Afraid of Making the Wrong Decision? How to Trust Yourself and Choose

Afraid of Making the Wrong Decision? How to Trust Yourself and Choose

Have you ever had a decision in front of you and felt almost frozen because you were afraid of making the wrong choice?

You can see both options. You can make a case for both. You can probably make a case against both. Before long, your mind is trying to predict every possible outcome so you can somehow guarantee that you won’t regret your decision later.

A listener recently asked me for help with exactly this. She said, “I am having difficulty with making decisions and fear of picking the wrong choice.”

I hear some version of this from clients all the time.

The interesting thing is that most of us make choices all day long without thinking much about them. You decide what to wear. You decide what to eat. You decide which route to take to work. You decide whether you’re going to the gym after work or going home.

Then a bigger decision shows up and suddenly choosing feels completely different.

Why?

Usually, it isn’t because you’ve forgotten how to make choices. It’s because this particular choice is touching something deeper.

Why Am I So Afraid of Making the Wrong Decision?

When I work with someone who is struggling with a major decision, fear is almost always somewhere underneath it. This is often the work we explore in Spiritual Counseling, not simply asking, “Which choice should I make?” but looking at what the choice is triggering underneath.

It may be financial security. It may be the possibility of having to start over. It may be losing a relationship, a home, a job, an identity, or a sense of belonging.

That puts the person into survival mode.

The familiar suddenly feels safer than the unknown, even when the familiar isn’t making them happy anymore.

I hear this especially from people who are making changes later in life. There is often a version of, “Do I really want to start over at my age?”

That question carries a lot more than the decision itself.

Starting over can mean learning something new. Becoming a beginner again. Giving up the identity you’ve had for years. Wondering what other people will think. Questioning whether you can financially support the change.

Sometimes those fears go back much further than we realize.

A person worried about financial security today may have grown up watching a parent work constantly because money was tight. Someone afraid of not fitting in may remember being the child who didn’t have the right clothes or the expensive sneakers everyone else had.

The situation today is different, but the old programming can still be running the conversation.

That’s why one of the first things I ask is: What does “wrong” actually mean to you?

What are you predicting will happen if you make the wrong choice?

That answer usually tells us much more than the choice itself.

There May Not Be a Wrong Choice

I don’t look at choices as good or bad, right or wrong.

Those are contrast words.

For one thing to exist, another thing has to exist in contrast to it. If something is “right,” something else has to be labeled “wrong.” If one choice is “good,” we begin looking for the “bad” one.

That creates conflict before we have even made the decision.

The moment you choose one thing, you are also choosing not to do something else, at least for now.

And that is where the mind starts getting involved.

If I take this job, what would have happened if I had taken the other one?

If I leave this relationship, what would have happened if I stayed?

If I buy the house, what if the market changes and if I don’t buy it, what if I never find another house I love this much?

We start trying to live two futures before either one has happened.

You just can’t.

You can gather information. You can look at the practical pieces. You can listen to your intuition. You can talk things through.

But you cannot know the complete outcome before you choose.

My Own Fear of Making a Major Business Decision

I know this because I have had to work through it myself.

In 2024, I made the decision to close my Glastonbury location for the second time. I had closed the larger version of the center in 2020 and kept a smaller location for several more years.

Eventually, I had a decision to make.

I could stay in Glastonbury, take more space and increase my expenses. I could try to find another location in the area, which would also increase expenses. Or I could move more of my work closer to home and work online.

My mind had plenty to say about that.

Nobody is going to follow you to Bozrah.

It’s too far away.

People want to see you in person.

You’re going to lose clients.

You’re going to have to start all over again.

Those thoughts felt very real at the time.

But they were still predictions.

What I did know was that I didn’t want the overhead anymore. I didn’t want to spend so much of my time worrying about rent and expenses. I needed more quiet in my life. I needed a break from the version of my business that required me to keep working harder just to support the space.

Eventually, I realized that staying where I was might also keep me attached to an old version of myself.

So, I chose.

I moved forward without knowing exactly how everything would turn out.

The story my mind created – that everyone would disappear and I would be starting from zero – didn’t happen.

And I gained something I desperately needed: more space to discover what the next version of my life and business could become.

I’m still discovering that.

That’s the part we forget.

You don’t need to know the entire next chapter before you turn the page.

Sometimes You Need to Be in the Gap

There is a space between where you are today and where you are going next.

I call it the gap.

We often become uncomfortable there because nothing seems to be happening. We want the answer. We want movement. We want proof that we’re going in the right direction.

But sometimes the space between where you are and where you’re going is simply called time.

You are allowed to say:

“I don’t know yet.”

That can be an incredibly powerful response.

It doesn’t mean you’re indecisive. It can mean you’re giving yourself enough space to make a conscious choice instead of immediately reacting from an old pattern.

I once worked with someone whose friends invited her to go on a cruise.

Her immediate response was, “I can’t afford it.”

But that wasn’t really the first question.

The first question was: Do you want to go?

She hadn’t even given herself enough time to answer that.

The old financial programming shut the possibility down before she could consider it.

What would happen if instead she said, “That sounds interesting. Let me get back to you”?

Nothing has been booked.

No money has been spent.

There is no commitment.

She has simply created some space.

Now she can decide whether she wants the experience. She can look at the price. She can look at her calendar. She can see whether there are options available to her.

And she may still decide not to go.

