Another easy way to break a tie between decisions is to consider the future outcome far into the future exagerating the results, says journalist D Brooks in his book "The Social Animal".
I struggle with this for a long time. I couldn't decide what kind of career to choose. I finally just chose the cheapest career training I could get while trying to find something that wouldn't drive me crazy. I am still not 100% confident in the career I ended up in but I have been told I am good at it.
One of the best bits of wisdom I have heard was from a Buddhist monk called Ajahn Brahm. He said, "If you can't think of anything to do to solve a problem then do nothing", and that has helped me since I over-think and over-analyze.
What do other people do with lost projects? I mean no one can get it right all the time. Unless you are doing nothing and letting someone else make all the decisions for you. That is safe but boring.
There's this economic theory called Buridan's dilemma, where a donkey has a choice between two bales of hay, and starves from indecision.
Today I realized that if two choices are equal, and I'm paralyzed by indecision, it's arbitrary to choose either.
When I researched this today to describe for this post, I read that there is a 3rd choice for that donkey which starved, which is that he could starve by doing nothing. That third choice is ranked higher than the other two choices and that is an important realization.
I had a great mentor who used to say "Not to decide is to decide".
Have you ever gotten so stuck, but not realized the price of indecision...?
