I was coaching a client who was looking
for a new job in marketing and communications or business development. She worked
really hard and followed a thoughtful and effective job-search strategy, which
resulted in 3 job offers from her top 5 list of prospective employers. She
should be over the moon, jumping for joy and on cloud nine,
right? Wrong! She seems paralyzed by the number of options and feels stuck at a
career crossroads with three great but very different options. Friends and
family keep telling her that “it’s a great problem to have” and seem to find it
hard to believe that this can be a hard place to be in. She is struggling to
make a decision and is torn between three career paths to consider. She truly
can’t decide what to do and is terrified of making “the wrong” decision.
Before getting to the “how to” approach
to the very fortunate position of multiple offers, I’d like to talk about the core
idea that when we have an abundance of choices it can actually make
decision-making more difficult and very stressful. Too many choices can be
overwhelming. In fact, there’s a name for it – choice overload. Psychologist
Barry Schwartz offers great insights about how the freedom of choice hasn’t
made us freer but rather more anxious and less satisfied. An overload of
options, choices, and possibilities, especially when dealing with decisions
that have significant implication such as which career to pursue, may cause
analysis paralysis in decision making and be emotionally exhausting.
In his book “The Paradox of Choice: WhyMore Is Less” Schwartz explores decision-making in the context of consumerism and
how having more choices actually makes shopping harder. But he also discusses a
much wider range of difficult life decisions about family, leisure time, and
career choices. Today, more than ever before, it is much harder to make these
decisions. The more choices we have our confidence about our choices decreases,
and our anticipation that we’ll be disappointed and regret our choice
increases. With more options, we develop higher expectations and thus become
less likely to be satisfied with what we choose and the things we have.
If you don’t have the time for a
300-page book, Schwartz’s 10-minute TED Talk will give you the general gist of
his book.
It is unfortunate that with the freedom of choice come the
tyranny of “what if.” Often when we accomplish a goal: snag a new job, get a
promotion, lose those last 10 pounds, the glow of achievement is short-lived. We
then start experiencing that nagging feeling that we could have done better: asked
for more money, could probably lose 5 more pounds, etc. Chasing better things
to come is a never ending vicious cycle: the perfect body and the elusive
dream- job, home, soul mate. No matter what we achieve, we tend to beat
ourselves up over perceived mistakes and missed opportunities. We desperately
try to grasp for more, live up to an ideal, to chase happiness.
BUT
“Happiness is a butterfly, which when
pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down
quietly, may alight upon you.” ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne
Isn’t it truly what we want? It’s not about
the dream and the outcomes, it’s about the happiness and satisfaction we
imagine we’ll find when we “get there.” But no one and nothing is perfect, and
the grass is NEVER greener! Let’s stop chasing the “better” future and focus on
what is right in front of us.
This is the secret to decision-making: being
honest and clear about what we need to be happy. When logical reasoning and the
careful consideration of the pros and cons don’t yield any clarity, we need to
find the courage to listen to our inner voice, our intuition, our “gut
feeling.” Since we can’t predict the future, we need to learn to get
comfortable with imperfect choices and uncertain outcomes and trust that no
matter what the future holds, we will be strong enough to find our way and be
okay.
Give yourself a deadline and permission to make the best
decision you can and start committing to your imperfect choice. The outcome is
not a result of the decision you make but rather what you make of it and the
actions you take as you move forward. You can always course correct later on. Every day is an opportunity for a new
beginning. Be courageous to change what you can and be patient to keep positive
as things unfold.
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