Last week, you spent almost an hour deciding whether to buy something that cost $40. You read reviews, compared two brands, checked whether either was cheaper elsewhere, and eventually decided to leave it for another day. You weren't particularly worried about the money. You could afford either option. You just couldn't settle on one.
Or maybe it's restaurants. Someone asks where you'd like to go, and you immediately wish they hadn't. You pull up a few menus, check the reviews, suggest a place, then start wondering whether everyone will like it. By the time you've made a choice, you're not especially interested in going anymore.
It's embarrassing sometimes, particularly when you have no trouble making much more important decisions elsewhere. You might manage a team, handle complicated projects, or be the person your friends call when they need advice. Yet you can find yourself staring at two nearly identical products online, unable to decide which one to order.
Bigger decisions can be worse. You've been thinking about leaving your job for months. Some days you're certain it's time to go. Other days you remember the good things about it and wonder whether you're being unreasonable. You talk to your partner, make a list, think you've reached a conclusion, and then have another conversation that leaves you questioning everything again.
If this sounds familiar, you're dealing with something a lot of people experience, although the reasons aren't always obvious.
The American Psychological Association's 2025 Stress in America report found that 75% of adults reporting high levels of loneliness said stress had made it difficult to make decisions, compared with 30% of adults reporting low loneliness. The figures don't tell us why any particular person is indecisive, but they do suggest that the difficulty can be tied to what's happening elsewhere in someone's life.
Some people are afraid of making mistakes. Others worry about disappointing people or have trouble trusting their own judgment. Stress, exhaustion, perfectionism, and certain mental health conditions can all play a part. And sometimes the reason changes depending on the decision.
Why do I struggle to make decisions when I know what I want?
A friend of yours is offered a new job. The salary is better, the work is interesting, and the position offers opportunities she doesn't have in her current role. When she tells you about it, the decision seems fairly straightforward.
But she's miserable trying to decide.
She keeps thinking about how comfortable she is in her current workplace. She knows her colleagues, understands the politics, and has built up a good reputation. What if the new manager turns out to be difficult? What if the company reorganizes six months after she arrives? What if she leaves a perfectly good job and discovers the new one isn't as interesting as it sounded?
You can understand why she'd consider those possibilities. Most people would. But after several weeks, she's still having the same conversation. She hasn't learned anything particularly important about the offer. She's simply become more frightened of making a choice she'll regret.
This happens with smaller things too. You know which restaurant you prefer, but you keep asking what everyone else wants. You know which apartment you like, but you're worried that another listing might appear tomorrow. You know you'd rather spend Sunday at home, but you don't want your friends to think you're boring.
Sometimes you have a perfectly clear preference until you start imagining the reactions of other people or the possibility of something going wrong.
And once you get into that habit, almost any decision can become complicated.
When does thinking too much become analysis paralysis?
You can lose an astonishing amount of time researching something you barely cared about when you started.
You need a new vacuum cleaner. That's it. The old one stopped working, and you want something that will do a decent job without costing a fortune.
You begin with a couple of well-reviewed models. Then you read that one performs better on hardwood floors, while another is more reliable. Someone complains about battery life. Another reviewer says the cheaper model is actually better. Before long, you're comparing specifications you didn't know existed an hour earlier.
You now know more about vacuum cleaners than you ever wanted to know, and you're no closer to buying one.
That's analysis paralysis. You've become so absorbed in comparing the options that the decision itself gets pushed further away.
Research feels productive, which is part of what makes this habit difficult to recognize. You can tell yourself you're being careful and responsible. And sometimes you are. It's sensible to research an expensive purchase or investigate a major career opportunity.
But there comes a point when you've answered the questions that matter and you're still searching.
For some people, the prospect of finding a better option is enough to keep them looking. For others, the possibility of overlooking a problem is what makes it hard to stop. You might read another ten reviews because there's a chance one of them will mention something important.
The trouble is that the more you research, the more details you discover. Every product has disadvantages. Every job has uncertainties. Every apartment comes with compromises. You can end up knowing so much about the drawbacks of your options that none of them seems particularly appealing.
