Ep 225: When "I Can't Decide" Is More Than Just Indecision

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello , friend , I hope you had an amazing week .

Have you ever had one of those moments where I don't know maybe it's after work or on a weekend when you're sitting there thinking about what to have for dinner or where do you want to go on vacation , and you just can't decide because you feel like your life is so crazy and there's things always coming at you and you just can't make one more decision .

That is what we're going to talk about today . That's called decision fatigue and it is a very real thing and I'll talk in this episode about how it's showed up for me .

But we're going to explore it a bit because it's good to have awareness around it and there are certain professions like the medical profession , pilots or people who have so much responsibility for a human life within the context of what they do for a living .

Those people in particular , with all of the details and all of them , have to be absolutely perfect , or else for them , I think decision fatigue is , first and foremost , a factor In my career . Much as I love it and much as I think it's important to businesses , it is not about life and death .

It's about whether a product succeeds or fails or whether a campaign is successful . That can be fixed , but I still had decision fatigue and it was still a factor in my life .

So I wanted to talk about it today , to give you some awareness of it , so that you can adjust some things in your life to minimize its impact and some ways to go forward that will serve you better than , maybe , the way you're handling them right now .

So this episode is meant to give you some tools and some awareness to help your every day feel a bit less overwhelming . So enjoy the episode on decision fatigue .

Today I want to talk about decision fatigue . This is a concept that , I'll be honest , I hadn't really been exposed to before , but it came up for me because recently I was reading an article on LinkedIn that one of my coaching friends , who's also a nurse , posted .

I thought it was a very thoughtful article and I read it a couple of times because it really resonated with me . Now she was talking about it through the lens of how it affects the medical profession so being a nurse or whatever and I could easily see that .

I could easily imagine what it might be like to be a nurse and working a shift and going from patient room to patient room to patient room and treating that patient with the proper protocols that have been prescribed for them and not making a mistake . When you do that , I can definitely see that .

It made me think about my own career in a different way or through a different lens , and I realized how much this had affected me .

I want to share it with you because you may not have been exposed to this idea of decision fatigue , and I want to spend this episode talking a little bit about what is it , how does it show up , why does it show up , is it even a real thing , and some ways to kind of combat it . So let's start with the definition .

So decision fatigue is defined as that when we have to make many decisions , our ability to make additional decisions can become worse . It's also known , apparently , as ego depletion . I'm not a big fan of that term because I don't think it's descriptive to me . I'm a brand marketer , so descriptive naming , I think , is the way to go .

Decision fatigue kind of says it all . But it's basically the theories that a human's ability to make decisions can get worse after we've made many decisions because our brain gets fatigued Apparently when we hit a certain threshold . Any decision we have to make , whether it's easy or complex , large or small , becomes super difficult to make .

Large or small becomes super difficult to make . And that idea of our brain , or the decision-making part of our brain , as being a finite resource , like a battery , like your phone battery or your iPad battery it wears down right the more you use it . As you go through the day it loses its charge .

And the idea here is that our human brain is kind of the same way .

When I was reading up on this I thought that's interesting because I could instantly see , like when I was reading my friend's article on LinkedIn , how in a medical profession or being a pilot Any time that there's a lot of weight and real life or death consequences to the things that you do I could totally see how decision fatigue would be real , like in combat

, probably

soldiers or bomb technicians or whatever combat . Probably soldiers or bomb technicians or whatever , they can't make a mistake . The things that they do have life or death consequences . So it's easy to see how decision fatigue in that realm would be very real . But my job as a brand marketer has not had life or death consequences .

But I will say , as I started to think about it and look back over my career , I saw how , as I moved up the ranks , my responsibilities increased . The things I worked on every day became more complex and had a more immediate , tangible effect on the business .

A lot of what I do involves taking problems in the business or marketplace , advising strategies to address those . So there's very few things that you do as a routine in my line of work . Some of it is , but most of it when you get up in the ranks it's about imagining , re-imagining , inventing . Sometimes it's theoretical .

You're taking data points and you're trying to put them together into a story , building a hypothesis for let's do this and this is going to work because of this . You put it into the market and you test it and it either works or it doesn't , and then you're tweaking it . But the process of coming up with those ideas and selling those in .

