How to Make a Decision When You Can’t Decide

You have thought about it for days. Maybe weeks. You have made lists, asked friends, read articles, and lain awake running the same scenarios. And you still cannot decide.

Being stuck is exhausting, and it has a hidden cost. While you hesitate, life keeps moving. Opportunities expire, problems grow, and the mental space the decision occupies is space you cannot use for anything else. This article is about getting unstuck: not by forcing a choice you will regret, but by understanding why you are blocked and removing the block.

If you want the full step-by-step method for important choices, start with our guide on How to Make Decisions: A Practical Guide to Better Choices. Here we focus on the specific moment when you have already thought a lot and still cannot move.

First, find out what kind of stuck you are

Indecision is not one thing. It has different causes, and each one needs a different fix. Read through these and notice which one sounds most like you right now.

You are missing a piece of information

Sometimes the hesitation is your mind telling you something reasonable: you do not have enough to go on. You do not know the salary, you have not seen the apartment, you have not asked your partner what they think.

The fix is to identify exactly what you are missing. Not “I need to research more,” which has no end, but a specific question with a specific answer. “I need to know whether the new role allows two days of remote work.” Then go and get that answer, and set a limit: once you have it, you decide.

You are afraid of regret

This is the most common block. You can imagine yourself in the future, wishing you had chosen differently, and that imagined regret paralyzes you now.

Two ideas help here. The first is that regret is not only caused by wrong choices. Research on regret suggests that, over the long run, people tend to regret the things they did not do more than the things they did. Staying stuck is not a safe option from a regret point of view.

The second is that you can only be responsible for deciding well with the information you have today. If you make a thoughtful decision and it turns out badly for reasons you could not foresee, that is bad luck, not a bad decision.

The options are genuinely close

You have done the analysis honestly, and the options really are roughly equal. Each has strengths and weaknesses that balance out.

This is the most misunderstood kind of stuck, because it feels like a problem when it is actually good news. If two options are equally good, then choosing either one is a reasonable decision. The difference between them is smaller than the cost of continuing to deliberate. At this point, the right move is to pick one and commit.

You do not want either option

Sometimes you cannot choose between A and B because neither feels right. That is a signal to step back and ask whether the options you are considering are the only ones. Is there a C you have not thought about? Can you combine parts of A and B? Can you delay the decision in a way that creates new options?

You are simply tired

A decision that feels impossible late in the evening may feel obvious tomorrow morning. If you notice that you only feel stuck when you are drained, the block may be energy, not the decision itself. Read more in Decision Fatigue: What It Is and How to Avoid It.

Seven ways to break the deadlock

Once you have a sense of what is blocking you, use one or more of these approaches.

1. Set a decision date and protect it

Indecision thrives in open time. Choose a specific date and time when you will make the decision, put it in your calendar, and tell someone about it. Between now and then, you are allowed to gather information and think. On that date, you decide with whatever you have.

This works because it changes the question in your head from “What should I do?” to “What will I decide on Thursday at six?” The second question is far less threatening.

2. Shrink the decision

Big decisions are scary because they look permanent. Many of them can be broken into smaller steps that are easy to reverse.

Instead of deciding whether to change careers, decide whether to take one evening course in the new field. Instead of deciding whether to move to another city, decide whether to spend two weeks there working remotely. Instead of deciding whether to start a business, decide whether to try to get one paying customer.

Each small step gives you real information, and real information is worth far more than imagined scenarios.

3. Ask what you would advise a friend

Describe your situation as if it belonged to a close friend. Write it in the third person if that helps: “Alex has two job offers. One pays more but…” Then ask yourself what you would tell Alex.

This simple shift creates distance from your own emotions. Most of us are clearer and kinder when we advise others, and that clarity is available to us if we step outside our own head for a moment.

4. Use the 10/10/10 test

Ask how you will feel about each option in ten minutes, ten months, and ten years. This exercise, popularized by the writer Suzy Welch, helps separate the short-term discomfort of a choice from its long-term effect.

Often you will find that the option you are avoiding feels bad in ten minutes and good in ten months. That is a strong sign it is the right one, and that what you are really avoiding is a short burst of discomfort.

5. Flip a coin and watch your reaction

This sounds frivolous, but it works when the options are close. Assign each option to one side of a coin and flip it. You are not bound by the result. What matters is how you react in the moment the coin lands. If you feel relief, go with it. If you feel disappointment, you have just learned what you actually want.

6. Identify the one thing that would change your mind

Ask yourself: “What would have to be true for me to clearly choose option A?” Then ask the same for option B. Usually there is one key uncertainty that separates them. Focus your energy on resolving that single question instead of spreading your attention over everything.

7. Choose good enough, not perfect

The psychologist Barry Schwartz described two broad styles of choosing. “Maximizers” try to find the best possible option. “Satisficers” look for an option that meets their standards and then stop searching. His research suggested that maximizers often end up with objectively better results but feel less satisfied with them, because they keep wondering about the alternatives.

When you are stuck, try deliberately switching to a satisficer mindset. Write down what “good enough” looks like for this decision. The first option that meets that standard is your choice.

What not to do when you are stuck

A few common habits make indecision worse:

• Asking more and more people. A few trusted opinions help. Polling everyone you know usually adds noise and makes you feel more confused.
• Researching without a goal. Reading one more article rarely changes anything. If you cannot name the specific question you are trying to answer, stop researching.
• Waiting to feel certain. Certainty almost never arrives for meaningful decisions. If you are waiting for it, you are waiting for something that will not come.
• Deciding at night. Late-night thinking tends to amplify worries and shrink perspective. Write down your thoughts and look at them again in the morning.

After you choose

The moment after you decide is often uncomfortable. Doubts appear. The option you did not choose suddenly looks more attractive. This is normal and it passes.

Take one concrete step toward your decision within 24 hours. Send the email, make the call, book the appointment. Action makes the choice real and quiets the part of your mind that wants to keep reopening it. If the doubts keep coming back, you will find practical techniques in How to Stop Second-Guessing Yourself.

A short exercise for right now

If you are stuck on something today, take ten minutes and answer these questions on paper:

1. What exactly is the decision, in one sentence?
2. What kind of stuck am I: missing information, fear of regret, close options, no good options, or tiredness?
3. What is the smallest reversible step I could take this week?
4. What would I advise a friend in my position?
5. When will I decide?

You may find that by the time you reach the fifth question, you already know your answer.