How to Make Decisions When You’re Afraid of Getting It Wrong

Episode Summary – How to Make Decisions When You’re Afraid of Getting It Wrong

Why is it so hard to make a decision when you’re afraid of getting it wrong? For adults with ADHD, fear of making a mistake, disappointing others, or regretting a choice can make it difficult to weigh options and move forward. In this episode of Reimagining Productivity with ADHD, ADHD and Executive Function Coach Marla Cummins explores why decision-making can be challenging and how you can make thoughtful decisions without being certain about the outcome.

You’ll learn how to assess the stakes of a decision, set parameters for researching your options, recognize when you’re going down a rabbit hole, think through decisions with someone you trust, and become more comfortable with uncertainty. You’ll also learn why making a decision with the information you have at the time doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind when circumstances or priorities change.

What You’ll Learn About ADHD & Decision-Making

• How ADHD can affect decision-making: Understand how emotional regulation challenges, working memory, difficulty getting started, and masking may contribute to worry, overthinking, and second-guessing your choices.
• How to match your decision-making process to the stakes involved: Learn why it’s important to consider the potential consequences of a wrong decision rather than treating every choice as if it were equally high-stakes.
• How to set parameters and avoid overthinking your options: Explore how limiting your choices, setting boundaries around research, and recognizing when you’re going down a rabbit hole can help you move toward a decision.
• How to make decisions when you can’t be certain of the outcome: Learn how talking through your options with someone you trust or a tool like AI can help you think more clearly, while keeping the decision yours to make.
• How to manage uncertainty and change your mind when needed: Understand why you can’t anticipate every outcome, how to sit with the discomfort of not knowing, and why changing course in response to new information doesn’t mean your original decision was wrong.

Transcript: Making Decisions When You’re Afraid of Getting It Wrong

(00:01):

Do you spend so much time trying to make the right decision that you end up sometimes making no decision at all? Or do you make a decision only to second-guess yourself and wonder if maybe you chose wrong? Today I’m gonna be talking about how to make decisions when you’re afraid of getting it wrong.

You’ve tuned into Reimagining Productivity with ADHD, a podcast for ADHD adults like you who want to learn the best strategies, tools, and skills to get your essential work done in a way that works with the way your brain is wired. I’m Marla Cummins, an ADHD and executive function coach. And I’m glad you’re joining me today on this journey toward doing what matters most to you without trying to do it like everyone else.

Decision making is hard for a lot of us. Sometimes it’s because the decision is truly high-stakes and involves a lot of information to digest and sort through.

Why Decision Making Is Hard For ADHD Adults

(01:03):

But whether the decision is complicated or not, another reason it may be difficult is that sometimes you may want to avoid making a mistake, disappointing yourself or others, or feeling regret. You may wanna be certain you’re making the right choice before you commit, but as I’m sure you know, sometimes we just can’t know that in advance. So you read all the reviews, go to a restaurant and find out you don’t really care for the food.

You go shopping for a car, test-drive a few, read the consumer reports, read what others have said, and then you get the car and realize that, you know, the back window isn’t expansive enough for the view you really wanted. Sure, we can all always probably improve our decision-making skills, but sometimes the difficulty isn’t knowing how to decide, but rather it’s being willing to decide when we can’t be absolutely sure we’ll get the outcome we want.

How Your ADHD Impacts Your Ability To Make Decisions

(02:08):

There are a number of ways your ADHD may be impacting your ability to make decisions. Challenges with emotional regulation may make worry and fear of regret all consuming, making it hard to think clearly about your options. In addition, working memory challenges may make it hard to hold competing considerations in mind while you’re trying to make a decision.

You may find yourself revisiting the same information because it’s hard to keep all the pieces together. And remember, ADHD can also affect your ability to get started and sustain the effort needed, particularly when a task is ambiguous or doesn’t feel particularly interesting or stimulating. So when you face a decision that offers little immediate interest, maybe novelty, urgency, weighing your options can just feel exhausting.

That can make it even harder to move from considering your options to actually doing the choosing. You may also hyperfocus and get caught up in research, especially if you’re afraid of making a mistake, or maybe you find the research interesting even if the actual decision isn’t that all that interesting.

(03:34):

I’ll talk in a bit about how to recognize when you’re going down a rabbit hole.

How ADHD Masking May Affect Your Ability to Make Decisions

(03:40):

Another thing related to your ADHD, but not really a symptom of ADHD is masking, where adults with ADHD may learn to hide their difficulties or work especially hard to compensate for them. This can happen, especially of course, if you maybe have a history of being criticized or feeling like you often disappoint people or maybe yourself. So then over time, maybe you become exceptionally concerned about getting things just right.

And this may translate into double-checking or triple checking yourself or being reluctant to finalize a decision and deliver whatever it is you need to deliver because you’re not sure if it’s right. So instead you may have this subtext in the background of your mind such as, “What if I get it wrong? What is so-and-so gonna think?

What if I end up looking foolish?” If you recognize this pattern in yourself, practice asking yourself whether you’re not making a decision, whatever that decision is for you, because you’re afraid of being judged or disappointing someone.