Sometimes it comes to you right away , but it's not necessarily easy . You know there's no clear road and that's actually exactly why I've loved what I do , because I really love solving problems . It's what motivates me in my career , it's what gets me out of bed , this idea of everything I do matters and making an impact .

But as I was reading about decision fatigue , I realized that part of my job that I love so much has had an impact in my life in certain ways , because that decision fatigue for me has been real .

How it's shown up for me is that I have reserved the part of my brain that solves problems and has the energy to do things and figure out things , large and small . I've reserved that for my professional life and in my personal life I increasingly , as I went up the ladder , just opted out of making some of the more routine and fun aspects of life .

I just was like I can't make one more decision .

And how this has shown up for me and I don't know if you'll be able to relate to this is especially when it came to like I would take care of the basic parts of my life , like my house and my finances , but the actualized things that , by the way , I used to really enjoy , like shopping for clothes or even little things like self-care stuff .

I used to love going to the hair salon and getting my nails done . I hate it now . I hate spending the time on it . Hate is a very strong word , but I don't enjoy it . Even planning a vacation , I just wouldn't do it . I would go on vacations but my friends planned them .

I just sort of did it because I wanted to spend the time with friends , but I did not put the energy or investment into it because I just thought I just can't do it . I cannot make one more decision In retrospect . Would it have been what I probably wanted to do ? No , could I have planned something ? I really would have personally enjoyed more ?

Yes , but I just wasn't willing to do it . Another way this has shown up for me is I used to really enjoy shopping and I just have come to hate it . Actualize things like what car to buy I get the same brand all the time . I always lease cars because I don't like to have car problems .

So every three years I'm always switching it out and for the last 20 years I've driven the same kind of car , even though I fantasize about getting a different car , I just don't do it . For me , decision fatigue has shown up in my personal life more than in my professional life .

I think it's a consequence of the complexity of decisions I've had to make in my career . I would imagine parents who also have a career outside the home . I would imagine that decision fatigue is a very real thing .

Right , it's like you got to manage yourself , you got to manage your workday and then you got to manage your family life , and I would imagine that that creates a certain level of decision fatigue , like you can't make one more decision about this .

So , as I was kind of looking into it , like it feels real to me , I will say that I don't know if you can relate , but as soon as I read the article I was like oh yeah , that's why I don't plan vacations , that's why I don't like shopping anymore . I just don't want to make any more decisions . You know what I mean .

It seems that the medical profession is kind of split on whether or not

decision fatigue is real . Some folks think it is , some think it isn't , but there's no conclusive evidence that it's quantifiable . It's difficult to quantify and test for because it's part art , part science . It has to do with how we think about the decisions that we make . I truly believe that's what's underneath it .

They can see it the most and quantify the most in the medical profession , like physicians and nurses tend to become less efficient and make more costly clinical decisions about patient care the longer they went without a break .

So there's this idea of you can only do that kind of intense focus for a certain period of time before you really just need to take a break and recharge , which totally makes sense , I think for some of us in not life or death consequence jobs , it's probably more difficult to quantify .

One of the things that I came across is that the more we believe the things we do every day are exhausting , the more they will be exhausting , and I can definitely relate to that . So that is probably my career in a nutshell . I will love the solving of the problems and the coming up with the creative ideas , but I also tell myself it's exhausting , right .

So I'm amplifying the impact of pulling all these things together instead of letting it charge me and fully actualize me . Sometimes I tell myself I just cannot make one more decision . Sometimes this decision fatigue is about what we're telling ourselves Not always , because in the medical professions it's probably a very real thing .

I want to talk about some of the causes . It has to do a lot with how you're thinking about the things you have to do in your day . It also has to do with your stress levels related to the things you have to do or the number of decisions you have to make each day .

It also relates to the weight of these decisions , the impact or importance of the outcome of these decisions . We all make a large number of decisions every day , from what to eat to what to wear , to how to get to work in the morning . Sometimes there's many routes we can take , like everything we do is a decision . Same thing happens in our business .

We have a number of decisions to make about how we respond to things and the ideas we put together and how we interact with people , and even in our life outside of work , like what do we do with our leisure time ? What friends do we spend time with ? What plans do we make ?

