“What flavor would you like? We have twelve kinds. Lemon, cara…”
“LEMON!”
The barista stopped mid-sentence and stared at me with wide eyes and obvious disdain.
A little voice in my head immediately chimed in. “You should have listened to the rest! What if there’s something even better?”
Maybe. But lemon sounded delicious. I wanted lemon. So I got lemon.
And you know what? It was fantastic.
We make SO MANY decisions every single day. Toothpaste. Streaming services. Restaurants. Shoes. Cars. Potential partners on a dating app. The list is endless. Every purchase and every click seems to come with dozens…even hundreds of options.
We tell ourselves that more choices will make us happier. Ironically, it does the opposite. But the problem isn’t having too many choices.
The real problem is believing there is only one perfect choice.
Psychologist Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice, found that having more choices often makes us less satisfied because we then spend unnecessary time second-guessing ourselves, wondering if a different choice would have been better, and blaming ourselves if the outcome wasn’t perfect.
How much time and energy do we waste trying to find the perfect restaurant for dinner?
- Or the perfect diet plan?
- Or the perfect outfit?
- Or the perfect way to word an email? (Yes…I’m dealing with this right now, and I see the irony!)
After doing this ad nauseum, I’ve learned something.
Once I’ve done enough research to narrow my options down to three or four good ones…there probably isn’t a wrong answer anymore.
There are just different versions of “good” and I’ll probably be just as happy with any of them.
So lately I’ve been trying something different.
When I’m making decisions, I gather the appropriate amount of information. Then, when I’ve narrowed it down to a handful of solid options…
I just pick one.
…and then I get on with my life.
Confident people aren’t confident because they always make the perfect decision. They’re confident because once they’ve made a decision, they stop relitigating it and move on.
Maybe the best choice isn’t the one that turns out to be perfect. Maybe the best choice is the one that frees up your mental bandwidth for the things that actually deserve more attention.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to continue believing that lemon was absolutely the right decision. (Especially since the barista found a broken one and gave it to me for free. Sometimes decisiveness comes with bonus dessert.)
Go pick one, Tiger!
Anne Bonney is a keynote speaker and emcee who helps organizations lead through change by building resilience, emotional intelligence, and courageous communication.
