Sometimes it is difficult to say what is more difficult — the presence of a choice or its absence. Deciding which option is better, more interesting, more beautiful, more convenient and more correct can be oh so difficult. What to do? You can go from the opposite and take into account useful … anti-advice from psychologist Anastasia Gurneva.
Have you ever sorted through the pros and cons of options to the point of fatigue, to complete disorientation? When it is no longer clear which of the characteristics of the two (if lucky) alternatives is more important, and which ones can be sacrificed?
Or, even worse, the very moment of choice is left behind, and you are still sorting out and continue to doubt, looking in the direction of what you refused. And fatigue set in. And the chosen one is not so happy.
How to ruin your life in the process of choosing?
1. First you need to believe that there is an objectively correct answer. And all the diversity of the world is not a matter of the tastes of different people, but an objectively existing hierarchy. It doesn’t matter what it is about: work, travel, dentist or gadget.
If you believe in the objectivity that there is something better, it remains only to calculate it. To do this, you can read tons of literature, reviews and reviews, compare and … make sure that there is no perfection, and each option has both pluses and minuses. It remains only to understand which of them are important and which are secondary. And for this…
2.Require clairvoyance. That is, the gift to predict the future and know what the circumstances will be. For example, on vacation, you can predict the weather, with employment, you can guess in advance that the department will not be cut, the salary will be paid on time, and the team will be friendly.
You can also demand clairvoyance in relation to yourself — what you want in a month, six months, a year.
3. Stop listening to yourself and trust your feelings. This is also a simple task, because if you diligently followed the first two points, you are already lost in the information. And whatever your attention is directed to is outside of you.
You are trying to choose for yourself, but you can’t take yourself into account in any case! Only pros and cons of alternatives.
4. Don’t pause. The deeper you delve into the choice, the harder it is to make it. Don’t step back to see the whole picture. Look only at the details, preferably through a microscope.
5. Having made a choice, do not relax and do not rejoice in it. Sometimes, fortunately, the decision comes regardless of desire, there just comes a moment when it is no longer possible to pull. And you still choose something. The main thing here is not to admit that the choice is over, but to continue to look at the unchosen path and think about its advantages, which did not become yours.
Listen to yourself and find attraction to those options that have been discarded. Compare their pros with the cons of the chosen one. In case of trouble or difficulties on the chosen road, be sure to regret. Better yet, blame yourself for the fact that the choice was wrong and you again had to foresee these difficulties.
6. The most important thing is not to stop exercising. If you follow this path over and over again, you can accumulate even more serious problems.
For example, unwillingness to decide anything and shifting responsibility to others (then you can hate them for this, because in any case they did not guess right), fear of choice situations and fatigue from the process — so exhausting that there will no longer be the strength to go along the chosen path and rejoice exactly to her. Self-doubt and a powerful sense of guilt for every mistake.
Then, over time, the stakes will rise, and when choosing, not only one of the two paths will be at stake, but also self-esteem and guilt for failure.
Rooted from childhood
How to drive a person crazy? Give him two shirts and, when he puts on one of them, ask: “What, didn’t you like the second one at all?”
If the example from black humor is familiar to you, but this happened for the first time, no problem. I am sure that it is quite possible to cope with all this on your own, simply by turning my “bad advice” on the contrary.
However, it happens that such a story is rooted in childhood, in the specifics of upbringing or the personality characteristics of the child. In this case, your inner work will be more effective, aimed at realizing how you do it with yourself, where these thoughts lead.
And after that, it will be possible to pump skills and regain important things:
- The return of the right to subjectivity with the ability to make decisions — not “correct”, but your own.
- Return of sensitivity to yourself and taking into account your desires, tastes, preferences, features in a situation of choice.
- The ability to rely on the subjective and give it no less participation in decision-making than the objective characteristics of alternatives.
- The ability to pause and be distracted, look from a distance and listen to yourself again.
- The ability to put an end to it in time and enjoy the chosen option, taking it for granted (unless, of course, it causes acute discomfort and does not feel categorically wrong, which also happens, and this is normal, it’s just worth acting differently there).
- Stop blaming yourself for any past decisions.
- Accept that you did your best in those circumstances and that you did not have superpowers at that moment. And if you still made a mistake, then forgive yourself.
- Trying to make a choice is easier, with an exhalation, remaining alive, feeling. Do not lose yourself, your head, self-esteem and so on.
Making a choice between the right one and «one’s own» is not always easy. Don’t expect instant change from yourself. If you’ve been looking outside for answers for years, it will take time to learn to navigate within. And for this, you can slowly, without judgment and at your own pace, learn your tastes, values and characteristics.