The idea here is that more complex decisions deplete our energy levels faster than easy decisions , and that makes total sense . Most of the routine decisions we make every day don't really give much bandwidth to .

So we follow the same route to work every day , eat the same thing most days , or similar types of food , and put our wardrobe together in the same ways . We're not using up a lot of our bandwidth on that .

But if we're solving more complex things that require more focus and creativity to connect dots , or if we're paying attention with intense focus so we don't make a mistake , like in the medical profession , as a pilot or in the military , you can see how that would fatigue you faster , right , because there's more weight sitting on that decision and it requires more of

you , right ? Those are some of the causes , theoretically , of you know what it means to have decision fatigue . So some of the signs you're just tired , you've got a lack of clarity , brain fog , you're apathetic , you just cannot and will not make any more decisions Like you've hit a wall , right , you just can't do it .

You're not willing to make any more decisions as the day goes on , and that's why they're saying that in the medical profession , one of the things they need to do is take a break . Right . For me , too , breaking up my workday , I used to work straight through , never took break for lunch If I had a working lunch , I did .

Now , what I do try to do is take at least a 30 minute break and get out of the building . Even if it's just to walk or a short drive , that can make a huge difference . Let's talk about some of the ways it can impact you . So I already talked about myself .

I would avoid making decisions , not on everything , but on certain things , like I don't like to go shopping , and I just wouldn't do it until I had to , not even online . It was just like , oh , I cannot , I like stuff , you know , but I just didn't want to shop . It was like I'm overwhelmed , I don't have time for this .

All kinds of things that I would tell myself . So that's one . Not planning vacation was another way that I avoided making decisions . I just was like I'm not going to put the thought into it . I even just getting the idea of getting

on another plane , I thought I don't want to do it . So I would just avoid it . And I would do it . If my friend said , hey , let's go to Napa , let's do this or whatever , and they would plan it , I'd be like , great , I'm there . But I wouldn't take the responsibility for deciding that myself . It just felt too hard , you know .

Another way this can show up for you is if you impulse buy . Sometimes you're just exhausted , right . Worst thing you can do when you're exhausted is go into a store you know any kind of store , but like , let's just say , grocery store . All right , what do you load up the cart with when you're exhausted and you want to be comforted ?

Well , wine would be a good thing . Or ice cream , or candy or baked goods or things like that . Or if you happen to be in a different kind of store let's call it an Ulta or even like a home goods or something like that and you're feeling a little depleted . It's like where do we spend sometimes the most money ?

In those little lines , those queue lines leading up to the registers . I know for me I can plus up my cart by 20% just with the little things in that aisle . I don't need any of those things , but sometimes it feels good to buy them , right . You know you don't want to eat all of those snacks , maybe .

But when you're feeling depleted and you go into the grocery store , the wine looks like a great idea , the candy looks like a great idea , right . And then you get at home and it's there to tempt you when you're feeling off a little bit . So impulse buying is another thing .

I also know people that impulse buy when they're feeling down or whatever they get online Unlike me , where I avoid shopping , some people are shoppers to make themselves feel better .

They'll just load up their Amazon cart with a bunch of crap that they don't need or some other form of buying and you just have things delivered to your house and they sit there unused because you don't really need them . But you bought them to make yourself feel better , because you're exhausted . Right Trade-offs ?

A trade-off is a decision between two options where each option has both a positive and a negative element . A person who experiences decision fatigue might be reluctant to make those decisions , take longer to make them or simply make a decision they later regret .

So sort of acting on impulse versus weighing the pros and cons of options , because you've just kind of hit your limit and feel like you cannot make another decision . So instead of weighing the pros and cons , you just pick one and do it .

So kind of acting more on the spur of the moment versus being thoughtful about stuff , some of the risk factors for having decision fatigue , or if you have to make a lot of important decisions throughout the day , that you feel that you're greatly affected by the decisions that you make .

So , like , sometimes for me it's not just about coming up with the creative resolution but it's like the taxing process of selling those ideas in that's kind of where it weighs on me more . Like it's fun to come up with a solution to the problem , but not as fun sometimes to sell it person by person . That's tough If you make very stressful decisions .

That's a risk factor .

