Have you ever made a decision that wasn’t right for you? You probably have. Most people have at least one regrettable decision they’ve made.
However, some people can find themselves trapped in a cycle of bad decision-making. They may have certain habits, beliefs, or perspectives that cause them to misjudge the outcome of their decisions.
By being aware of flawed reasoning and interrogating your beliefs, you can hopefully avoid that and make the right choices for your life. The following are some things you’ll want to look out for.
8 ways people talk themselves into decisions they know deep down are wrong for them:
1. They confuse familiarity with safety.
Life can throw some challenging circumstances at you, but sometimes, rather than removing ourselves when we can, we choose to stay because it’s familiar.
One of the best examples is being in an unhealthy relationship. Many of us look at our partner with rose-tinted glasses. We see their potential, who they could be if only they would try.
But, for some reason, they just won’t or can’t. Alternatively, they may not be that good of a person.
But this is the person that you know. This is the relationship that you know. Do you stay in it, knowing that things aren’t likely to ever change? Or do you finally decide to put yourself first to get out of a situation that isn’t right for you?
It’s definitely a big risk to end a relationship. However, staying in an unhealthy, familiar relationship is going to cost you more healing time later.
The same goes for any toxic situation, really. Don’t confuse familiarity with safety. They aren’t the same thing.
2. They keep waiting to be 100% certain.
As I get older, I realize there are few times in life when the circumstances are going to be 100% perfect. In fact, it almost never happens that way.
But still, many people hold out for that elusive moment, and what often happens is that they keep delaying making a decision until they finally reach a breaking point where it no longer matters.
The situation just feels so bad, or they get so frustrated with their own lack of action, that they finally take the step, but by that point they’ve wasted so much of their precious time.
Life is passing by as we sit and wait for circumstances to be optimal. We wait, and we wait, but what if they’re never optimal?
Are you just going to stay trapped in this situation that isn’t right for you? Or are you going to be brave and take the dive into uncertainty?
3. They focus on how much they’ve already invested in the situation.
The “sunk cost fallacy” happens when a person will not let go of the past because of how much time, effort, and resources they’ve invested in it.
The most common example is staying in a bad relationship because you have all of this history together. It may not feel right to let that go, so you keep trying to save the relationship. But the problem is that a relationship can only work if both partners are working at it.
Staying at a job that you hate is another common example. It’s the evil you know. Plus, you may have been working there for years already! You don’t want to be the new employee again. You don’t want to have to do all new training with an all-new company, even if it might mean a better work environment for you.
It’s flawed reasoning that will keep you trapped if you let it. Don’t let history prevent you from leaving a situation not meant for you. The past is over with; it’s time to look to the future.
4. They minimize the problems that are bothering them.
Yes, you may be perfectly capable of living with the problems or bad situation you’re in – but should you have to? Why should you waste your limited time on this planet dealing with things that are bad for you?
The reality is that a situation, person, or environment that is not adding to you is subtracting from you. You are essentially wasting your own time by choosing to stay in wrong situations. That’s time you could spend pursuing something better.
“It’s not that big of a deal.” “I don’t actually mind…” “Everyone has problems.”
Of course they do. But that doesn’t mean that you need to stay at the mercy of your own problems or anyone else’s. All it takes is a choice to do something different. You just have to be brave enough to make the choice.
5. They compare their situation to something worse.
The comparison game is one way that people tend to minimize what they’re going through.
The problem is that there is always something worse going on somewhere. It doesn’t matter how bad your situation is – someone, somewhere has it much worse. That’s just the way the world is, unfortunately.
It’s a disservice to your own struggles and suffering to minimize them by ranking them as of lesser importance. Your situation matters, and it should matter to you, because it’s going to affect your life and mental health.
The effects of staying in a bad situation do not just end when you leave the situation. You also have to unmake the bad habits and heal whatever wounds you took away from that situation. That can add months, years, or even decades to your healing journey.
Your pain matters because it’s affecting you. Don’t avoid making the decisions you need to because you’ve convinced yourself otherwise.
6. They downgrade what they actually want to what they currently have.
Have you ever asked yourself, “How do I make myself okay with this situation?” Perhaps not consciously, but a lot of the time, people choose to stay in a bad situation by convincing themselves that it’s what they wanted all along.
For example, imagine you work hard and go to school to get trained for your dream job. You get your dream job, but you find out that you absolutely hate the day-to-day and politics of it. It wears on you, but you’ve spent all this time getting an education and telling people how much you were looking forward to it!
Do you just suck it up? Or can you admit that you made a mistake and didn’t realize the full picture of what you were getting into?
A lot of people would just stick with their mistake and ride it out. Accepting that the reality isn’t what you were expecting is difficult, especially if you feel ashamed about all of the hype or expectations you expressed about the situation.
7. They think a bad choice creates an obligation.
You are not obligated to keep making the same mistake just because you made a bad decision. You’re allowed to decide you were wrong or even just change your mind later. Yet some people think that because they made their bed, they have to lie in it. Forever. What they often don’t account for is their own knowledge about the situation.
Maybe they didn’t have all the information to make an informed decision when they did. Maybe they misunderstood what the situation was all about. Or maybe they were misled and given the wrong information.
Other people may make you feel like you have to stick with a bad decision you’ve made, but understand that they aren’t living your life.
You have to decide what is right and fulfilling for you, because you are the one who will have to live with the regrets if you don’t.
8. They convince themselves the situation will change itself while doing nothing to change it.
Sometimes a person clings to false hope to avoid making a hard decision or doing the difficult work.
They may think things like “Maybe this time they’ll understand me” and “Maybe things will get better in time.” But things generally only get better when a person wants them to get better and is willing to put the effort in to make that happen.
I think one of the hardest life lessons I had to learn is that everyone has the capability to be better; it’s just that most people choose not to.
It’s a lot of work to take responsibility for your own emotions, your mental landscape, your life, and your relationships. The realization that you’ve been going about it all wrong can just be too much to take in.
So instead, many people try to avoid doing the work while hoping for something that’s just not going to happen without effort.
Don’t be one of those people. You will pay the price for it later.
Closing thoughts…
The unfortunate reality is that so many people lock themselves into bad circumstances not meant for them by not making good decisions.
They may have flawed logic, self-esteem problems, or they just fall for one of the many logical fallacies that humans fall for.
It’s easy to get swept up in a sunk-cost fallacy when you’re looking at your 20-year relationship, wondering if it’s time to end it.
But sometimes we do need to make the difficult decision to change.
You aren’t condemned or doomed to a bad outcome just because you made a mistake or circumstances changed in ways you didn’t expect. Instead, you just need to have the courage to accept it and take a step forward onto a new path.
