How to Stop Second-Guessing Yourself After You Decide

There's a particular misery that comes after the decision. You chose. It's done. And then the replaying starts — the what-if, the quiet certainty at 11pm that you got it wrong.

Second-guessing feels like conscientiousness. It isn't. It's a decision made without anything solid to stand on, coming back to haunt the person who made it.

When you decide with a method, the decision has a foundation: I decided well, with what I had, and the outcome was always uncertain. The doubt has nothing to grab. When you decide without one, there's nothing to hold the decision steady, so it tips back into open question again and again.

Second-guessing is not information about whether you chose right. It's information about how you chose.

## How to make decisions that don't haunt you

Separate the decision from the outcome. You can only control the quality of the decision at the moment you make it. Judge it by whether you decided well with what was available — the only fair standard.

Record why, at the moment you decide. A sentence or two. When the second-guessing comes, read it back. Often it dissolves: you can see the you-who-decided had reasons, and they were sound.

Let "I decided with a method" be enough. It has to be, because it's all anyone ever has.