might be fear and anxiety.

10:32Yeah. And for any of our wild human behaviours, there's a good and important reason. Let's not diminish that. There might have been humiliation, there might have been bullying, there might have been abuse, neglect, violence. There will be something that's contributing towards everything someone's doing, even when it feels like it might be nonsensical. We really like to believe that all of our decisions are very rational and very well thought through and very well considered. And I think one of the things that we miss are the unconscious things that might be driving our decision makings. And we all know this if we've ever been to the supermarket hungry, is that hunger affects the quality of your decision making.

11:15Tiredness absolutely affects your decision making. We know that when you are overtired or underslept, you make more rigid and more risky decisions. Absolutely. It can be helpful to use an analogy called HALT, which is hungry, angry, lonely, tired. try not to make decisions in those states so make sure you've had a snack and a nap and that you're feeling calm you're going to make better decisions when your body is not in a state of high arousal it's that embodiedness isn't it's connecting ourselves to our body the way we feel the thoughts we're having and i mean do we always want to make considered decisions or can we sometimes lean into a little bit more of a hedonistic side you know and i think if you were in a life stage where actually you're having to make very big and important decisions, you know, about things that feel really grown up, sometimes it can be really empowering to kind of make decisions that matter, maybe a little bit less.

12:08But if you find yourself in a situation where you're having to be the grown up all of the time, then maybe it's worth looking at who's around you because maybe they need to do a little bit of growing up so that you can do a little bit of growing down. Yeah, so there might be times, places, environments where decisions are being outsourced to us in a way that might not be quite as fair. You know, classically, and I am an eldest sister. We're the ones that are setting the example and the ones that the little siblings turn to and kind of look to for advice. Absolutely. Maybe for Chloe, if we're going back to our story, maybe she's got people around her that she's having to be the grown-up for.

12:52So all the decisions are feeling very, very important. But maybe it's never about the pastry. Maybe it's never about the washing. This is just how we're seeing it on the surface. Yes. And I think one of the other things that becomes really difficult about making a decision, decision paralysis, is that sense of losing options. And I think sometimes there's a way that people can really end up in a slight fantasy world where they think if I don't make a decision, all of my options are still available to me. yeah and you've made your decision maybe sometimes it's too late the job offer's been you know taken away or we've lost the tenancy or you know if you're on vinted or you know an auction site and there's only one of them and you think well I'll watch that and then someone swoops in and gets that dress and then you're gutted um so maybe that's a decision that you wouldn't have made had you had more information you know you knew actually someone else is going to have that in five minutes so you won't get that chance maybe you'd have bought it you'd have you know committed and maybe committed is the word because there is a saying that any decision is better than no decision and i've certainly seen it in the in the relationship research where you automatically are a bit happier when you decide to commit to getting married for example that there's some ease of distress or clarity of vision that comes simply with making a decision in the first place.

14:25I certainly had that when I resigned from the NHS. So I'd really deliberated it for months and months and months to the extent where every time I went to boil the kettle, that kind of two minutes of waiting was like, should I stay? Should I go? And then when I finally decided to resign, I just felt joyful and exuberant. I think I may have done a bit of a dance in the kitchen. Yes, because we think a lot about the burden of the decision but as you're describing there's a huge burden that comes with indecision and not knowing whether you're going left or right and kind of standing at that fork in the road.

15:00Absolutely and we are all different types of people aren't we? So we might be the sort of person that really goes to town on a decision and that might be sort of a maximiser personality. But there's also another one as well and that's called satisficing, which is a mixture of satisfy and suffice. And it's like, well, maybe that'll do for now. Maybe that's enough. And I think in any good relationship, we should have a mixture of a satisficer and a maximiser.

