You're Not Actually Undecided
Most people think they're trying to make a decision.
By the time someone comes to me, they've usually done everything sensible people are told to do. They've made lists of pros and cons, asked friends what they think, read articles, gone for long walks, and turned the question over in their minds so many times they could argue both sides better than anyone else.
It’s not an information problem. If more information were going to solve it, it would have solved it already.
The mistake is believing that if they think about it long enough, they'll eventually find a way to have everything they want.
Life doesn't work that way.
The decisions that shape a life almost never arrive with certainty attached.
Should I leave this marriage?
Should I retire?
Should I move across the country?
Should I sell the business I spent twenty years building?
Should I become a parent?
Should I stay, or should I go?
These questions feel impossible because we're asking them to do something no decision can ever do.
People describe themselves as undecided because it feels like the obvious explanation. After thousands of conversations, I've come to believe something different. Most people aren't struggling to make a decision. They're struggling to accept what every meaningful decision requires.
Every meaningful choice gives you one path. It also asks you to let another path go.
We're encouraged to believe that with enough planning, enough effort, or enough success, we can somehow keep every possibility alive. We postpone decisions because we're hoping for a version of life where nothing important has to be sacrificed. That version never arrive.
I've worked with people who could afford almost anything they wanted. They could buy experiences most people only dream about. What they couldn't buy back were the moments they had already spent: the anniversaries they missed, the birthdays, the graduations, . Time has one rule that applies equally to everyone. Everything comes with a tradeoff.
Every “yes” is a “no” somehwere else
This is why difficult decisions stay difficult. Not because we don't know enough, but because choosing one future means accepting that another future will never happen. There isn't a spreadsheet in the world that can solve that. At some point, every important decision asks a different question. Not Which option is perfect? but Which life am I willing to live, knowing I can't live them all?
Something changes when people stop chasing the impossible goal of keeping every door open. The decision often becomes clearer, not because certainty finally arrives, but because they stop asking the decision to give them something no decision can ever give. I've never met anyone who escaped the cost of choosing. Not the people with the most money. Not the people with the most options. Not the people who seemed to have everything.
Nobody gets everything they want.
If you're carrying a decision that refuses to resolve itself, perhaps the question isn't whether you've thought about it enough. Perhaps the real question is whether you're still hoping there's a way to choose without letting anything go.
If this essay felt uncomfortably familiar, you may not need another article. You may need a conversation. Some decisions stay with us for weeks, months, or even years, not because we haven't thought about them enough, but because they deserve more than another opinion. They deserve a place where you can think out loud, without worrying about protecting anyone else from where the conversation leads. If you're carrying one of those decisions, I'd be glad to think it through with you.
You can book a conversation here.