Talk it Through: The Other Way to Decide

People often have difficulty making major decisions. To help, they often consult other people to help them make those decisions. The person who sets out to help them often encourages them to make lists, compare strengths and weaknesses, positives and negatives; supposedly, through this process we arrive at the right answer. Trouble is, this method isn't the right method for every problem.

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Using your thinking

There are certainly some sorts of decisions where processes like this can be really helpful. If you're interested in choosing a new laptop or a new printer, then starting with a list of what your needs are, then comparing it to the different models available and their features is probably going to be helpful for you. You'll work out which of the different manufacturers and models gives you just what you want, and if you match your needs to these features well you're likely to be quite happy with the decision you make. In this situation, you put your emotions aside and you make a rational choice.

Using it for the wrong situations

However, because this method works so well and is so logical, we are tempted to try and apply it to other situations to which it isn't well-suited at all. For instance, if we try and use this model to settle on a life partner, we could really, really muck things up. People are not reducible to a list of strengths and weaknesses, positives and negatives; other people are a lot more complicated than that – and for that matter, so are we. We are sometimes not even sure who we are ourselves or where we will be in five or ten years; not knowing this, how can we be expected to know what our needs are?

And if we don't know what our needs are, how can we know what sort of other person will be right for us? And how will the other person tell us if they are that sort of person, when they don't even know themselves? In other words, in this world of feelings and uncertainties, this method of making decisions doesn't really work. If we have too much blind faith in it, can really let us down.

Talk it through

A better method for a complicated emotional decision like this is, surprisingly, the method that we often actually use. This method is where we talk through the situation at length with another person. We discuss the ins and outs of it in great detail, sometimes adopting one position, then trying on another position just feeling our way through the situation. What would it be like if we chose this option? What would it be like if we chose that option? How would we feel?

Like we had done the right thing, taken up a great opportunity; or would we feel like we were stuck with something we didn't really want? If we use this process and stick at it long enough then we slowly become clear on which option is right for us. It isn't so much a process of rational evaluation, but rather that the thing you need to do emerges as the only possible thing you can do.

Why don't we do it?

So if this process is so good, why do we not rely on it? I think it's because we choose the wrong people to talk to about it, or because we don't talk about it in enough depth or we don't stick with the process long enough. An example of the wrong sort of person to talk it over with would be someone who had a vested interest, or who kept pushing us towards the outcome they thought was right.

Psychotherapy is one way to help with questions like this. By its nature, it's a process of personal investigation where we become clearer about the sort of person that we are and the sorts of things we need to have in our life. Further, a psychotherapist isn't going to be pushing you towards one choice or another, nor are they going to get bored by the process; rather, they will stick with you through the process until you are confident you know what to do.

– Tim Hill

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