15:33Usually at this point in the conversation, I would love to put the topic onto a scale, you know, from mild to severe. But what's really interesting about decision making, you know, if we were to think about indecision at one end and maybe total decisiveness at the other, is that the research indicates that both ends of the spectrum are struggling with the same thing and that that's discomfort. So the impulsive compulsive maybe we might say rash decision maker can't sit with the discomfort of decision at all and just wants it done out of the way as quickly as possible whereas the indecisive person can't get out from underneath the discomfort you know they are paralyzed by the discomfort of making those decisions and so instead of asking you to put it on a scale for this topic I'm going to ask you what it takes to move towards more healthy decision making?

16:42I think it's trying to decide the scale of the decision, the scale of the problem. And I'm going to use ice cream to describe it. Fantastic. Can't be wrong, right? So if you're going into an ice cream shop and your job is to decide which flavour you want. Hopefully, that might feel okay. But actually, if you're going into that same ice cream shop and you're deciding, do I want to work here for four hours a week on a Sunday as a part-time job? Maybe that's going to take a little bit more decision making. What's the wages? Will it fit into my life? Can I get there? But if you're going to that same ice cream shop and you're thinking about buying that business, that's a whole different conundrum isn't it so I think if we're trying to break down our problems you know how deep is it is it an ice cream flavor is it a four-hour part-time job or is it actually a whole life-changing business type decision might help us to tune into what level of attention we need to give to this and you touched on the impact of our early experiences with decision making and responsibility and I suppose you know were you overburdened with decisions early in life you know we might think of that as a parentalized child who has to look after the whole family or were you shamed for making mistakes and therefore every decision feels really fraught and it makes me think of Chloe and what these apparently small decisions might link back to for her but what else do you think might cause problems with decision making for people?

18:34I think maybe if you've been in a relationship with someone that's really overbearing and maybe it's gaslit you as well it can make you really unsure of what you've said what you've done you know whether your decisions were right or wrong because you've been told they were or were not which really makes you doubt yourself have you been empowered to make decisions have you been celebrated even regardless of the outcome of that which then does help you think it's going to be okay even if I do make the wrong decision yes

19:11so for everyone listening and you might be struggling similarly to chloe with the washing machine or whether to accept a job offer marianne can you tell us how we become more confident with our decision making i just had a little bit of flashback of the time that i cried and asked for a butler because it was all too much. I never did get that butler but what I did get was a husband who took away some of the meal prep and planning of two meals a week so I didn't have to cook to reduce that mental load. So I think it's safe to ask for help before you end up crying in your kitchen saying you need a butler which is probably not anyone's realistic solution but you know you deserve to be supported and it's really hard to do all the things that we have to do to manage all that mental load you know have we got enough bread in and milk and have I paid the water bill gas bill there's a thousand things that we're having to do and we were just never really supposed to do all of that and I think that deep inhale and exhale that I just had can really be the start of everything we need to just calm ourselves down a bit.

20:28Yes. So what I would do with Chloe is just really start at ground zero and just teach her how to soothe herself and almost begin to tolerate the idea just for a moment that you've maybe got to that washing too late. Just take a few breaths in, a few breaths out. Just imagine that that washing is sitting there and you haven't taken it out. How does that feel? How do you notice that in your body? We literally go from there in building our distress tolerance and trying out safely the options in therapy so that you then can broaden that out into your everyday life. And let's think about the reversibility of a decision.

21:10You know, so what does happen if I leave the clothes in the washing machine and they are a bit musty. How could I come back from that? And maybe that takes the sting out of the importance or the kind of the burden of the size of the decision. Yeah, and maybe if we're thinking about those ice cream shop decisions, I think we're really trying to work out what size of decision is it I'm having to make? Is it just one decision or are there many decisions? and then seeing who's around you who might be able to support you. Maybe not giving you the answers, but helping you do that research element of what the options are can be so nice.