Recognize The Stakes And Potential Consequences Of A Decision

(04:58):

I’m sure there are other reasons you may struggle to make decisions, but I think a useful place to start to minimize these struggles is to consider the stakes of the decision you’re facing. That is, what will actually happen if you make the wrong decision? For example, some decisions truly are low-stakes, like choosing a restaurant or a movie.

Sure, if you make the wrong choice, you may regret that you didn’t enjoy yourself as much as you might have if you had made another choice. And it’s definitely a bummer to waste time and money, but you’ll have the opportunity to make a different choice down the road. And of course, we all hope that the next restaurant or movie is better.

Then there are, I guess, what I would call moderate-stakes decisions, maybe because they entail spending a considerable amount of money more than a restaurant meal and taking up more time, more than a few hours.

(05:59):

That might be buying a new computer, choosing a vacation, or taking on a commitment you can’t immediately get out of if you decide you don’t like it, like volunteering. But even these choices have an endpoint. The vacation will end, you could probably sell the computer and get a new one, and eventually you could get out of the volunteer commitment.

Then of course, there are the real high-stakes decisions, like buying a home, changing careers, or making a major life decision. Obviously, these choices have significant financial, emotional, or long-term consequences, but if you’ve been around the block enough, you also know many of these can be turned around, though not necessarily without cost or complications. Sure, you wanna give these decisions more thorough consideration than lesser stakes decisions as you decide how to move forward in each case.

The key is to match the time and energy you spend deliberating to the decision’s actual consequences rather than, as can happen for many adults with ADHD, treating every decision as if the consequences are equal.

(07:21):

Again, the visceral emotional intensity you feel when making a decision doesn’t necessarily reflect its actual stakes. A seemingly small decision for adults with ADHD may still make you feel really anxious. For some adults with ADHD, that emotional intensity may be related to intense sensitivity to rejection or criticism, though not a formal diagnosis, it’s sometimes referred to as rejection sensitive dysphoria or RSD, which is used to describe these intense emotional reactions or perceived rejection that you may get if you feel you might make a wrong decision.

And that if that’s something that you think you may have, you’ll certainly want to address this if it’s a part of what’s making it hard for you to make decisions.

(08:18):

So once you’ve decided the stakes and consequences of a potentially wrong decision, the next step, as I said earlier about high-stakes decisions, is of course to think it through more thoroughly. So what does that mean? Let’s get into that for a second.

First, it’s helpful to decide in advance the parameters and how much time and energy you want to put into a decision. This of course won’t cover every type of decision, but let’s say you’re gonna decide on a low-stakes decision like a restaurant, and you decide that you want something that’s good for vegetarians and it shouldn’t be more than 20 minute drive for someone who’s going to meet you there. If you’re going to meet with friends, maybe you come up with three options and run them by the whole group, and then you choose one.

I’m not saying that this is the method you should choose to get a restaurant idea, but you get it.

(09:23):

You wanna set parameters so that you’re not looking at all restaurants’ options within maybe an hour of you. Similarly, you might decide in advance how much you wanna spend on a computer and what matters most to you, though other features might be available. Of course, if you know you want an Apple computer, that might make it easier.

If you want a PC, maybe you consider three of the most reputable brands. Again, I’m not suggesting that you use this method to buy a computer, but rather you have some parameters from the outset instead of leaving it open to the plethora of options out there. The goal is to limit your choices to make a thoughtful decision easier, not to eliminate every possible risk or research until you feel completely certain.

And if you haven’t read Paradox of Choice, I highly recommend it. It’ll help you understand how to be a satisficer instead of a maximizer when making choices.

Learn What It Feels Like When You Go Down a Rabbit Hole

(10:32):

Anyway, this next strategy is a little bit more nuanced and it builds on my previous suggestion, and that is to learn what it feels like for you somatically when you’re going down a rabbit hole. For me, I start to feel a little overwhelmed and stressed. My stomach gets a little tight.

My head feels like it’s swimming. That can signal that I’m getting too caught up in the process, or it may signal that I’m tired or hungry, for that matter. Anyway, for adults with ADHD, this hyperfocusing on the research can happen, again, because the research may feel really stimulating, giving you the dopamine hit your brain craves.

But in the moment, you may even think you’re doing your due diligence, but like Alice in Wonderland, you’re just getting lost down the rabbit hole, twisting and turning, going further and further.

(11:30):

One way to avoid this is again, to return to the original parameters you set out so that when you feel the signal that you may be overdoing it, you can compare that against the parameters so that you know when you’ve done enough research and it’s time to make a decision. Going back to the computer example, in addition to considering only three PC brands, for example, you may also decide to look at only three review sites and not more. The key is to check in with yourself about how you’re feeling physically, as this can sometimes cue you that you’re in hyperfocus, your brain is locked in, you’re going down a rabbit hole, and it’s beyond just doing due diligence.

Process the Decision With Someone You Trust

(12:25):

I’m sure you’ve heard this next suggestion many times before, and that is one strategy you can use is to think through your decision with someone you trust or a tool like AI. For example, I recently talked with a client who had been advised to buy out his car lease. Since this was a significant financial decision, I asked if he’d like to think it through together.

