How to Make a Decision When You're Completely Stuck

Some decisions feel impossible. You've thought it through from every angle, both options seem equally good or bad, and you've been standing in the same spot for weeks.

When you're that stuck, the instinct is to think harder. That's almost always the wrong move, because this kind of stuck isn't caused by too little thinking.

## Why you're really stuck

The options are genuinely close. If they're nearly equal, the agonizing is wasted — by definition you can't go very wrong. The cost of not choosing is what's actually hurting you.

You're deciding the wrong question. "This job or that one" might really be "do I want this kind of life at all." No amount of comparing the jobs resolves a question that isn't about the jobs.

You're afraid of the regret, not the choice. Sometimes you know which one you want; you're frozen because choosing it means giving up the other. That's a grief problem wearing a decision's clothes.

## The questions that unstick almost anything

Run these in order: If I had to decide in the next ten minutes, which way would I lean? — you usually know. What's the worst realistic outcome of each, and could I live with it? Is this reversible? — if so, the stakes are low; save deep deliberation for doors that don't reopen. Am I actually deciding this, or something underneath it?