21:53And you're not looking for someone to say, I've done it this way and it worked really well. You might value their experience, but allowing you to make a decision that feels authentic to you, but also allowing you to make a bad decision. And that the skill is in the thinking through. as you were saying you know talk to other people ask friends a therapist can i borrow your mind just to bounce some ideas off because we don't have to carry the full burden of the decision by ourselves yeah will you be my safe and compassionate sounding board and maybe that takes us to a point that comes up quite a lot on this podcast which is about self-compassion which is if we can accept that there isn't a perfect answer and if we can accept that our knowledge and experience and information about the decision might change with time then perhaps what's left for us is knowing compassionately that we did the very best with the information that we had at the time.

22:58Yeah and also decisions are very rarely forever even if you start that job and you hate it you can look around for other jobs even if you've been there less than six months it's okay you deserve to be happy you deserve to thrive and then everyone else around you will benefit as well if it's taking up all that mental capacity for us to get through each day when we are better I think others around us will thrive and rise with us. And that also, thank you, that if you do choose to look around for another job six months in, that that's not a failure. You didn't fail to make the right decision. You just have new information.

23:41You didn't know before you got there that this was going to be a bad environment for you. Now you have six months more evidence and information. And you were like the person before you left because they also hated it. Now you have much more information about how terrible this place is. Run away. And you can use that information to make a new decision. Absolutely.

24:05Okay, so I'm thinking about the listener who wants to kind of get to grips with their decision making. Do you have any top tips on how to, I guess, to feel more confident with your decision making, having said that there's no perfect answer in a lot of these situations? I think we all make decisions in different ways. Sometimes it can be helpful to leave yourself a voice note in your own WhatsApp thread of you talking through a situation. If you're not a talky person, you might find journaling really helpful, something that helps you to just take the pressure off and just explore, have a look at the options.

24:44Sometimes you might just find that the answer just drops for you. Sometimes just taking a break, taking a walk, doing something a bit different or giving yourself like some gentle butterfly taps as you think through a problem can just help you think and activate different parts of your brain, different parts of your body to have a little curious look at what some of those options might be and how they make you feel because that's really important. Yes, and that's a really good point to not neglect the feeling part, not to hope or believe that you can just make a cold rational decision, that the feeling, the values, the connection to the outcome is important as well.

25:26It is. I think it's empowering yourself, but also just raising your head up a little bit and thinking, you know, I can do this. And maybe I just give myself permission to do this, making the best use of the resources I've got at the moment. And that's okay.

25:48Marianne thank you this has been so helpful and what I love about this conversation and what I hope we have gotten across to the listeners is that we will never make a perfect decision and there are ways that you can create or curate the conditions to feel more confident with your decision making and that if you can build in some self-compassion if you can understand what your values are then that's really the task the goal and the skill of decision making yeah and maybe make a deal with yourself that you'll check back in this doesn't need to be one and done maybe just be like well let's see how this goes for a few weeks and then see if I make the same decision or a different one and that has to be okay okay thank you again to my guest clinical psychologist, Dr.

26:44Marianne Trent. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you to everyone listening. As you can hear, I am on a mission to clear up the mental health space. I really, really want Complex to be your trusted place for information and expert advice and insight. And I want you to tell me what you want me to talk about. So email us your stories, send us a paragraph to complex at bbc.co.uk. Please note that I can't answer you personally so if you have a concern about a medical or mental health issue then I'd strongly urge you to seek expert help. And if you want details or further support with some of the issues raised in the podcast you can find them at bbc.co.uk forward slash action line and the link is also in the show notes on BBC Sounds.

27:37And that is it. Thank you to Chloe for sending in her decision dilemma and thank you to the lovely production team at Loftus Media. Producer Kirsten Lass, assistant producer Samara Linton, science editor Rami Zabar, technical producer Ruben Huxtable, studio engineer Andrus Albert, sound engineer Ruth Rainey, and at BBC Sounds, Assistant Commissioner Izzy Lee-Poulton and Commissioning Editor Rhian Roberts. I'm Kimberley Wilson. Thank you very much for listening. Take care and go gently.

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