Struggling to make a decision, what can you do?

Liz Makin Author

Jul 27, 2026 |

A look at what to do when you cannot make a decision.

Have you ever been faced with an issue or challenge at work or in life and you don't know what to do? You cannot make a decision however much you think about it.

Here are some ideas for you to try when you are struggling to make a decision:

1. Step back, reflect, gather information and analyse where you are. A good starting point is to step back from the situation, reflect and look at everything rationally. Gather all the information and analyse the situation thoroughly. By doing this you may work out what to do.

2. Involve other people in the process. If you are stuck and cannot see a way forward or make a decision involve other people. Ask a trusted colleague or friend what they would do to get a different perspective. You can also try thinking about what an impartial observer would recommend. This may open your mind to a different option.

3. Consider your thinking. The way you are thinking can be a barrier to deciding what to do. There are many unhelpful ways of thinking such as over generalising, taking an all or nothing approach, being black and white, disqualifying the positive or filtering out useful information. Notice how you are thinking and look at thinking in a different way. This could unlock your decision making.

4. Ask open questions. Ask open questions to really explore the situation, challenge or issue. This may include What, Why and How type questions, as well as What if type questions which help you to bypass your rational mind. This may enable you to see a different perspective and decide what to do.

5. Think about similar situations in the past. You may not have been faced with the same decision before but you may have faced similar situations before. What did you do and what can you learn from your previous experiences? Often in doing this you will find that you can use your past experiences to help with the current situation.

6. Be more creative. You may need to be more creative in order to generate options and solutions to your current predicament. There are lots of techniques that you can use including associations, connections, opposites, brainstorming, parking your assumptions and many more. Be more creative and you may decide on the way forward.

7. Pay attention to your intuition. Intuition uses information from a wide range of sources including emotional, physical and instinctive and it enables you to quickly make sense of a complex situation at a subconscious level. It is often called the sixth sense. Using a combination of reason, experience, information and intuition can be very powerful in decision making.

8. Take a break. If you take a break from the current situation and do something completely different you may be surprised how quickly the ideas start to flow. You may have your best  ideas when you are engaged in a totally different activity. You may go to sleep not knowing what to do and wake up in the morning knowing exactly what to do.

Hopefully you have now got some ideas to try if you cannot decide what to do!

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Categories: : Decision making, Online courses, Personal development, Soft skills