Why it's sometimes important to make wrong decisions

By M.Farouk Radwan, MSc.

This is how we learn

Few days ago I was doing coaching for a client who had a problem with being indecisive. Whenever my client took a decision she became very anxious, kept rethinking it over and over again then eventually backed off after feeling too scared.

Too many people get decision making wrong. They think that they should learn how to make perfect decisions before they take any decision and this is a totally wrong approach. Of course it would be a great idea if a person can take all the correct decisions right away but unfortunately this is not the way life works.

We humans learn through a process called negative feedback. The first time you touched that wrong object then your mother yelled at you gave you a note that this object shouldn't be touched again. This yelling in such a case was the negative feedback your mind got.

Now what if you never did anything wrong when you were a child?
The answer would be : You won't get any negative feedback and so you won't learn anything.

Why it's sometimes important to make wrong decisions

My client was too anxious to take a decision because she was too afraid that she might be taking the wrong decision forgetting the fact that learning only happens properly when we get negative feedback.

No child is born with a perfect decision making abilities but as the child keeps making mistakes his ability to take decisions keeps improving to the better. Now when anxiety hinders this process and prevents it from being done correctly then learning stops and the person's ability to take decisions become impaired.

In other words by refusing to take a decision you are not actually protecting yourself but you are lowering your ability to take correct future decisions and so increasing the chance of getting into serious trouble later on (See why people like to escape from reality).

You might wonder how would someone dare to take a big decision in his life when he is not so sure about it. The problem here isn't with the big decision but it's with the the fact that this person escaped from the small decisions many times before that now he is clueless in the face of the big issue.

Stop thinking once you take a decision

Think as much as you want before taking a decision but once you have taken a decision you should stop thinking for only one of two scenarios is likely to happen. Either you will discover that you took the right decision or either you will discover that you took the wrong decision and so you will learn a lot.

As you keep going through wrong decisions your ability to take future decisions will improve and your chance of getting it right will become much better. It's also a very important thing that you work on your anxiety if it's the main reason you are afraid to take a decision.

People who suffer from anxiety might have bigger difficulties taking decisions since they keep imagining negative scenarios in their head. It's really hard to talk about any psychological problem without talking about courage for courage is ,in most cases, the ultimate soloution to many of those problems.

The courage i am describing here is the one that let's you stick to the decision you took without worrying much after knowing that you have done your homework well.

Yes it's unpleasant for everyone to make mistakes but how else do you plan to learn if you are going to keep hiding from the important decisions?

Do you want to talk to me directly? In the improved coaching service you can reach me on Whats-app anytime and get voice message replies from me whenever you are stuck.

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