Fear is the little death. Fear is the mind killer.

December 1, 2006 12:47 PM

Have you ever found yourself paralyzed with indecision? How did you break through?

I find myself in a general life situation which I is unacceptable. I'd like to make several fairly drastic changes (go back to school, get a new job, the usual) but I find myself unable to start out of fear of messing up since I'm in a fairly delicate situation financially. Further details available upon request, but this is a general question about breaking through the fear of negative repercussions.

posted by lekvar to work & money (20 comments total)

I don't recall the source of this quote from a soldier who'd been in firefights, but it went something like "Courage is something you fake at first then get for real later after you were successful."
posted by Burhanistan at 12:56 PM on December 1, 2006

One idea might be to write a list of pros/cons of each situation. Perhaps even have a friend do it with you to prompt for ideas. While the financial aspect will come up in your lists, be sure to think of all other areas of your life.

If things are as you describe you'll likely end up with a 'now' list with way more cons than pros, and a 'if I change' list with way more pros than cons.

If school and new job are 2 different options then make 3 lists: 'now', 'school', 'new job'. Seeing it on paper may help you make the decision.

BTW, this kind of approach I got from 'The Feeling Good Handbook' as part of cognitive behaviour therapy. There's other good ideas in there too.

Good luck.
posted by valleys at 12:59 PM on December 1, 2006

Your fear is probably that of everything falling through and leaving you unemployed and broke. If you don't have a job or school option lined up, then line them the fuck up! Send out resumes with great cover letters; apply to schools in your area or wherever you see yourself wanting to go; and start saving money so that when you do want to go, you'll have something to fall back on if something does fall through.
posted by parmanparman at 12:59 PM on December 1, 2006

Tough question. I often struggle with indecision. Usually I think too long and then the opportunity is past. Somethings that work for me is putting my emotions aside and thinking rationally about what the best and worst outcomes are for each path.

I also remind myself that no matter what, there are no guarantees. That applies to the "safe" path too. And then there is the heat death of the universe thing which makes all human decisions a lot less weighty.
posted by chairface at 1:02 PM on December 1, 2006

This doesn't work as well for the big life decisions, but is what I was reminded of when reading your short question...

Carry a coin with you, and when you can't decide what to do, flip the coin - heads you do A, tails you do B. Then you ignore what the coin says, because when you flipped the coin your feelings crystallized into desire for a certain outcome (heads v. tails). Follow your feelings for that outcome.
posted by jpeacock at 1:11 PM on December 1, 2006

All this talk of lists and things is ok, but the truth is you probably already know what you need to do. It sounds like you do anyway. If you're unhappy and you think making these changes will make you happier you should do it. Know that it will probably be hard at first, and maybe it will be hard the whole time. But you will be happier. And then when you're done with the hard part, you'll be better off in more ways than one. Do what you want! Go! do it!

Make sure you have a good support group too. Don't listen to all those people who think you're just setting yourself up for a hard time. Because those are the kinds of people that don't take risks. And you aren't like those people.
posted by bash at 1:11 PM on December 1, 2006

A lot of people regard the unknown as threatening. I've narrowed many of my own fears down to a fear of ambiguity, and I've addressed this by meticulously planning everything, and leaving little to chance (theoretically). Even if things don't go as planned -- as they often don't -- I have some peace of mind by having the skeletal framework of a strategy.

Another thing I do to relieve some of the dread that goes with being pessimistic is to watch a movie or show, read a book, or listen to a podcast or audiobook on the subject. Seeing something done, even in a fictional context, eliminates a lot of the ambiguous psychological mire that goes with facing the unfamiliar. Sometimes it's enough to know that something can be done successfully, even if one doesn't know exactly how.
posted by evil holiday magic at 1:11 PM on December 1, 2006

One method is just saying "screw it" and you throw down your bet on the table. Reminding yourself "well if I'm f'ed, then I'm f'ed." A lot of life is whimsical and arbitrary, and you have to roll with that sometimes.

Another is reducing things down to what you need. If a couple options are the same with regard to your needs, then you should take the choice less seriously and say "either one will do the job."

While differences between the choices will have major repercussions in your life, those repercussions will be smothered more so by what you end up doing with those choices thereafter.

Give yourself a deadline to make a decision.

Think out loud with your support network over and over again, and eventually one option will seem like the good choice.

Consider things like: where will my passions be best served? will this bring me closer to my dreams?

Visualize yourself along those choices.

Find compromise choices that take care of a bunch of things.

Limit yourself to a set amount of decision-making thinking per day and spread it out over a week. You can agree that you shouldn't consume all your time with the decision, just a reasonable amount. And it shouldn't interrupt the rest of your life.