So if the decisions have big sweeping implications on people or really complex decisions , that's one of the things for me is that you know it's creatively taxing sometimes and if I have to do a lot of those in a given work week , it's exhausting to me and make decisions affecting other people as significant as you would in the medical profession .

But there are ways , if this is impacting you , to

combat it . So the first thing is , if you feel like decision fatigue has become a thing for you and this is something that I do try to reserve your early morning hours and block that time so that you're making important decisions or doing important things first , right , like for me , I tend to get into work early . I always block off my mornings .

I really try to take seven to nine , 30 if I can , and that is the start of my day . If I can , and that is the start of my day , because if I've got a deck I have to do or something I have to deliver , that's going to be my freshest , most creative time and it's also the time that's less likely to have people needing a part of me .

You know my phone's ringing less and things like that . So you know , make the important decisions first and block your time to allow you to do that . If you have to do something difficult , do it early , before your day wears on . The second thing remove distractions .

So I think that when a person is prone to pivoting into social media or picking up their phone to check their messages every few minutes , I think that adds to the fatigue . And if you remove distractions like that , put the phone away , block out time to do that .

If you want to allow time to browse social media or check your messages , schedule that time , but don't allow yourself to just bounce back and forth between the content of your day and the distractions .

I think that weighs on you and it can make the time that you need to spend doing the important things harder because you've got these other really non-important tasks competing for your time and energy . Removing the distractions can help to reduce the fatigue because it forces you to really engage with the things that you have to do right there .

I think that's a huge one in today's technology market . Those little red dots that appear on our social media . They're just like Pavlov's dog . We're trained . Oh , what just happened ? You know I've got to open that up . We don't have to open that up . Try to retrain yourself to only check your messages and your social media at certain times of the day .

That will help to remove some of the distractions and the bouncing back and forth between things that can make it harder to get the important decisions and tasks done . Little things , like your wardrobe . Set it out the night before . It's one less thing you have to worry about in the morning , especially if you've got an important day ahead .

Think it through the night before , or even do it on a Sunday and put together some outfits for the week . Make sure everything's back from the dry cleaners and in good repair , spend time finding accessories and that way , when you get into your work week , the decisions you make around your wardrobe have already been made , staking less of your mental bandwidth .

Planning meals in advance , deciding what to eat , is one of the reasons why people don't stay with the diet or their planned eating protocol , and I think one of the ways around this is especially when you get into decision fatigue . If you're exhausted , you're going to be more likely to cheat because you want to be comforted .

So you want to use food as a way to feel better or not feel so tired to comfort yourself . And if you plan your meals ahead of time and have those ready , you're less likely to do something you'll regret . So planning meals ahead , maybe on a Sunday or something so they're planned out for the week , can help .

It doesn't mean you can't change your mind if you want to , but having that done takes the difficulty out of it . I think taking breaks . I used to just work flat out for really my entire career . It's not healthy , but I did .

I would work from the morning to the time that I left work and I rarely took lunch and if I did , it was just to go get it and bring it back and then I would work through lunch Not really healthy . Now I try to take at least 30 minutes and leave the building . I think this is about recharging . So what does it look like for you ?

Some people need a short nap recharging . So what does it look like for you ?

Some people need a short nap , some people want to take a walk , some people just want to leave the building , even if it's just driving to a local park and watching the birds and the ducks for 20 minutes , like whatever you have to do , so that you can get back into your day and feel a little recharged , to take yourself out of that environment , so that you

can feel like you've got the mental capacity and the energy and the bandwidth to do what you need to do in the afternoon .

For me , the biggest way it's shown up is not prioritizing some of the parts of my life that would lead to actualization , especially around vacations , and I think you know scheduling time to do that and not making it a hard thing , but like deciding okay , I'm going to look at the next six months . I know this sounds really weird .

Some people really live for vacations but it became a thing where I just was like I can't decide where to go . I just couldn't do it . It sounds really weird .

I think it's because for so long I traveled so much that the idea of getting on another plane , it was just more than I could deal with , and it became a habit to not plan , and I think the only one losing in that scenario was me .

So now what I try to do is I do try to look at my life , my personal life and the things that I want to do in six months increments , and now I make sure that I have at least two to three things scheduled that are breaks from my every day in that time period . They might be plans with family , plans with friends , something I plan to do on my own .