One question worth asking is what you expect to learn next. If you're trying to answer something specific, keep looking. If you've already got the information you need and are just hoping to feel more confident, another hour probably won't change much.
The trouble with wanting to make the right decision
Some people seem relatively comfortable making decisions that might turn out badly. They choose a restaurant, find the meal disappointing, and forget about it.
Other people replay the whole thing afterward.
They wonder why they chose that place when another restaurant had better reviews. They remember that their partner suggested somewhere else. They feel annoyed with themselves for spending money on something they didn't enjoy.
It's a small example, but the same habit can show up in much more consequential situations.
You accept a position and keep wondering about the other offer. You move into a new home and continue browsing real estate listings. You end a relationship and spend months thinking about whether you gave up too soon.
Of course, sometimes you really do make the wrong choice. Nobody gets everything right. But people who are particularly afraid of regret can begin treating every decision as an opportunity to make a mistake they'll have to live with.
The responsibility feels enormous, even when the stakes are fairly modest.
Perfectionism often plays a part. You might have very high expectations of yourself, particularly if you're used to being competent and well prepared. You want to think things through thoroughly, anticipate problems, and make choices you can defend later.
That works well in some situations. A lawyer reviewing a contract or a manager assessing a major investment should be careful. But being equally thorough when choosing a restaurant or buying a winter coat can become exhausting.
And even with important decisions, there's a limit to what careful preparation can accomplish.
You can accept a job after meeting the team, researching the company, and discussing the opportunity with people you trust. Six months later, your manager may leave and the role may change completely. That doesn't mean you were careless. It means something happened that you couldn't reasonably have predicted.
People who struggle with indecisiveness sometimes find this particularly difficult to accept. They're accustomed to believing that enough careful thought should protect them from disappointing outcomes.
Life has an irritating habit of proving otherwise.
Anxiety can make the consequences feel bigger
Think about the last time you needed to send an uncomfortable email.
Perhaps you had to disagree with a colleague, ask your boss for something, or tell someone you couldn't make a commitment you'd previously discussed.
You probably knew what you wanted to say. The message itself might have been three sentences long.
But you kept changing the wording. You worried about sounding rude or difficult. You tried to anticipate how the other person might respond. You considered whether you should wait until tomorrow, or send it after lunch, or add another sentence explaining your position.
You might have spent half an hour on a message the recipient read in 20 seconds.
People who experience anxiety often find themselves spending a great deal of time imagining consequences. They may worry about making mistakes, upsetting people, or creating problems that will be difficult to resolve.
The National Institute of Mental Health describes excessive worry about everyday concerns, including work, finances, and family responsibilities, as a common feature of generalized anxiety disorder. That doesn't mean anyone who hesitates before sending an email has an anxiety disorder. But when worry becomes a persistent part of everyday decision-making, it can take up an extraordinary amount of time.
You may also find yourself avoiding decisions because postponing them gives you a little relief.
If you haven't sent the email, nobody can react badly to it yet. If you haven't accepted the job, you haven't risked discovering that the position was a mistake. If you haven't told your partner how you feel, you don't have to deal with the conversation that might follow.
The relief doesn't usually last very long. The decision is still there, and now you've had another day to worry about it.
When this becomes a recurring problem, anxiety therapy can help people work on the worry and avoidance that make ordinary decisions unnecessarily difficult.
When everyone else's opinion matters more than yours
You tell a friend you've decided to go to Portugal for your vacation. You're excited about it. You've found flights, looked at places to stay, and started thinking about what you'd like to do.
Your friend mentions that Greece might be better at that time of year.
Suddenly you're looking at flights to Athens.
You hadn't been considering Greece before. You have no particular reason to believe your friend knows more about what you'd enjoy. But now you're worried you've overlooked something important.
For some people, this happens constantly. They feel reasonably good about a decision until someone expresses doubt. Then they start questioning their judgment.
