Why Some Decisions Feel Like They Could Break You
And Why It’s Not Irrational
Not all hard decisions are created equal
What is it about some decisions that make them feel like they could actually be the end of your sanity?
It’s because not all decisions are created equal - some are high stakes, and others are not. Even seemingly equally difficult decisions aren’t equally high stakes. For me, buying a house without ever being there in person was a no brainer. Moving to Norway in my 20s and staying there for 6 years? Super easy. Marrying my partner after having only been together for 6 months - not a shadow of doubt.
But with other decisions? I'm a ping pong ball going full speed on repeat until the runway ends. In organizational change, many decisions feel high stakes - whether it’s changing systems, ways of working or the big hairy change of culture- and just like in our personal lives - these decisions can paralyze even the most competent leaders.
Because I’m a science geek, and endlessly fascinated about the neuroscience of change - I wanted to find out what makes certain decisions high stakes by examining what is happening within the black box of our skull. Unsurprisingly, turns out the brain has its own criteria, and those criteria are not always rational.
Avoiding The Brain's Threat Triggers: Irreversibility, Identity +
Irreversibility is at the top of the list of things that trigger the brains threat response as it relates to decision making (and specifically, decision making in situations of meaningful change). The moment the brain reads a decision as permanent, it’s threat response escalates. Turns out that we consistently overestimate how irreversible things are and underestimate our capacity to adapt. We know this isn’t rational, but we simply can’t control it.
Then there is identity.
Decisions that feel like they imply something about who you ARE carry disproportionate neurological weight compared to ones that don’t trigger the identity implication. This is why moving to another country somehow felt easy, but changing jobs might not. It’s also why in many change scenarios, when we make decisions on behalf of others that will impact the way others see themselves, how they work, even the tools they use - we’re treading in risky territory. Our brains know this implicitly - even as the decision maker - we might feel deeply uncomfortable because we know this decision will signals something about you to others, if not even to ourselves. If we’re the “good and fair” leader - what does this choice say about me if it goes wrong? If we’re the “change agent” leader - will I forever be pegged as a *&^% disturber?
The power that identity holds over us, as leaders in change and as people experiencing change in organizations or in our personal lives cannot be underestimated.
Social visibility adds another layer nobody wants to admit to
As if irreversibility and identity weren’t bad enough - decisions that other people will witness and evaluate activate social threat circuitry, and from an evolutionary standpoint, being judged and excluded from the group is dangerous. Our brains are advanced organs, but they haven’t caught up to be able to distinguish between social rejection and physical threat. The wiring that trips over itself when we are faced with decisions that might mean social ostracism actually isn’t just trying to be egotistical. It’s trying to protect you.
That social visibility of a decision can be your nervous system treating judgment as a survival risk. While knowing that doesn’t make it less uncomfortable to admit, there are things we can do. For instance, acknowledging that identity and social visibility are inextricably linked, and as change agents, change leaders, or even change participants - it’s wise to bolster our inner resourcing as much as we can, when we know we’re going to make a decision that might challenge these.
Anticipating Regret
As if the first three weren’t bad enough - in all high stakes decisions, the brain pre-experiences the loss of the unchosen path even before a committment to change anything has been made. It makes us feel like we are grieving options that have not been discarded yet, and carrying that weight can feel paralyzing. We sometimes think that indecision is a personality flaw (more on research on ambivalence coming later) but this anticipated regret is the brain running a loss simulation on every available option simultaneously - and loss aversion is one of the best known human biases for a reason. This is why the emotional weight of some decisions is so great.
When these stack (and high stakes decisions make sure they stack) -- irreversibility, identity, social visibility and anticipated regret compound until a decision begins to feel impossible.
Are we a lost bunch?
If you’ve read this far, you might be inclined to think we’re just a sad lost bunch doomed to have decision making stall and important change fail. Indeed, our biology isn’t necessarily doing us any favors in this realm, but this is not the conclusion I’m offering from this blog post. In other words - not so quick! I’m not one to supply excuses for avoidance.
Knowledge is power - and armed with this knowledge - we actually can reduce how high-stakes something feels without changing how high-stakes it really is. Identifying where you can introduce even a small degree of reversibility, separating the identity question from the practical one, and shrinking the audience you are deciding in front of can reduce the social threat enough that your prefrontal cortex can actually do its job.
Additionally, there are many lessons we can learn from Annie Duke (former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant) around decision making in uncertainty. To still be able to successfully navigate uncertain decisions without succumbing to paralysis, we have to (among other things) acknowledge that everything in life is a bet — even decisions we feel very confident in. Building in some mental systems that help buffer against the power of anticipated regret, such as using pre-mortems to prepare for the worst in all scenarios, and using the idea of backcasting (time travel to successful outcomes and investigating what went right) - we increase our comfort in managing the variables we can control, and planning the best we can to mitigate for those we cannot.
When we have multiple systems are competing for the same neural resources, threat has a tendency to win, but it doesn’t have to. Our brains live in black boxes and will (hopefully) never see the light of day. We should use the signals it sends to inform you - but not to paralyze you. Don’t let it get you stuck. It’s not in charge.
For anyone curious about the research behind this blog post, check out:
The "psychological immune system" and why we overestimate how permanent things will feel — Dan Gilbert's work on affective forecasting (his TED talk "The surprising science of happiness" is a good entry point)
Why social judgment feels like a survival threat — Naomi Eisenberger's research on social pain and rejection
The anticipated regret piece — Marcel Zeelenberg's work on regret in decision-making
How stress and threat circuitry compete with the prefrontal cortex for resources — Amy Arnsten's research on stress and PFC function