How to Stop Hesitating

Be bold - decisive! What? You can't? Do you find yourself suffering angst and taking forever over the smallest of decisions? Discover how to step up!

 

Steps

1. Understand why you are hesitant. Hesitance stems from uncertainty. Uncertainty is ... well, it's almost guaranteed, for every situation you will ever face. If you're always certain, you're probably wrong, because none of us knows everything. So hesitance is actually a sort of safety or defense mechanism - in the face of uncertainty, almost everyone hesitates a little.

2. Address ryour feas. A huge factor in hesitation is fear of doing the wrong thing, or making a mistake. There are two main ways to deal with this.

• One is to imagine that worst case scenario that's really holding you back (like embarrassing one's self--that's a big one for most of us) and saying to yourself, "So what?" People embarrass themselves all the time; in fact, if you watch popular and charming people, you'll see that they mess up too, but more importantly, they respond gracefully to their own mistakes. They joke around about it (watch - they will say things like, "Noooooo!" as they make an exaggerated attempt to stop the catastrophe), they even make fun of themselves (D'oh! I'm pathetic!"), and they immediately accept that they're human, and mistakes happen ("Man - I hate when that happens"). They make some silly remark, give a big cheesy smile - and they move on. You can, too. If you make a mistake, it's NOT the end of the world.
• Secondly, think of the consequences of inaction. Remember that hesitating means NOT acting, and NOT acting has its own consequences. Don't want to talk to that guy because you're worried you'll put your foot in your mouth and ruin your chances with him? Well, you might, and that's okay - life will go on. Or, you might win him over; you never know! BUT, if you don't act, you guarantee that nothing will ever happen. How can sparks fly when you won't even come face-to-face with him? Do you really want to just wait for him to do everything? What if he's more paranoid about action than you are? When it's over, would you be happy with how you handled the situation, in retrospect?

3.  Train yourself to think, then act. Overcoming hesitance does not mean you should just start jumping blindly into situations - that could get you into trouble, or worse, be dangerous. But taking a moment to mentally consider the ramifications of Decision A or Decision B - and in rare cases, Decision C - could spare you problems later. Train yourself to think through first one possibility and then one other - and stop there unless a third possibility is glaringly obvious. Don't allow yourself to go off on tangent after tangent, chasing down every possible eventuality. Give yourself a choice between two actions (or that rare third one), and then decide.

4.  Give yourself a time limit. To help you avoid "Analysis Paralysis," you should give yourself a defined time limit when considering serious actions such as purchasing a home, accepting a job, or quitting one. Instead of grinding over endless possibilities, and then discovering you've now been chewing this over for a week and it's too late to care any more, give yourself a couple of hours to consider accepting a job. Sleep on it before you act on a decision to quit or make an offer on a house. But once you have reached your time limit, take action.

5.  Make the decision. If you find that you are hesitant over simple, every day decisions, like asking that pretty girl out, or whether to go to a company party, or even what to have for lunch, try giving yourself just 30 seconds to decide. In this exercise, you must say "yes" at least 50% of the time (in other words, no fair retreating to the safe "non-action" all the time). This will help you to save your "no" for events or decisions where it matters a lot more - or a lot less - what your answer would be. Next time you're deciding what to do and find yourself cursing your hesitance, look at a clock or watch, and start counting down from 30. By the time you reach 1, you must make a positive decision. Example:

• Co-worker: "We're having drinks at Jojo's tonight - want to join us?"
• You: "Uhhhmmmm... I'm not sure... ummm who all is going..."
• Co-worker: "Everyone from Accounting and that pretty new girl... I know you want to meet her..."
• You: (really nervous and hesitant now) "Wow. I'm not sure..."
• Co-worker: (resigned to you just not showing up, as usual) "Well, okay. Let us know. You're more than welcome to come, though..." (starts moving away)
• The New You: "You know what - Yes, I'd love to come. I was just thinking about whether I already had something, but it's not important. Thank you for asking me - I'll see you tonight."
• Co-worker: (Pleasantly surprised) "Great! We'll see you then! ... uh - Her name is Emily, just so you know."
• The New You: "OK. See you then. Mmm. Emily..." (smiling quietly to yourself)

6.  Force yourself to do new things. Having new, different experiences helps you learn to cope with new situations, and it builds your self-confidence, which helps you become a more decisive person. Often, hesitance and indecisive behaviours are caused by having lived a sheltered existence, or not having much experience to draw on. Allowing yourself to go to parties or gatherings, or even just going to meetings, conventions, or the movies with different people, broadens your horizons a little bit every time you do it. You hear the stories others tell, and you soon have some stories of your own to tell. As you become more experienced, you will be more certain of what will happen in different circumstances. Being more certain = being less hesitant.

7. Have confidence and faith in yourself. You have some special talent and you need to show it to the world.

Tips

• Never take too long on deciding otherwise you will miss out on other opportunities.
• Even if you are unsure of yourself, try to behave as if you are sure. If you find yourself in a situation where you are truly afraid, tell someone there how scared you are. You'd be surprised at how much help you can receive if you will just open yourself up to it by asking for it.
• Often fear or hesitation is caused by some past reaction to a bad situation. The fear is that something bad once happened, so it will happen again. Work on staying in the present moment, right here, right now. Doing so can help lessen fear-based decisions (or non-decisions).
• Don't take too long to decide on to something because you might miss some other important jobs because of your slow decision making.
• Use the three-second rule: when you realize there is a decision to make, you must act before three seconds are up. The purpose of this training is for you practice embracing the chaos we face in everyday life. Works best on decisions where the outcome is relatively unimportant
• Try flipping a coin. Sometimes giving yourself a point to focus on brings out what you subconsciously wanted to do anyway. If you assign the decisions to the coin flip, you'll often end up making the decision you wanted to despite what the coin says.

Warnings 

• Inhibitions are there for a reason. While hesitating can be rather annoying, ending up dead can be too. Use common sense.