You might recognize a similar pattern in relationships. Your partner asks what you want to do on Saturday, and instead of answering, you start trying to work out what they'd enjoy. You may have a preference, but you're reluctant to express it until you know whether they'll agree.
Sometimes this comes from wanting to be considerate. Sometimes it's a habit developed over many years, particularly if you've experienced criticism or disapproval when expressing your own preferences.
If you grew up in a home where mistakes attracted a lot of attention, you may have learned to check with other people before making choices. If you've had a relationship where your opinions were regularly dismissed, trusting your judgment may have become difficult.
Not everyone who struggles with self-doubt has this kind of history, though. Some people simply become so accustomed to asking for advice that they feel uncomfortable making choices without approval.
The tricky part is that everyone you ask may have a different opinion.
Your parents might think you should choose the secure job. Your friend might encourage you to take the more interesting opportunity. Your partner may be concerned about the schedule. A former colleague might warn you about the industry.
They're all responding from their own experiences and priorities. You still have to work out what matters to you.
Why decisions can become harder when you're exhausted
There are days when you've made so many decisions that choosing dinner feels like an unreasonable demand.
You started the morning dealing with a problem at work. Then there were emails, meetings, calls, and several things that needed attention at home. You handled the children's schedules, figured out who was picking up groceries, and spent part of the afternoon sorting out an unexpected expense.
At seven o'clock, somebody asks what you want to eat.
You don't know. You don't particularly want to think about it.
People often call this decision fatigue. Researchers disagree about exactly how it works and whether the familiar idea of a limited supply of decision-making energy is accurate. But most people recognize that making choices can feel harder when they're tired, stressed, or overwhelmed.
You may notice it more during difficult periods. Perhaps you've recently changed jobs, moved, become a parent, or gone through a separation. You have a lot to think about, and even relatively ordinary questions can become irritating.
Sometimes the problem is that you're making decisions for everyone else all day. When it's finally your turn to choose something, you're exhausted.
If your indecisiveness has become worse during a stressful period, it may be worth considering how much is going on in your life. You might need fewer demands, more sleep, or a better division of responsibilities at home.
There isn't always a complicated psychological explanation.
ADHD, depression, and difficulty making decisions
Some people struggle with decisions because of problems with attention, organization, or motivation.
An adult with ADHD, for example, may find it difficult to decide where to begin a project. There are several tasks that need attention, and each one seems important. They start looking at one, remember another, and then become distracted by a third. Half an hour passes without much progress.
The difficulty may be connected to executive functioning, including planning, prioritizing, working memory, and task initiation. Someone can understand perfectly well what needs to be done and still have trouble organizing the steps.
This can make everyday decisions frustrating, particularly when there are many competing options. If these problems occur alongside persistent difficulties with attention, organization, and follow-through, adult ADHD therapy may be helpful.
Depression can also affect decision-making, although the experience may be quite different. Someone who feels depressed may have difficulty concentrating, lack motivation, or find that things they once enjoyed no longer seem appealing. Choosing where to go or what to do can feel pointless when none of the options sounds particularly interesting.
If you've noticed a significant change in your ability to make decisions, especially alongside persistent low mood, reduced interest, or changes in sleep, depression therapy may be worth considering.
Some people with OCD also experience repeated doubts about decisions they've made. They might review the same choice over and over, seeking reassurance that they haven't overlooked something or caused a problem. In these cases, OCD therapy can help address the underlying pattern of intrusive doubt and compulsive checking.
Difficulty making decisions by itself doesn't establish that someone has any of these conditions. The wider pattern of symptoms, how long they've been present, and how much they're affecting everyday life all matter.
What happens when you're indecisive in a relationship?
Let's say your partner asks where you'd like to go for dinner.
You say you're happy with anything.
They suggest three restaurants. You don't feel strongly about any of them, so you tell them to choose. They spend 15 minutes checking menus and making a reservation.
Later, you mention that you'd actually have preferred something more casual.
Your partner gets annoyed, and you don't entirely understand why. You were trying to be flexible.
But from their perspective, they've been left to do all the planning, only to discover that you had a preference you didn't express.
