9 Ways Indecision Is Destroying Your Career

When we set out to research decision-making and indecisiveness, we took a few guesses. We counted things like what we eat for breakfast, whether or not to wash our hair, and when to email our boss about the status of a project.

We decided that we might make somewhere around 300 decisions each day. Or maybe up to 1,000? Okay, maybe 2,000 on a big day. We were...a little off. 

In fact, the average adult makes about 35,000 decisions a day. If that number sounds exhausting to you, you’re not alone. 

It’s no wonder that, at times, we all face a little bit of decision-making fatigue. However, we can't afford to be indecisive or flaky at work. So, how do we fend off decision-making fatigue and learn to trust our own choices? Let's dive in! 

Table of Contents

Why We're Indecisive 

It’s 8:05 a.m., and you’re standing in front of your open refrigerator door looking at the whole milk and the 2% milk, and you're close to deciding what to pour into your coffee—until you see the coconut milk on another shelf. 

Suddenly, you cannot make a decision. What the heck is happening? 

This doesn’t sound like a big deal, but it sort of is. When you start your day “stuck,” it doesn’t bode well for other impactful decisions that might be asked of you later on. 

Indecisiveness can be caused by a number of factors, including burnout, impostor syndrome, decision-making fatigue, fear of making the wrong decision, or an overall lack of confidence. 

Making decisions (or being chronically indecisive) relies on a mixture of brain function, rational thinking, and emotion. 

When your brain, heart, and gut are collaborating, things can get confusing and messy. The one thing we know for sure is that indecisiveness is a career killer. Here’s why. 

9 Ways Indecisiveness Is Ruining Your Career 

We’d be remiss to not address one important element of decision-making. Sometimes, it is best to ask for help, guidance, and perspective in the face of uncertainty.

In fact, it’s good to gain perspective when you can—especially when making difficult decisions that directly affect others. 

However, the type of indecisiveness we’re combatting is the type that is constantly bottlenecking your progress. 

1. Indecision Undermines Your Knowledge and Expertise

There’s a difference between asking for help and guidance when you actually need it and asking for advice when you’re feeling scared or when you're striving for perfection. 

Constantly asking for help and guidance when it comes to every decision will eventually degrade confidence in your abilities. 

The next time you're struggling with making an independent decision (the one you've already been entrusted to make by your boss or colleagues) ask yourself these questions:

Make and own decisions that are guided by your experience, logic, expertise, and instincts.

Pro Tip: Separate quick decisions and trivial choices from bigger and important decisions to preserve your energy.

2. Indecision Creates the Impression That You Lack Creativity or Impulsivity 

Creativity is not only for creative roles. In fact, creativity is an increasingly important soft skill in the modern workplace. 

When you can’t make a decision, it paints a picture (no creativity pun intended) of someone unable to think creatively. When faced with a paradox of choice, think creatively. 

How can you do something differently or more efficiently? What is your gut instinct saying? Is there a problem-solving element to the decision?

3. Indecision Causes You to Miss Out on Opportunities in Favor of Someone More Action-Oriented

If you’ve been skeptical up until now, pay attention here. When management is looking to promote from within, they are going to look for an employee with raw skill, experience, and self-drive. 

While indecision is completely acceptable at times, a constant state of indecisiveness can imperceptibly chip away at your reputation. The anxiety you demonstrate in the face of making quick decisions (i.e., what you would like for lunch) can follow you throughout your professional life.

If you’ve spent the last year sending out, “Well, what do you think?” emails to your boss, are you demonstrating the qualities of a self-starter?

Don't miss out on new and exciting opportunities because of your past indecision.

4. Indecision Prohibits You From Making (+ Learning From) Mistakes 

We know that encouraging mistakes is about the least appealing piece of advice we are going to offer, but you learn from mistakes when you’re open. We’re not sure if Wayne Gretzky or Michael Jordan said it, but you do miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take. 

Be more open to making (and learning from) mistakes. 

5. Indecision Engenders Distrust in Your Future Input

If you stagnate too long in indecision, your coworkers won’t trust your future decisions. 

6. Indecision Interrupts Flow on Projects 

Nobody wants to be the bottleneck on a project or opportunity. Once you become known as a hiccup in the process, you run the risk of being removed from the process altogether. 

While you don't want to be the barrier to getting things done, don't make impulsive decisions either. Especially if you're worried about your indecision, don't overcorrect by making rash or uninformed decisions. Instead, take a beat. 

Take the time to cultivate an understanding of what needs to be decided, by when, and why. Ask yourself what is a reasonable deadline for making this decision.

If tomorrow is a realistic deadline to make an informed and smart decision, take the time. Come back with the decision—and all the reasoning behind it. With time, your decision-making skills will improve along with the expediency with which you make them.

7. Indecision Removes You From Promotion Opportunities or Leadership Roles 

Long-term indecisiveness will remove you from consideration for leadership roles or promotion opportunities. Management roles call for confident decision-making for yourself, your team, and the organization. 

8. Indecision Paints the Picture of a Procrastinator 

Indecision might be a result of procrastination and vice-versa. Either way, these two work really well together—all against you. 

When you waffle or hold out on making a decision—whether or not you actually are procrastinating— it looks like procrastination. 

9. Indecision Stagnates Your Overall Growth 

Finally, constant indecision will muddy your growth. To summarize what we’ve already discussed, indecision can remove opportunities, paint the picture of a lazy employee, and disallow learning opportunities. 

