Sometimes, you can’t seem to make a decision for yourself. It’s easy, instead, to wonder about the rippling effects your choice will have on others. You lie awake at night with racing thoughts, you do a bunch of research, you might even ask ChatGPT, but you wish you could make decisions painlessly. This can leave us wondering what to do when others express an opinion about our lives. You feel out of control, and like whatever you decide is a lose-lose. This feeling is normal, and it’s telling us something. 

The real problem is not that you can’t decide; it’s that obstacles are getting in the way. Making a decision is about listening to yourself and trusting your communication with others. When done well, it doesn’t involve exorbitant effort. Decision-making can look painless. Let us explore obstacles to decision-making and then ideas for making your own decisions so that you can find peace today. 

Three obstacles to making your own decisions

We all make hundreds of decisions every day. But sometimes we find ourselves stuck with a certain decision. Something is interfering with your intuition. Here are 3 categories for the obstacles that are blocking you from making the decision: 

1. You fear disappointment from people you are close to.

It’s a terrible feeling to disappoint someone you care about. Behind this feeling is a fear that people will leave. You feel that you cannot make this decision without losing people you care about. When we are scared, people will abandon us, decisions become paralyzing. 

2. You fear disappointing yourself.

What if you make a decision and it turns out horribly? You’ve probably thought of this, of course. Your mind might run on all the terrible ways this thing could turn out. It feels as if you make the ‘wrong’ decision, you will not only have failed at this specific thing, but you will prove to yourself that you are a failure. This feeling is shame. When we feel the pressure of shame rise, it interferes with our ability to make a decision. 

3. You’re checked out.

You’re worried you’ll make a decision, and things won’t work out again. You’ll put yourself out there, and you’ll be disappointed, so you don’t decide. Instead, you tell yourself you don’t care. You’re left feeling disconnected from yourself and what you really want. When we are unable to name and claim our desires, making a decision is difficult. 

Three ideas for how to make your own decisions

You want to be more confident in your decision-making process because the process you’re using right now just isn’t working. Here are a few ideas to help you think through your own process for making difficult decisions when they cause you conflict:

1. Connect to yourself

We make decisions from the people that we are. This means that our decisions are deeply connected to our values and desires. Sometimes we are consciously aware of our values and desires, but other times they operate unconsciously. This means that we need to ground ourselves in order to be more connected to those values and desires. It might feel silly, but I believe some of these practices, practices that help you connect with yourself, can play a helpful role in making a decision. 

What are the ways that you connect with yourself? Here is a list of a few ideas for you to try:

• Mindfulness
• Journaling
• Making art
• Listening to or playing music 
• Gathering around a meal with loved ones
• Walking or other forms of exercise
• Planting a garden

As you engage with practices that connect you to yourself, notice how you are feeling and what you want. If you experience barriers to connecting with yourself, what are they? How might you acknowledge them without judgment and remove them? 

2. Accept the ambivalence and work through it

Often, decisions come with a flood of emotions:

• Panic
• Fear
• Self-doubt
• Anxiety 
• Excitement
• Dread

These emotions might impact our sleep. You might feel like you have a shorter fuse. It’s important to recognize that these feelings are common. In fact, they are very normal. What’s important is that you learn to practice an acceptance of these feelings. 

Often, when this flood of emotions comes, we feel a push and pull of excitement and dread. Ambivalence is like you are at a crossroads, and both paths have wildflowers and weeds. Ambivalence is often heightened when a decision you are making causes conflict. 

If you are conflict-avoidant, the mere possibility of conflict may sway you towards a certain side of the decision. If the type of conflict the outcome of this decision might cause seems particularly stressful, the anticipation of these feelings is likely impacting your experience of making the decision. 

What you can do:

In all of our decision-making processes, whether or not we acknowledge them, we experience certain feelings throughout. One way to ensure that we both honor our feelings and help them guide us healthily is through the acknowledgement and acceptance of these feelings. As you reflect honestly on what ambivalent emotions you may be feeling, pretend that each feeling is a signal. What might it be signaling you towards? For example, if one of the feelings that comes up is fear, specifically fear of a loved one’s response, the signal might be to create a plan for how to communicate either the fear or the decision outcome to that person.

3. Plan how you will share your decision within difficult relationships

You might dread telling people your decision, and creating conflict feels like the last thing you want to do. But here’s why it’s important and how you can do it. 

Plan out how you are going to boundary your conversation. These boundaries involve time – how much time are you willing to have a conversation for? These boundaries also involve what you are going to communicate. How much information are you going to share? Do you want to let them into your decision-making process or simply tell them the outcome? You get to choose the medium of communication. In a professional relationship, does this require an email or a phone call? What about a more personal relationship? Do you want to communicate this in person or over FaceTime? 

Quick Conversation Tips to Consider:

• Before the conversation, check in with your emotional readiness—are you regulated enough to hold your ground without engaging in old patterns? 
• Remind yourself how you arrived at this decision and the hard work you put into it. Tell yourself that you worked hard and can trust yourself. 
• Think about what you might need after the conversation. Do you need time to decompress? A walk? Support from someone else? Planning for post-conversation care can help you recover and reset.

It’s okay to feel anxious and overwhelmed by the decision-making process. If you’re feeling scared to share your decision with people you care about, you’re not alone. I help people just like you. We can help you learn how to navigate the intense emotions that come with decisions that cause conflict. Click below and schedule a free consultation today. 

Sources: Psychology Today Staff. (2025). Decision-making. Decision-Making. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/decision-making.