We talked through his options, honestly, with the help of AI, because I am definitely not a car-buying expert. As we talked, it became clear he still needed to learn a few things before making an informed decision. He decided to get more information about the financial implications of his options, talk with his girlfriend and a friend who actually is a car-buying expert.

I didn’t tell him what to do, we just collaborated and talked it through so he could see that he did have other options at the and the initial suggestion maybe wasn’t the best for him.

(13:36):

In the end, our discussion helped him think more clearly about his decision and left him with a few things to do to gather more information and clarity so he could, again, make the best decision for himself. If you decide to have this kind of conversation with another person or a tool like AI, you could give them specific instructions about the kind of feedback you’d like. For example, you might say that you’d like them to question your thinking, point out anything you might be missing that they think of, or help you consider other options that you haven’t thought about.

You could also ask them to help you distinguish between what you know, what you’re assuming, and well, maybe what you still need to find out. The goal isn’t to find someone else to make the decision for you, it’s to have a collaborative thought partner. And often really, as in the car-buying example, they don’t really need to know anything about the content to help you think it through.

(14:45):

After we talked through the car-buying example, I didn’t know anything more about how to buy cars, but my client felt pretty confident in what he needed to do next.

(15:00):

So now once you’ve done your due diligence, maybe you’ve set parameters around your decision and talked through the decision with someone else, it’s still important to remember you’re deciding in that moment with the information and the capacity you have. We’ve all been there. You may later find out something that had you known it earlier, it might have changed your decision, or maybe over time your perspective changes or your values even change, or maybe your decision-making skills just improve.

For example, how many stories have you heard about, mm, somebody buying a property, a house, a condo, whatever, where the neighborhood and everything seems fine and then something changes. Maybe, for example, a proposed zoning law they weren’t aware of suddenly comes to light after they buy the property. There’s only so much due diligence you can do.

Learn to Be With the Discomfort Involved in Decision-Making

(16:03):

When what matters to you changes, the decision that felt right when you made it may not be the best one for you down the road. So a really thoughtful decision can still lead to disappointing outcomes. The key, again, is to remember that you can’t evaluate the quality of your original decision solely by looking at what happened afterward.

You also want to consider the context of who you were at that time when you made the decision and what was reasonable to expect of yourself when you made the original decision. So you’ve done all the hard work, you made a decision, and you’ve given yourself the compassion of recognizing that you made the best decision you could at the time, yet you still feel uncomfortable. That feeling of discomfort is not necessarily going to go away.

The key is to be willing to sit with discomfort.

(17:14):

Otherwise, as you know, wanting to be 100% comfortable before deciding can really keep you stuck. And recognizing that being uncomfortable doesn’t necessarily mean you are going to make or you made a wrong decision. I think the discomfort is about not knowing what the future holds.

The best you can do in these moments to say, “Yeah, this is uncomfortable and I can do this anyway.” But being with a discomfort doesn’t mean you can’t pivot and change your mind. If you get new information or, again, gain a different perspective, it’s really important to have the cognitive flexibility to evaluate your original decision in light of the new information or the new perspective.

Develop the Cognitive Flexibility to Pivot When New Information Emerges

(18:10):

And if you decide to change your mind after you’ve made the decision or after the decision is done or it’s in motion or wherever you are in the process, that doesn’t mean your original decision was wrong or that you’re a failure. Changing your mind when it warrants it is really a good thing. Being willing to be flexible may actually even help you make the decision in the first place, because if you know that you can change course, though not always easily, as I said before, maybe you won’t feel as locked in like it’s a forever thing, and maybe it’ll be easier to make the decision in the moment.

Again, obviously not all decisions are easy to undo, and pivoting can come at cost, sometimes great costs. So I’m certainly not suggesting that you do this carelessly.

Learn From Your Past Decisions

(19:12):

And that brings me to my last point, which is that you can probably learn from your decisions whatever the outcome. If it was a good outcome, what did you control that helped you make the decision and what other factors like luck played a role? And if you didn’t get the outcome you wanted, what could you do differently next time?

And also, what other factors beyond your control were at play? Anyway, that’s it for now. I’m really glad you joined me, and I hope you’re taking away from this episode that decision-making can be hard, and it’s important to match the time and energy you spend to the type of decision you’re making, the stakes involved.

So do your due diligence, but remember, you’re making very often the best decision you can with what you know at the time, and you just can’t anticipate every outcome.

(20:14):

But if you’d like to get support, getting a handle on decision-making and other day-to-day demands of life with ADHD, I do offer one-on-one coaching for adults with executive function challenges. You can learn more at marlacummins. com/coaching. And if you’re curious whether coaching might help you, feel free to reach out.

I’m always happy to chat. Until next time, this has been Reimagining Productivity with ADHD, and Marla Cummins reminding you that ADHD doesn’t define you, but how you work with it can shape what’s possible.

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Resources To Help ADHD Adults Make Decisions

• Learn how to plan better with my Free Guide: 6 Common Planning Mistakes Adults with ADHD Make.
• Join other adults with ADHD and Marla in this virtual live adult ADHD education and support group.
• Read The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz to learn how to become a satisficer instead of a maximizer when making choices.