Decision making can be challenging at any age, but for young adults the “what ifs” related to making a choice can cause fearful thinking, ruminations and even paralysis. In this article, we will break down why young adults are so vulnerable to decision-making struggles and how you – whether you are a twentysomething or an older adult – can learn to make decisions more easily and with more confidence.
Why decisions can be difficult for twentysomethings
More than any other time of life, young adults have SO many decisions to make, which can be both overwhelming and exhausting. In fact, as a twentysomething it can feel like all you do is make big decisions, often in a very short time frame. Where to live? What career path to take? What to study? What kinds of new friends do you want to make? How should manage your schedule?
You are essentially creating an adult life outside the structure of high school and family. This new life takes shape based on your decisions, and these decisions are informed by your wants, preferences and goals. What is so challenging about this time is that you are forging an adult life path while simultaneously discovering who you are as an adult. That is not a linear or easy process!
Here are other challenges to young-adult decision making:
You are new to adult-life decision making. One of the reasons choices can be more difficult in the early years of adulthood is because you don’t have a history of experience with adulthood. For example, when you are older and have lived in multiple living situations, you might learn that you do best with no more than one roommate and that you like house-living more than apartment living. But at 18 or 20 years old, you don’t necessarily know these things. You can guess, but the learning process is one of trial and error.
You may be used to your parents influencing your big life choices. For many young adults, their parents have taken the lead in their decision making. If this was – or is – true for you, then you understand the fear that can arise when you initially step into the decision-making seat. You have so little practice, so the sense of responsibility can feel paralyzing, even as you want the freedom to decide for yourself.
You have little or no experience with so much freedom in your life. Often my 18- or 19-year-old clients tell me that high school provided so much structure that they rarely had to make choices. When they come to college, they are overwhelmed by the freedom, and can struggle to structure their new lives (which requires a lot of decision making!). For example, it is not unusual to go from 14-hour high school days – filled with classes, afterschool activities, and homework – to college days that include only three or four hours of classes.
How to make decisions with more confidence
Many young adults mistakenly believe that the decisions they make will permanently affect the rest of their lives. In choosing a particular college major, for example, they may feel that they are locked into that professional track for decades and struggle trying to forecast so many years into the future. The reality is that during the course of a life, many decisions need to be adjusted, and few decisions are locked in forever. “Course corrections” are not mistakes but a normal part of adult life.
The other reality is that there is no way to accurately predict what will make you happy in 10 or 20 years. Even the idea that you can predict that far into the future is based on a premise that can lead to future shame: if you think you should know what profession is right for the rest of your life and it turns out that you are not happy on that path, then you will falsely conclude that you made a mistake or a bad decision.
Here’s the truth: you can only make decisions based on your current life trends. As those trends change, you adjust your life and your life path. So, what may have been the best decision for you at age 22, may not be the best choice for you one or three years later. That does not mean that your age 22 decision was wrong! In fact, it was likely the best decision for you based on what you knew of yourself at that time.
Again, you can only make decisions based on how you are feeling and what you are experiencing in your life right now, focusing on trends, not fleeting or reactive emotions. Let’s think of this process like a GPS mapping system for a long journey. You decide where you want to go based on your current needs and goals. You put that destination in your GPS and you are given a route. But, as you travel, your needs and desires may change. You may pass a town that looks interesting and decide to stop there. You may lose interest in your original destination as you gain knowledge and experience of the region and then decide to set a new destination. As you make these changes, GPS reroutes you based on your current destination desires.
The key to this metaphor is that YOU are providing the data that determines the stops and the destinations. It is your experience in your life, your likes and dislikes, your needs and desires, your goals and passions, that feed the GPS routing system. So, one of your adult-life skills is to learn to listen to your own experience and track your feelings. This kind of self-awareness provides the data that you use to make decisions and chart a life path.
Okay, so let’s distill these ideas into practical, actionable tips. Remember as you read these tips that building confidence in decision making is a process, so be patient with yourself.
Self-awareness is the cornerstone of good decision making. Regularly practice self-awareness so that you can understand how you are feeling in your interactions with the world. Notice your feelings, interests, reactions, and preferences. For example, how do you feel after spending time in your new job? If you are generally energized, then you may say yes to similar work opportunities. If you are drained, then you may decline these experiences. These decisions are based on data collected from inside of you as you interface with the world.
The best decisions are based on trends in your current life. As you use self-awareness to track your experiences, look for trends. For example, if you are regularly depleted by a friend group, use this data trend to decide how much you want to say yes or no to invitations from these friends (then try to figure out what kinds of friends add energy, fun and connection to your life!).
Avoid decisions when you are in a reactive or dysregulated state. Usually, the best decisions are made when we are feeling balanced and stable. When our emotional intensity is high, we can say, do or decide things that we later regret. For example, you might lash out at a partner when you are angry, saying things that you do not actually mean (like “I hate you!”). If you let your reactivity settle down, you can decide on a course of action that honors your anger but doesn’t blow up your life.
Make decisions based on YOUR life, not others’ lives. If the best decisions are based on data that comes from inside of you, following someone else’s life path will not honor your individual needs and desires. Read more about how to avoid the trap of “comparison thinking” here.
“Course corrections” are not mistakes but part of the decision-making process. Like a GPS mapping system, you try a path and decide if you want to continue along that path or change directions (you can even turn around!). In this way, there are no wrong turns or mistakes, because wherever you go, you gain knowledge of yourself in relation to that aspect of the world.
Do not forecast too far into the future. I often say to my patients that you can only make decisions based on what you can see in your current life; you cannot predict what is “around the bend.” When you expend unnecessary energy worrying about a far-off future, you can stall progress in your present life because futurizing fears drain you. So, live the life you have now and trust that you will be able to handle what is “around the bend.”
If your decision-making confidence stalls, look for where you may be getting stuck. Most often I see my clients get stuck because either (1) they feel shame about past “mistakes,” and this shame paralyzes them, or (2) they struggle to trust their own feelings and preferences (the “data” needed to make good decisions) and feel insecure making decisions. A therapist can help you move past both challenges. Additionally, self-compassion and a focus on your successes can help with this shame and insecurity.
Remember that no matter how your life unfolds, you can always grow and learn from your experiences. There are no good or bad decisions, only the best options based on the current data trends in your life. So, chart a course that is flexible enough to allow for adjustments and trust yourself to make adjustments as needed.
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