This happens more often than people realize. Someone who struggles to make decisions may think they're being easygoing by leaving choices to their partner. But if it happens regularly, the other person can begin to feel responsible for organizing everything.
It can become especially frustrating when the person who didn't decide starts questioning the plans afterward.
Sometimes the underlying issue is anxiety about making a choice the other person won't enjoy. Sometimes it's a habit of putting other people's preferences first. And sometimes the person genuinely hasn't spent much time thinking about what they want.
With bigger relationship decisions, the uncertainty can become much more complicated. You might struggle to decide whether to move in together, get married, have children, or continue a relationship that's been difficult.
Those decisions deserve serious consideration. But there may come a point when you've discussed the same concerns repeatedly, without learning anything new or feeling any closer to a decision.
If that keeps happening, it can be useful to think about whether you're trying to resolve a genuine concern or waiting to feel certain about something that will always involve some uncertainty.
How to stop being so indecisive
If you've always struggled with decisions, you've probably been told to stop overthinking things.
It's not particularly helpful advice.
You may already know that you're spending too much time comparing options. You may even be annoyed with yourself about it. But that doesn't necessarily make it easier to stop.
It can help to begin with decisions that have relatively small consequences.
The next time you're choosing a restaurant, give yourself a few minutes to look at the options and then pick one. If you're buying something inexpensive, decide which features matter most and choose a product that meets those requirements.
You may still feel like checking the alternatives afterward. You might wonder whether the other option would have been better. Try leaving the decision alone anyway.
This can be uncomfortable at first, particularly if you're used to continuing until you feel certain. But you may discover that an imperfect choice doesn't bother you nearly as much as you expected once you've moved on to something else.
With more important decisions, it's reasonable to spend more time gathering information. If you're considering a job offer, ask about the responsibilities, expectations, compensation, and people you'd be working with. If you're thinking about moving, investigate the practical consequences.
But before you start researching, try to work out what information you actually need. Otherwise, it's easy to get distracted by details that wouldn't really change your choice.
It can also help to pay attention to how often you ask other people for reassurance.
There's nothing wrong with getting advice. But if you've already asked three friends about the same decision and they all say essentially the same thing, asking a fourth person may not accomplish much.
Sometimes you have to make the choice without knowing whether everyone else agrees.
And once you've decided, give yourself a chance to live with it. If something genuinely important changes, you can reconsider. But the fact that you're feeling uncertain again doesn't necessarily mean there's something wrong with the decision.
When is indecisiveness worth discussing in therapy?
Most people don't need therapy because they have trouble deciding what to order at a restaurant.
But if indecisiveness is affecting your work, relationships, finances, or everyday responsibilities, it may be worth talking about.
Perhaps you've put off a career change for years because you can't decide what to do next. Maybe you repeatedly ask your partner for reassurance and find yourself questioning the same choices over and over. Or perhaps you spend so much time thinking about decisions that it interferes with the things you'd rather be doing.
Sometimes these difficulties are connected to anxiety, perfectionism, or longstanding doubts about your judgment. Other times, they appear during particularly stressful periods or major changes in life.
In therapy, you might explore why certain decisions feel more difficult than others, what you're afraid might happen if you choose incorrectly, and how you respond when you feel uncertain.
Approaches such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can help people examine patterns of worry, avoidance, and repeated reassurance seeking. Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) can help people make decisions that reflect what matters to them, even when they're uncomfortable with some of the uncertainty involved.
If indecisiveness has become especially difficult during a career change, divorce, relocation, or another significant transition, therapy for life transitions may also be useful.
At North Star Psychological Services, our therapists work with adults in Washington, DC, who are navigating anxiety, self-doubt, perfectionism, ADHD-related difficulties, and major life changes.
Frequently asked questions about indecisiveness
Is being indecisive a sign of anxiety?
