5 Ways to Stop Second Guessing Yourself

Some years ago I re­mem­ber stand­ing in my kitchen, star­ing si­lent­ly at my box­es of ce­re­al, try­ing to de­cide which to have for break­fast. Was it a Frostie’s morn­ing, or was it more of an Oat Crunchie’s day? Or maybe grano­la? I stood there for 5 min­utes, un­til – ut­ter­ly frus­trat­ed – I marched out of the house and went with­out.

For­tu­nate­ly I’ve learned to make de­ci­sions more quick­ly and more eas­i­ly now, and when I no­tice that se­cond-guess­ing and doubt­ing start­ing to kick in, I kick it right back. So here are 5 ways to stop se­cond-guess­ing or, of you pre­fer, 5 ways to make con­fi­dent de­ci­sions.

1. Test them against your val­ues.
So many times we have to make de­ci­sions with­out a frame­work and no way to judge be­tween two choic­es. When faced with a tricky de­ci­sion it’s of­ten a good idea to line up your choic­es and ask “Which one of th­ese most ho­n­ours the things that mean the most to me?”

The de­ci­sion that’s most in line with the things that mean the most to you – your core val­ues – will be the best de­ci­sion for you. That might not be the sim­plest or most prac­ti­cal, but be­cause it fits with who you are and what’s most im­por­tant to you it will al­ways be the best de­ci­sion for you.

2. Trust your gut.
When I was grow­ing up I used to love rainy Sun­day af­ter­noons watch­ing Colum­bo, es­pe­cial­ly the bit at the end where he’d si­dle up to the Bad Guy, say “Just one more thing” and then pro­ceed to blow apart the bad guys al­i­bi. Just bril­liant.

What Colum­bo had bun­dles of was a great trust in his in­tui­tion. In ev­ery epi­sode, from the very mo­ment he first meets the bad guy, he knows ‘who­dun­nit’ – and he al­ways trusts that.

So look at what your in­tui­tion tells you is the ‘right’ de­ci­sion for you. For­get about all the “What if’s” and the myri­ad, tiny de­tails – what is your gut telling you? Lis­ten to your in­tui­tion, it knows what it’s talk­ing about.

3. It just doesn’t mat­ter.
My de­ci­sion be­tween break­fast ce­re­als wasn’t a big­gie. Whichev­er one I chose, there were nev­er go­ing to be any huge conse­quences and the rip­ples from that de­ci­sion wouldn’t have been felt much fur­ther than the end of my spoon. Some­times it just doesn’t mat­ter which way you go.

It’s easy to get wrapped up in se­cond guess­ing your­self, go­ing round in cir­cles and over-com­pli­cat­ing things, when – if you get right down to it – it just doesn’t mat­ter. Go­ing round in cir­cles is on­ly go­ing to make you dizzy, so stop it. Ask your­self this ques­tion – if your fu­ture hap­pi­ness wasn’t de­pen­dent on your de­ci­sion (and it isn’t, by the way), which way would you go?

4. Have enough in­for­ma­tion.
Go and get the facts be­fore you make a com­plex de­ci­sion. By all means weigh up the pro’s and con’s so that you can get an un­der­s­tand­ing of what’s be­hind a choice. But be care­ful – there’s a huge dif­fer­ence be­tween know­ing enough to make a choice, and know­ing ev­ery­thing to make a choice.

When you feel your­self pur­su­ing ev­ery fact or ev­ery piece of in­for­ma­tion be­fore you make a de­ci­sion, stop your­self. Ask “What do I re­al­ly need to know to make this de­ci­sion?” and fo­cus your ef­forts on gett­ing the best in­for­ma­tion rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly, rather than pur­su­ing all of the in­for­ma­tion you could get your hands on giv­en a longer pe­ri­od of time.

5. Re­spect your doubts.
We all na­t­u­ral­ly shy away from change, and we’ve de­vel­oped a whole bunch of tricks that make it easy for us to avoid mak­ing de­ci­sions and stay ex­act­ly where we are. That part of you is of­ten called the “Grem­lin”, and it’s the part of you that would rather avoid mak­ing de­ci­sions al­to­gether rather than run the risk of mak­ing a bad one or screw­ing up.

Your Grem­lin is not the same thing as hav­ing doubts, which are valid con­cerns about a pos­si­ble course of ac­tion, or rea­son­able con­cerns about what might be in store. Your doubts can help you pre­pare for change and get ready for what could hap­pen.

Your Grem­lin is adept at feed­ing on your doubts and us­ing them to get you to stay put, so know­ing the dif­fer­ence be­tween your Grem­lin and your valid doubts helps you clar­i­fy what’s re­al and what’s imagined, what’s rel­e­vant and what’s ir­rel­e­vant.