Every Sunday my husband and I set aside the day to ourselves. We wake up excited about the thought of a full day of recreation and relaxation. We brainstorm with each other on ideas for how we would like to spend the day. We could go to the wine country, the coast, the East Bay, or the South Bay or just lounge on our deck with a favorite book. The possibilities are varied and endless.
Considering all of those wonderful choices stirs up our appetites, so first we must decide on breakfast. Shall we make our favorite oatmeal pancake recipe and sit on the porch and read the paper. Or perhaps we would enjoy a hike above our home followed by a visit to a cafe, or we might go out to breakfast or to the farmers’ market.
By this time we are finding ourselves starving, and irritable. Most of the morning is gone and we haven’t decided a thing. We grab our usual “go to” weekday breakfast and make one more pass at making a decision. My husband has a great idea; we can look at the pink pages-the entertainment section of the newspaper for some good ideas. Yes, that’s it. We make a cup of tea, go out on the deck and peruse the entertainment section. There is even more to do than we thought. We are dizzy with all the possibilities. Perhaps we can get out a piece of paper and rank the alternatives…
It is getting late in the morning, we are no further along in our decision making. The sun is making us drowsy and we decide to take a nap. We wake up in time for lunch and it is time to choose what’s next all over again….
There are times when I hunger for simpler times. I don’t believe we lived more impoverished childhoods choosing from chocolate, vanilla or strawberry ice cream. Now, I often watch children being completely overly stimulated and crying at my local ice cream shop, overwhelmed while choosing from hundreds of flavors.
Our relatively affluent society and resultant marketing campaigns bombard us with choices. While choice is liberating, at some point we pass the point of diminishing returns. One study showed that when employees were offered matching mutual funds by their employer, to invest in, once the choices went beyond ten, the rate of participation in the funds dropped dramatically. With so many choices, employees put off their decision and often did not decide to invest at all, even though they were being offered significant matching funds by their employers.
So what is the antidote?
A thought provoking book on the far reaching consequences/strategies on the topic of overwhelming choice is “The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less” by Barry Schwartz.
I would like to summarize some simple choosing steps courtesy of Barry with additional tips from my coaching experience:
- Choose when to choose-decide in life where choice really matters and focus your time and energy there. Let other people focus energy on what matters to them most. It can be fun to take turns choosing.
- Reduce your number of options (three is often a good number) with fewer options the less likely we are to be overwhelmed and can then do a more efficient job of researching our alternatives.
- Learn to accept “good enough”-people who don’t expect perfection can be more realistic and enjoy their decisions the most.
- Learn to love limits-everything worthwhile in life comes with some boundaries. I can’t quite imagine cut flowers without a vase or a painting without a canvas. In addition to focusing your choices on what matters most, consider setting a reasonable time limit on your decisions.
- Practice gratitude-rather than looking back and experiencing regret about a decision, look for what you feel good about in your decisions every day.
Above all have some fun. Remember decisions are rarely purely right or wrong-they are more likely just different. Also, decisions are usually not forever, we often get a chance to choose anew-that is where the creativity, spontaneity and learning lie. Enjoy!!