Sometimes. People who experience anxiety may find it difficult to make decisions because they spend a lot of time worrying about the consequences. They might imagine negative outcomes, seek reassurance, or postpone choices because they're afraid of making mistakes. But there are plenty of other reasons someone might be indecisive, including exhaustion, perfectionism, or difficulty trusting their judgment. If you're also experiencing frequent worry that's hard to control, anxiety may be contributing.
Why can't I make decisions about simple things?
You may be putting more pressure on the decision than it deserves, particularly if you're worried about choosing the wrong option. Stress and exhaustion can also make ordinary choices feel surprisingly demanding. Some people have trouble choosing because they're accustomed to asking for reassurance or trying to accommodate everyone else's preferences. If this difficulty is new, severe, or accompanied by confusion or other changes in thinking, seek a medical evaluation.
Is indecisiveness a symptom of ADHD?
It can be associated with ADHD, particularly when someone has difficulty prioritizing, organizing information, or getting started on tasks. But indecisiveness alone doesn't indicate ADHD. People with ADHD usually experience a broader pattern of difficulties involving attention, organization, and executive functioning, with symptoms that began during childhood. If several of these difficulties sound familiar and they've affected different areas of your life for a long time, an evaluation may help clarify what's going on.
Why do I regret decisions right after making them?
For some people, making a choice immediately draws attention to everything they've given up. You might buy one product and start wondering whether the other would have been better, or accept a job and begin imagining the advantages of the position you declined. If you're particularly afraid of mistakes or hold yourself to high standards, those thoughts can become difficult to dismiss. It may help to remember why you made the choice and avoid repeatedly comparing it with alternatives that you can no longer evaluate fairly.
Can perfectionism make you indecisive?
Yes. If you expect every important decision to produce an excellent outcome, you may spend a great deal of time comparing options and searching for possible disadvantages. You might find it difficult to accept compromises, even when all the available choices are reasonable. This can become exhausting, especially when you're dealing with decisions that don't have an obvious best answer.
Why am I indecisive in relationships?
You may be worried about disappointing your partner, creating conflict, or making a commitment you'll regret. Some people also find it difficult to recognize or express their preferences, particularly if they're accustomed to putting other people's needs first. With major relationship decisions, uncertainty can reflect genuine concerns, so it's worth taking those seriously. If you keep returning to the same questions without gaining any clarity, anxiety or reassurance seeking may also be playing a part.
How can I become more confident in my decisions?
Try making smaller decisions without seeking repeated reassurance and see how you feel afterward. You may find that ordinary mistakes are easier to deal with than you imagined. For bigger decisions, identify the factors that matter most, gather the information you need, and accept that some uncertainty will remain. Confidence often develops as you gain experience making choices and dealing with their consequences, rather than waiting until every possible doubt has disappeared.
Sometimes you just have to choose
You can spend a long time trying to make the best possible decision and still end up disappointed.
You might take a job that doesn't work out. You might buy something you rarely use. You might move somewhere and decide a year later that you preferred your old neighborhood.
It's frustrating when those things happen, particularly if you spent a lot of time thinking the decision through.
But you can't know everything in advance. Sometimes circumstances change. Sometimes information turns out to be incomplete. And sometimes another choice really would have been better.
You can learn from those experiences without turning every future decision into another lengthy investigation.
If you find yourself repeatedly going back and forth, consider whether there's something important you still need to know. If there is, find out. If there isn't, it may be time to make the choice and see what happens.
And if indecisiveness has become a persistent source of anxiety or frustration, particularly in your relationships or working life, North Star Psychological Services offers therapy for adults in Washington, DC, who want help understanding and changing those patterns.
Related reading from North Star:
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Functional Freeze: Why You Feel Stuck, Numb, or Unable to Start
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Why Can't I Get Anything Done? ADHD, Task Paralysis, Burnout, or Depression?
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Why Can't I Focus? ADHD, Anxiety, Burnout, or Something Else?
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Why Am I So Tired and Unmotivated? Burnout, Depression, or Mental Overload
If even small decisions feel exhausting lately, it may be worth looking at how stress, low energy, and emotional fatigue are affecting your daily life. -
Adult ADHD Therapy in Washington, DC
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