Written by: Mark Wilkes, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
In my clinical practice, I often encounter clients who have big choices to make. What college should I apply to? Should I ask her on a second date? Should I stay with my current job or leave for another?
So often, the choices we face feel like they carry the weight of the rest of our lives, that whatever the decision may be we are then doomed to live with and remain committed to the consequences for eternity. In psychotherapy, we would identify this is an example of cognitive distortion, a way of automatic thinking we deploy so often that it feels like the only natural or true way of approaching the decision-making process. But it’s not.
The tendency to attach all kinds of assumed meanings and anticipated consequences is natural in any of the above examples. Humans like certainty. They like to plan for contingencies; perhaps through an ancient, evolutionary survival tactic, they want to assume the worst. When it comes to decision-making, if we are stuck between two assumed outcomes, both viewed through the lens of the worst-case scenario, the likelihood of taking decisive action is diminished or perhaps eliminated. Once that happens, we find ourselves stuck in the same place we were before the choice appeared, possibly stagnant and unfulfilled, but, we may think to ourselves, safe.
To reframe how we perceive decisions, large or small, we can imagine them in a different perspective. What if you leave a career and the new one doesn’t pan out? Are you sentenced to remain there because it was what you chose, or is there an opportunity to make a new choice? If the university you attend is not a good fit, are you doomed to stay there, or do you now make a new choice to transfer to a different program or another university?
Few choices are terminal. In the vast majority of cases, if we make a decision, we don’t forfeit the ability or position to make another decision or another choice, and another after that and another after that. This process is so ongoing that viewing life as an unceasing parade of choices probably makes more sense. Some are new versions of the choices we made yesterday: what to have for breakfast, should I call my mother? Others are novel and may only appear at certain times in life. Most are likely a mixed bag.
If you feel paralyzed when it comes time to make a choice, large or small, perhaps it will be helpful to consider that if you don’t like today’s choice, you’ll usually get the chance to make another one tomorrow.
Mark Wilkes, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Mark Wilkes is a therapist and writer obsessed with space where cognitive and physical performance intersect. In clinical practice, Mark works with athletes, musicians, and business professionals to overcome the psychological impediments stopping them from reaching their potential. Outside of clinical work, Mark can be found in the mountains near his home in the Salt Lake City, UT area, trail running, mountain biking, or backcountry skiing.