It could be things that I'm going to a conference for my business . That , to me , is fun . It could also just be a place that I've been wanting to visit or visit again . It could be a trip with a sister or something like that .

But I like to have two or three things scheduled in a six month period so that they're on the calendar , that I've purchased the ticket for them and then I in fact go , and then I'm not waiting for a friend to reach out to me .

Now I will admit that sometimes , in the context of my travel , I still encounter scenarios where I don't like to make all the decisions on the composition of the day , the tour to go on or the food to eat . I just I really don't .

So when I feel like that , I try to approach it on a day by day basis and just say , hey , what do I want to do for the day ? And just make it about what sounds fun , and then pencil it in and go do it Right .

In summary , it may still be a debated topic and psychology and health professionals might be split on whether or not decision fatigue is a real thing , but if you've experienced it and what I've said rings true , you know it can weigh on you . The one thing I want to leave you with is you can overcome it .

If this is impacting you , there are two ways to do it . Number one is to stop telling yourself that what you do or the composition of your day is exhausting . I know that's something that I told myself for years . This is just exhausting . I can't do this right , and it generally for me . It applied to the part of my job that was about selling it in .

It felt pointless , hard and emotionally exhausting to try to persuade people on a continual basis . I think that's where a lot of my fatigue came from . For me it didn't come so much from solving the problems and doing the decks . That was the fun part . The hard part was like oh my God , I can't believe I have to go sell this idea in .

However it's showing up for you . Change your inner narrative on it . Stop telling yourself it's exhausting and start telling yourself this is just part of the job I can do . This I do think with anything is how we look at it , and if we tell ourselves that something is exhausting , then it's exhausting .

Right , it makes sense that how I told myself the selling in of things was so hard . It was the part where I had to interact with and persuade other people . That for me as an introvert , was a little harder to do .

So I think it's how we look at it and we just have to change that inner narrative and say , hey , this is something I can do , so this is just now . I'm in the selling it in phase and that's what I have to do .

So whatever you're telling yourself about how tired you are , I would examine that and try to change that in our narrative , because a lot of it has to do with the thoughts we have about the composition of our day and that can make us feel more tired or it can make us more energized

. Not saying it would completely go away , but I think you can give yourself more energy to get through things depending on how you look at it .

And I also think trying to implement more self care tactics tactics like breaks and advanced planning around food and smaller decisions like wardrobe can help take the complexity out of your day , especially if you have a lot of things coming at you .

So I wanted to talk about it today because you know it's not anything that I really thought about , but the instant I heard that phrase , it triggered . It triggered many thoughts of the ways the quality of my life has been impacted by decision fatigue .

So I think it's you know , whether it's a real , quantifiable scientific phenomenon or just patterns of thought that have us feeling and acting in certain ways , like avoiding behaviors and things like that .

I wanted to bring it up today because I know that for me , it's had a very real impact on my life and I've fallen into patterns around not actualizing in certain areas of my life because it felt too hard , and it felt that way because that is what I was telling myself , like I just can't plan one more thing , I just can't do one more thing .

And that , of course , was not true . Just what I was telling myself . You know .

I would invite you to take a look at your own life and some of the ways that the decisions that you make , either within the context of your work week or your work day , impact other parts of your life , and what are the ways that you're avoiding things and what are the ways that you're numbing yourself and what are the ways that you're just not actualizing

because you feel you don't have any more capacity . If that rings true , I invite you to implement a few things we talked about here , which is restructure the quality of your day .

Make your important decisions first , look at ways that you can remove distractions , stop bouncing back and forth between social media , voicemail and work a lot of times for different things that will have a huge impact on the quality of your day and making decisions in advance around meals , wardrobe planning and anything else vacations , right Schedule in those things .

Think them through in advance and let it become a part of your day that you don't have to put a lot of effort into . So decision fatigue . I wanted to talk about it today . If this rang true for you , I'd love to hear from you .

I'm going to talk about it this week on social media , so come on over to Instagram and tell me what you think about how decision fatigue has impacted you , and with that I'll leave you till next time . Make it a great week , my friends . Do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach .

I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside . We take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it . Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career in life everything you dream of .

We'll see you there .