What is it about yourself that you haven't learned yet that is making the decision less clear? Introspection helps, especially when you shed away preconceived notions of yourself for a more realistic viewpoint.

Post the question onto Ask.metafilter
posted by philosophistry at 1:15 PM on December 1, 2006

baby steps! Do one small thing to get the ball rolling - get some college/university brochures or browse the want ads.

A big change, like a new job or school or whatever, can seem very overwhelming, but breaking it down into small, manageable tasks can help you get started. I just got engaged and already I am freaking out over all the upcoming wedding planning. Sending away for bridal catalogs and making a list of venues - just those two things - have helped me not feel like planning this is going to crush me.
posted by sutel at 1:23 PM on December 1, 2006

It sounds like you're at a stage where much of what you need to do is no-risk. It doesn't cost anything to apply for jobs or apply for schools (well, other than small application fees sometimes), and doing so is non-binding. Remembering that helped get me through applying for school. I just focused on getting the damned application in, and figured I'd worry about what to do once I was either accepted or rejected once I knew either way -- worrying about that before I even applied tended to paralyze me, so I just stopped worrying about it.

Even with that, I would watch my brain try to sabotage me. I put off taking the GRE until I thought it was too late -- then discovered I didn't actually need to take it. I put off getting recommendations until it was almost too late -- and ended up with two awesome recommenders anyway. Through all of that I would just laugh at myself, try to recognize the self-sabotage and just roll my eyes at it.

I also tried to make myself as accountable as possible to my friends. I kept them updated on my progress, and on my fear and fuck-ups (like procrastinating). It gave me a way to talk about the fear as a normal thing, as just one other thing I had to manage in the process like transcripts or recommendations.

I found that I really identified with the saying that we don't fear failing, we fear succeeding beyond our wildest dreams. A lot of that fear you may be feeling is the normal fear of just going for it, and should not necessarily be taken as a sign that you're somehow pursuing the wrong path, or not worth the effort.
posted by occhiblu at 1:33 PM on December 1, 2006

Ok, this sounds corny, but it's actually worked for me.

Ask yourself which choice you'd make out of fear and which you'd make out of love. Love could mean love of life, love of others, love of self, etc. There may be fear and love in both choices, but it's doubtful they'll be equally matched. Usually, once I realize which choice I'd make out of love, whatever fear I'm feeling subsides (not completely, but enough to let me break through). By the way, I've never regretted any decision I've made with this "method."
posted by treepour at 1:42 PM on December 1, 2006 [5 favorites]

Normally when I'm absolutely paralyzed by indecision I just go ahead and do it. I figure that dealing with the fallout of my decision is not only easier than dealing with the stress of indecision, but also easier than dealing with the regret and "what if" feelings that will come later on down the line. It sounds flippant, but it's worked surprisingly well.
posted by christinetheslp at 1:54 PM on December 1, 2006

Fear of messing up is a trick your brain plays on you, and you have to be careful that the fear of messing up doesn't turn into telling yourself you never wanted it the first place or into wanting to do it "right", so much so that you spend all your time preparing and no time doing.

Sometimes when you're trying to do something you don't really want to do but feel you should, your brain throws up all these little things.

There's really no way to know in what way you're fooling yourself at any given moment, so you just have to watch it happen and try to recognize the signs for the next time it comes around.
posted by Mr. Gunn at 2:02 PM on December 1, 2006

Yes, I have found myself as such. What works for me is certainly a combination of the above.
- find a support group. someone to talk to who values you and your betterment
- know the results of each action, build in contingencies
- for me, just shut up and listen to yourself, usually you know the answer already
- decide which decisions hurt and where they hurt. money problems hurt much less than health (mental or otherwise) in the long run, but more so in the short term
- commit and do
posted by BrodieShadeTree at 4:29 PM on December 1, 2006

I've recently been in a similar position - for me what solved it was a new manager asking me what my plans were and me just...answering. I'd "known" the answer for a few weeks but telling somebody else made it feel like a real plan that I had to at least try to see through.
posted by muteh at 4:44 PM on December 1, 2006

I was faced with indecision. I thought about best- and worst-case scenarios for each life path. I ended up picking the one that was scariest because it had the most to offer.
posted by nessahead at 5:39 PM on December 1, 2006

forget about your fears.

just ask yourself which change you would regret not making 5 years from now. whatever change you fear not making, pursue it relentlessly.

if you can't identify which change you would regret not making, you're lying to yourself.
posted by milarepa at 9:21 PM on December 1, 2006

Just do it.
posted by farmersckn at 11:21 PM on December 1, 2006

When I was last in a situation I found unacceptable I didn't get out when I should've and instead self destructed. Which passively forced me out of the situation.

