How to cure the fear of indecision and making mistakes?
Written by: Loris Vitry (holistic coach)
Validated by: Cathy Maillot (Osteopath)
Caution: If you have any medical questions or concerns, please speak to your doctor. Even if the articles on this site are based on scientific studies, they do not replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Wanting to do well makes perfect sense, but when that urge becomes an obsession, we talk about a “phobia of perfectionism.”
Over time, this disorder leading to indecision and fear of making mistakes can become disabling.
It usually gives way to stress, anxiety, sometimes worse, depression.
So, do you want to know how to get over this disorder?
This article offers you simple ways to cure the fear of indecision and making mistakes.
Get to know yourself to regain self-confidence
The first step in overcoming this fear of indecision and making mistakes will be knowing yourself.
Getting to know yourself will allow you to define your personality and therefore, to regain self-confidence.
For that, you must identify your needs, your skills, your desires, your preferences, your priorities …
This will allow you to know exactly what you want and what you don’t want.
However, the more you identify your priorities, the more you will be able to make up your mind quickly and wisely.
Once you have identified your strengths and limitations, you will then have to accept them in this way, especially your weaknesses.
An error to be avoided is therefore to seek to master them or to control them by all means.
Keep in mind that accepting your personality will help you develop your self-esteem and show yourself better.
Thus, you will be able to take decisions and make choices with confidence.
Get informed and sort the information
As you are no doubt aware, knowledge influences all decisions and choices that must be made.
It will therefore be difficult for you to decide without fear if you do not have sufficient information.
Indeed, this fear of making up your own mind and making a mistake is often linked to the feeling of not mastering the subject (s) being addressed.
To remedy this, collect as much information as possible on whatever you have to decide.
This way, you can get a “perfect” idea of these things, which will allow you to easily weigh the pros and cons.
By having this good sense of discernment, you can easily make up your mind and take action without being afraid of doing wrong.
The next task will be to sort the information.
A tip for this is to use a table called the “elimination table”.
The purpose of this tool is to help you with decision-making and to overcome the phobia of perfectionism.
To do this, divide a sheet of paper in half, putting the advantages on one side and the disadvantages of each possibility on the other.
This will help you free your mind to gain a more complete picture of the situation.
Result: you can assess the different solutions available to finally make up your mind easily.
If you can, write down a percentage for each option on this paper, depending on its importance.
Take your time: don’t be in a hurry
In a situation where you have to make up your mind or make a choice, take your time and don’t rush.
Make an effort to limit the choices to a maximum of two or three, and give yourself a time limit to decide.
In particular, you must give yourself sufficient time (fifteen minutes for example), without forgetting to respect the set limit.
If it is more a question of critical choices (such as a major purchase or a retirement date), this time for reflection must be much more relevant.
Control your bodily reactions to visualize the possible consequences
Examining the results of a decision is also important.
You can trust your body’s signals.
Here is a fairly practical and effective exercise that can help you.
- Breathe deeply to relax and de-stress.
- Try to concentrate and imagine as correctly as possible the consequences or consequences of your possible decision.
- Make a scenario in which you find yourself in this situation and judge the advantage or disadvantage of your choice.
- Then pay close attention to the signals emitted by your body.
These signals are in fact the ones that will help you gauge the scope of your decision or choice.
To better interpret these signs, pay attention to your breathing rate, as well as your blood pressure.
See if you feel anxious, anxious, or if you notice any relief.
Do this exercise with each of the possible choices to make.
Your bodily reactions can indicate a good or a bad choice.
Expect all eventualities
As pointed out above, each of your decisions will always have consequences.
It is therefore important that you imagine all the possible scenarios.
To be better prepared, therefore, try to establish the best and worst case scenario.
However, keep in mind that the chances of a worst-case scenario happening are minimal.
To do this, you will need to learn to qualify and analyze each situation objectively.
To do better, consider that you need to advise someone else who is in your situation and who needs to make up her mind.
Take responsibility for your decisions
Once you’ve made your decision, keep in mind that you have to face the consequences, whatever they may be.
So don’t try to step back or look back, as this can cause stress.
To gradually overcome this fear of indecision, one tip is to start by practicing simple situations.
For example, you can start with choices of clothing, menus, restaurants, etc.
Be prepared to accept your mistakes
“To err is human” they say: you cannot rule out the risk of making mistakes when making decisions.
So learn to allow yourself to make mistakes.
The good news is that very often bad decisions are usually manageable.
So you can always fix it and do better if you ever make a bad decision.
It is very important to be able to accept your mistakes, without letting yourself be overwhelmed by regrets.
The most important thing is to learn from your mistakes so that you can avoid them in the future.
In such situations, try to relax and release the negative tensions that are building in you.
Laughing often and breathing deeply, for example, is a good ally to de-stress you.
In summary, you can heal the fear of indecision and making mistakes by regaining confidence, educating yourself, and being more responsible.
You will also have to accept your limits by accepting that you can make mistakes.
Continue reading:
How do you stop an anxiety attack naturally?
