I should have time to get lots done in a day, but it rarely works out that way. If I have given myself a project to do it can take over the day, or even the week. And whilst I appear to have achieved very little, I can be exhausted. Why? It’s all the thinking and analysis of indecision taking up my time.
I have never been someone who can be just black and white about something, and I don’t believe there is ever just one answer to something. But previously if there where a few options that all had equal merits, I would still be able to choose one. Not any more. Now I feel the need to keep revisiting it all again, maybe I have missed something? Perhaps I’m expecting there to be a glaringly obvious answer which I’m missed before. If this was a big life changing decision, like where should I move to, I wouldn’t be so hard on myself. But I caught myself doing it when thinking how I needed something to stop my new door mat sliding on the porch tiles. It’s hardly life or death! Or it might be if I never make a decision and someone slips and breaks their neck!
So this is silly, and I’m going to try to change. My brain injury might think this is the way to deal with things, but it’s not. I know to other people, dealing with someone who doesn’t make decisions lightly can be a chore. Lindsey Holmes puts in well in 10 things every indecisive person wants you to know.
Here’s my action plan to break this cycle of indecision:
- Accept that I’m making the decision not to make a decision – Everything we do is a choice. As is it a choice when we don’t do something. So my indecision comes from not wanting to finalise my choice. I’m choosing to leave the door open for me to change my mind.
- If all options are as strong as each other, the worst choice is to do nothing – Think of my door mat. If an option that turns out to be £2 more expensive than another, but I do nothing and break a bone, am I valuing my bone at less than £2?
- You can’t have a foot in both camps – We are brought up to compromise when facing conflict. But I don’t think the door mat is going to disown me if a choose something that wasn’t to his taste. So I need to just choose one and get it done. There isn’t a halfway house with this, unless I buy a different sticky for each corner. (Don’t worry I’m not that ridiculous… yet.)
- If you’re trying to avoid regret, inaction is the worst choice – If you’re anything like me, you don’t want to have that point when you say “I should have got the other one.” And that’s a possibility, but it’s it worse when you missed the opportunity to do it at all.
- Once you have the options down to 2, flip a coin. This works, because either it will make the decision for you, or in that brief time it’s in the air, you will realise which side you are hoping it lands.
If like me you find equally strong options difficult to choose between, remember this:
A horseman comes across a starving donkey, and takes the donkey back to his barn where he has two huge and delicious bails of hay.
The man says to the donkey “One of these bails will restore your energy, just choose which one you want and leave the other for my horse. My horse has work to do and will be hungry when we return this evening.”
When the horseman returns that evening, in the barn he finds two untouched bails of hay, and a dead donkey. The donkey couldn’t decide which to choose as they were as good as each other, and subsequently needless died of starvation.
Other articles you may like:
- Feeling engaged? Brain injury = stuck in neutral.
- Where does the time go? A day flies by after brain injury.
- Avoiding problems: I must stop burying my head (inc injured brain) in the sand.
- Scramble consequence of brain injury. Unaware of the muddle.
- Multitask plan doomed to fail after brain injury.
- Brain injury from surviving to thriving 6 weeks course
6 replies on “5 steps to end time consuming indecision of brain injury”
I go with the one I want the most, then I go with my gut, finally, if I haven’t decided I do the pros and cons. Or fly by the seat of my pants and think well, you only live once, I’ll have a great story to tell.
That sounds like a much more healthy response. You’re keeping the fun element- something my brain has evicted from this scenario.
Are you familiar with the concept of there are only a limit number of good decisions we make in a day and when we reach that limit we have like a pod decision fatigue. Hide your credit card for late night shopping ladies! Cheers,H
I hadn’t heard that before, thanks I’ll try to keep that in mind.
I have an adult son who experienced a stroke during heart surgery, and an adult stepdaughter who had surgery for a brain tumor. Both are dealing with the after effects and it’s heartbreaking. My son lives alone and has memory loss and now sleep walks. Are their resources/ charts/ forums for TBI survivors in their 30s?
I’m sorry that they are both going through this. I haven’t seen services which are aimed specifically at that age group but most Facebook TBI groups have people in that age range as it’s more common for a TBI to happen to them due to car accidents. Stroke groups are generally older because often it affects senior citizens.