Five Reasons You Might Be Feeling Indecisive at Work

Now that we’ve explored the ways that indecisiveness might be cutting you off at the knees, let's go a little deeper. Why are you feeling particularly indecisive and what can you do about it? 

Below are five common reasons employees feel indecisive—and how to alleviate some hesitation.

Indecision Cause #1: Decision-Making Fatigue 

To explore the five ways you might be feeling indecisive at work, we are going to use a painfully familiar trope. It’s called the “What are we having for dinner?” phenomenon. 

This is where two people uselessly collaborate over what to eat for dinner—both unable to make decisions. After foraging through food cabinets and browsing every food delivery service, you come up with nothing and it looks like you’re eating microwavable burritos again. 

By the end of the day, you’re tired. We don’t blame you; you’ve made tens of thousands of decisions today, so it’s understandable that you don’t know what you want.

So, how can you combat decision-making fatigue? One way (proven by fitness influencers everywhere) is by pre-planning your week. We know, it doesn’t sound glamorous, but it can help streamline your week and take some decisions off your plate from the start.

Some things you can pre-plan before your week starts are:

Indecision Cause #2: Impostor Syndrome 

Nobody invites impostor syndrome to the party—and yet, it always seem to crash it. 

Impostor syndrome can be a huge contributor to feeling indecisive at work and in your personal life. It’s when you feel like a fraud, not “good enough,” or completely incapable of making the right decision. 

If you give impostor syndrome an inch, it will take miles. In the interest of taking our “dinner” conundrum to the workplace, let’s talk about lunch. 

It’s your week to pick the team lunch and you can’t make “the right” decision, so you volley it to your coworker. This may not seem like a huge deal (it’s just lunch, right?) but these types of small decisions can be confidence-boosters for you at work, so take them on.

If you like that new restaurant down the street that nobody has tried, take this opportunity to pick that lunch. Communicate to your team what dishes you love and why. Give impostor syndrome one small kick in the behind at a time—and watch it dissipate. 

Other ways you can improve your decision-making being rattled by impostor syndrome include:

Indecision Cause #3: People Pleasing 

“What do you want for dinner?”

“I don’t know; what would you like?”

People-pleasing sounds good in theory, but it can go too far. Think of it this way: when you’re so busy people-pleasing, you’re not even making decisions for yourself or your own good. When you become so caught up in how things affect others, you take away from yourself. 

Don’t confuse people-pleasing for consideration. Being kind and thoughtful is a cornerstone of a good employee and a good coworker, but pay attention to areas where kindness bleeds into people-pleasing behavior. 

Our advice here? Pay attention to the signs of chronic people-pleasing. 

Everyone doesn’t have to be considered in every decision you make—and everyone will likely survive if you choose pizza for dinner without creating a pros and cons chart, a Google survey, and nutrition analysis for everyone beforehand. 

Indecision Cause #4: Good Old Fear of Failure

This is likely the most common barrier to making decisions, especially “bigger” decisions at work. Fear of failure is a huge roadblock for employees’ decision-making. Failure is especially scary for employees in their early careers. 

So, what to do? Well, you might not like this advice, but here it is. Lean into your gut, your intuition, and what you’ve learned so far. 

When you’re new to your position, make sure to pay attention to training, how others conduct their work, and any advice you glean along the way. If, say, your boss is asking you to make a decision, make it to the best of your ability. 

Nobel Prize winner Herbert A. Simon coined the term “satisficing” to describe why we can never know enough to make the optimal decision. He called this “unknown” element bounded rationality. So, what can we do when faced with a tough decision? The answer? We do the best we can with the information we have. 

Like we touched upon earlier, the longer you stagnate in the “ask before you do” territory, the longer you’re going to get stuck there. 

Make decisions. Be open to making mistakes and learning from them. This (although embarrassing and painful at the time) is the key to growth. 

Indecision Cause #5: "Rules" Set for You

We aren’t psychologists here at Career Contessa, so we went to Psychology Today to research this one. Let’s unpack. 

“Rules” are little biases or ideas that were fed to you, usually from an extremely young age. It might be your parents who told you that “girls shouldn’t be too loud” or that you should always “keep your head down and work” rather than sharing your thoughts and ideas. 

Yeah, we know. 

This sounds suspiciously like some self-therapy because it is. When you’re faced with a decision that stops you in your tracks, can you identify a fear rule that makes it so? Author and counselor Kimberly Key writes:

“Take your time creating [lists of rules] and be gentle with yourself as new fears and rules reveal themselves. You may cry and grieve as you uncover ingrained beliefs that have been under the radar. The more you excavate, the easier it will be to release them and replace them with alternatives.”

Keep in mind that you may have set some of your own “rules” for yourself—and it’s time to break them. 

Some common “rules” that might be inhibiting you include:

How to Become More Decisive

Finally, we leave you with this advice. We understand that some decisions carry more weight than others and all decisions are not created equally. However, you can use your smaller decisions to work on your confidence in making bigger (and better) decisions down the line. 

Regard every decision as a learning opportunity.

The best way to increase your decision-making confidence is to broaden your experiences, remove your biases, and expand your horizons. 

When you expose yourself to different experiences, perspectives, and opportunities, you’re enabling a broader view of everything.  

Use your indecisiveness as a learning tool. When you’re faced with a brick wall, ask the questions and gather the tools that allow you passage through. Every time you make an uncomfortable decision that leads to success, you’re using those bricks to create your own foundation.