I greatly regret not taking a more active role (I didn't take one because I was scared out of my brains that I would for sure fail and I was poor -- I didn't and now I'm not).
posted by birdie birdington at 11:38 PM on December 1, 2006

i'm wrestling with this same problem right now. this is what i think about my situation. maybe it will help you with yours.

eventually i will die. i don't believe in "god" or an "afterlife", so i'm pretty much forced to accept that this is the whole of it, what i'm experiencing right this second. every second down is a second gone.

and yet i live a timid life. i do little; i braggardly think that i could handle whatever situation gets thrown at me (heroically landing the plane, daringly shoving the woman out of the way of the bus, curing cancer, WHAT HAVE YOU), but i never push myself to test these things. i feel like i've been awfully lucky in the crises that have arisen in my life, and while i'm terribly grateful and humbled, i am not especially inspired or made confident by what i genuinely believe to have been Good Luck. that wasn't me; that was numbers.

the best we can plan, really, is to push ourselves towards things we hope with both happen the way we want them to and please us the way we hope they will. it's never more corporal than that, a "plan". but really, with the atheism again, i'm pretty much in direct control of that happening. luck has done its fair share, i'd say, and the rest is pretty much going to have to be up to me. if i want some event to occur in my life, i will have to exert some kind of energy towards actually making it happen.

and here i am, rationally explaining, borderline pendantically, what seems to be obvious.

and still i live an unhappy life, and i recognize that this is largely because of the choices i am never fearless enough to make.

in the last while i've been thinking a lot about the cliches that describe the simplicity of diametrically opposed behavior : "just do it", mentioned above. "you only have your life to live", "be yourself", "it's just a choice". etc. all those phrases that distill the mechanics down to the binary (or less) without acknowledging that we understand the concept perfectly, but fear the execution.

when you die as an atheist, you are solely responsible for the amount of pleasure you take from life. when i die, if i have a minute, i am going to ask myself a question. i'm not sure exactly what the wording will be, and i hope i don't figure it out until i'm there, but the theme has started keeping me up at night : "how'd ya do? was it worth it?".

i am desperately afraid of the answer to that question being "no", and that fear makes me triple-guess situations to the point that the opportunity passes me by more often than not. "gosh, which do i want to do? is it yes or is it no? gosh!". so the end result is a whole bunch of nothing and at this rate the answer to the big question will be "no" just because i never ended up doing anything at all for fear it wouldn't be right.

(and how stupid to be afraid of the answer in the first place when i'm the one asking the question! who am i afraid of disappointing? why is it abstracted like that? how can i claim to fear the results of a self-evaluation? isn't that what i'm doing right now?)

but the weirdest thing i keep realizing is that ultimately, it's all going to be okay. this IS it. i am alive, and this is what life is. when i'm done, i will have had one, and it will be this.

thus far, damned near every failure to make a decision has resulted in disappointment. i can thereby conclude that not making a decision is, in my experience, at least, a failing proposition. very low chance of success. the alternative in this particular scenario is to make a decision. it is an unknown property. it could be just as bad as not making a choice.

but i already know what that's like. if it sucks the same way, at least i won't wonder what the other side is like. that will be a weight off my shoulders. and it seems like there's probably a chance it would be better than the continual sucking that i am currently experiencing. so points in favor of making a decision.

which brings us back to the fear that got us here to begin with, but now we are properly armed to kick some ass. you're faced with a choice. one of them will likely make you happier than the other, but you can't rationalize which one you think that would be comfortably enough to feel committed.

it doesn't matter.

you know that you need to change something. either one will be successful. if this is an important decision, you're always going to wonder about the other path. that can't be avoided, no matter how well you choose. so don't sweat that either. you are going to fret, if you're the fretful type, regardless.

should you be arbitrary? no, not if you don't have to. if it's easiest or ultimately the only thing that will move you forward, go for it. but i think you'll feel better if you have more of a hand in whatever happens next, regardless of ultimate outcome.

i've started to think that the decisions that make me feel something that feels like panic are being misinterpreted by me. i think that's yearning, and it's so forceful that it feels fearsome. i remember what few actual panic situations i've had actually felt like at the time, and it's different. but it feels like panic, a little.

my advice is to pick the one that makes you feel that the most. that's what i'm going to do, when i figure out which on that is.

i'm sorry i ran long. i hope this helps.
posted by radiosilents at 12:10 AM on December 3, 2006 [4 favorites]