The difference is that she made the decision instead of allowing her old programming to make it for her.

How Can I Tell the Difference Between Fear and Intuition?

This is another question that often comes up when someone is making a big decision.

Fear tends to repeat itself.

Listen to your language when you talk about the decision. If you keep repeating the same phrase, “I won’t have enough money,” “I’ll have to start over,” “What if this doesn’t work?”, there may be an old program underneath it.

Fear wants you to predict the worst possible future so you can avoid it.

Intuition often feels different.

When people talk to me from an intuitive place, I often hear more possibility in their voice.

“I feel like I’m supposed to move in this direction.”

“I know something is changing. I just don’t know what it is yet.”

“I feel ready for something new.”

They may still have concerns. Intuition doesn’t mean we ignore practical reality.

But there is usually a sense of movement rather than contraction.

I’ve often said that people rarely make a major change until the fear of staying the same becomes greater than the fear of the unknown.

At that point, the unknown can start looking pretty good.

Trust Yourself to Handle What Comes Next

One of my clients was considering buying her first house.

She had always rented, so buying a home was an entirely new experience. She kept circling the same questions.

Could she afford it?

Should she wait?

Would the housing market get better?

What if she made the wrong financial decision?

Eventually, I asked her a much simpler question.

“How does the house make you feel?”

She said, “I love it. I feel at home.”

There was the information she had been overlooking.

She bought the house, made it her own, and it served her well.

Could either of us have guaranteed how the housing market would behave? No.

That wasn’t the point.

She had gathered the practical information. Then she allowed herself to recognize what she already knew inside.

This is what self-trust means to me.

Self-trust does not mean:

I trust myself to always make the right decision.

Self-trust means:

I trust myself to deal with whatever comes next.

That changes everything.

You no longer need to predict your entire future before taking a step.

What If I Regret the Choice I Make?

Regret is one of the biggest reasons people hesitate.

We think, “What if I choose this and later realize I should have chosen the other thing?”

I’ve talked more deeply about regret and the way we carry past choices with us, because sometimes our fear of making a new decision has less to do with the decision in front of us and more to do with what happened the last time we chose something that didn’t turn out the way we hoped.

But there’s a problem with that thinking.

You don’t know what would have happened on the road you didn’t take.

You only know the road you lived.

When something doesn’t work out the way we hoped, we often compare our real experience, with all its difficulties, disappointments and unexpected turns, to an imaginary version of the other choice.

Of course, the imaginary version looks better.

Nothing went wrong there because it never actually happened.

You are comparing the reality you lived with a future you imagined.

Maybe you didn’t make the wrong choice.

Maybe you made a choice, had an experience and received information you didn’t have before.

Now you get to make another choice.

Does Trusting a Higher Power Mean Giving Up Control?

For people who have a spiritual belief system, decision-making can sometimes create another layer of confusion.

We want God, Spirit, the Universe, our guides or our angels to tell us exactly what to do.

I understand why.

It feels safer.

If a higher power is making the decision, then we can’t make the wrong one.

But from my spiritual perspective, that begins to take away one of the greatest things we have been given: free will.

I believe in divine order.

I also believe our lives unfold as we participate in them.

We take a step.

Life unfolds.

We receive more information.

We take another step.

Life unfolds again.

I believe we can absolutely ask for help and guidance. I call it “ask and answered.” The answer may not come in the form we expect or in the timing we demand, but we can ask.

Guidance, however, is different from asking Spirit to live your life for you.

In my work with angels, guides and Spirit, my belief is that they support us. They can guide us. They can help us see something differently.

But we still choose.

Your higher power can walk with you.

Your intuition can inform you.

Your community can support you.

You are still the one living the life.

Let Your Life Unfold

Years ago, I gave a reading to a woman who was going through a horrific divorce.

At that point, the idea of ever having another relationship was completely off the table for her.

During the reading, information came through that she would love again. There was also information about her going back to school and eventually working with children.

Her response was essentially, “No. No. No.”

From where she stood at that moment, none of it made sense.

But she didn’t have to make every decision about the rest of her life that day.

She got through the divorce.

Later, an opportunity to return to school appeared. She earned her master’s degree. An internship led her to work in a school, and that eventually turned into a job working with children.

Then she met someone.

She fell in love and married again.

Her life unfolded.

That is the part I wish more people understood when they’re afraid of making a decision.

You don’t have to make every choice today.

You make the choice that is in front of you.

Then you see what life gives you next.

You Only Need to Choose the Next Step

If you are afraid of making the wrong decision right now, take some pressure off yourself.

You are not being asked to predict the next 30 years.

You are being asked to decide what comes next.

Give yourself enough space to hear yourself before old programming answers for you.

Notice whether your fear is about the decision or about what the decision represents: security, money, belonging, identity or starting over.

Ask for guidance if that is part of your spiritual practice.

Then remember that receiving guidance and exercising free will can exist together.

You can be supported and still choose.

And if you discover later that you want something different, there will be another choice waiting for you.

That is how life unfolds.

You take a step.

You learn.

You adjust.

And you choose again.

Listen to the Full Conversation

If this question is something you have been struggling with, I go deeper into self-trust, uncertainty, free will, regret and learning to stay in the gap in this podcast episode of This Life or Something Better.

Listen to “Afraid of Making the Wrong Decision? How to Trust Yourself and Choose.”