The Decision of Indecision: Why Waiting Too Long Can Be the Wrong Choice

On a surgical rotation, one of my old mentors at the time (thanks Rob) told me that there are three types of decisions you can make when you have a sick surgical patient in front of you. You can make the decision to operate and take the patient to the operating theatre. You can make the decision not to operate and not take the patient to theatre. Or you can make the third decision. The third type of decision you have is what he referred to as the decision of indecision, which he always went on to tell me in his experience was almost always the wrong decision.

Not all of us are surgeons. Seldom do we make the decision to take patients to theatre and cut people open. Not all of us want to shoulder the responsibility to make life and death decisions like this on a daily basis. Yet there are always going to be times in your life when you have to make decisions, and when you do, perhaps it might be worth thinking a little more about this third option and how it can get in your way.

The Two Active Decisions

Let’s go back to this old mentor of mine. He also used to reason that if you do take your patient to theatre, you are making a positive decision based on your knowledge, your experience, and what you see in front of you at the time. And there are also times when you don’t take them to theatre, and you are also doing this because you are making a positive decision based on your knowledge, your experience, and because based on the evidence you have, an operation doesn’t seem necessary at that time.

Both of those are active decisions. Both involve assessment, judgment, commitment. Both can be right or wrong depending on the circumstances, but both are defensible because they’re based on actual reasoning applied to actual evidence. You’ve weighed the options, considered the consequences, and made a choice. That choice might turn out badly, but at least you made it for reasons you can articulate.

He also reasoned that sometimes when more information becomes available or the clinical situation changes, you may change your mind. Or someone with more skill and experience may be able to make a better decision than you at that time, so always ask for advice because that is how you will learn how to make better decisions. He also used to reason that even if you had made the wrong decision, sometimes the wrong decision is only apparent after you have made a decision in the first place. Then at this point you can react and reassess.

This is crucial. Making a decision, even a wrong one, generates information. You learn what works and what doesn’t. You learn what the actual consequences are, not just what you imagined they might be. You create the opportunity to correct course. An active decision, right or wrong, moves you forward and gives you data to work with.

The Third Decision That Isn’t Really a Decision

The trouble is, he used to say, the decision of indecision is almost always the wrong decision, because with indecision, you can get into the habit of waiting too long. It’s an excuse. It’s not rationalised. Sometimes you can delay too long and the decisions are made for you by chance, and not by skill, experience or knowledge.

It’s dangerous, because indecision masquerades as careful consideration. It looks like you’re being responsible, being thorough, making sure you have all the information before committing. But what you’re actually doing is avoiding the discomfort of making a choice by pretending you’re still in the information-gathering phase when really you’re just too scared to commit to a direction.

Indecision is what happens when you have enough information to make a decision but you keep waiting for more. When you’ve weighed the options repeatedly but keep re-weighing them hoping the answer will become obvious. When you know what you probably should do but you’re hoping if you wait long enough, circumstances will change and you won’t have to do it. When you’re clear on the choice but terrified of being wrong, so you stay frozen between options hoping someone or something will make the choice for you.

Let me be very clear. The decision of indecision is not based on rational argument. It’s not based on the facts. Wait too long and indecision can reduce your options. You may have come across something called the Ostrich Effect: the tendency to avoid information that might be negative or uncomfortable, like an ostrich supposedly burying its head in the sand. Well, the decision of indecision is just that. Your decision is not going to go away if you hide your head in the sand, but your options will.

How Indecision Destroys Your Options

Here’s what happens in practice. You face a decision. You have options A and B. You have enough information to choose between them, but you’re not sure which is better. So you wait, hoping for clarity. While you wait, circumstances change. Option A becomes less available. Option B becomes less attractive. A new option C emerges, but it’s not as good as A or B were originally. You still don’t decide. You wait more. Option A disappears completely. Option B becomes impossible. You’re left with C, which you don’t really want, or D, which is even worse.

That’s how indecision destroys your options. Not in one dramatic moment, but gradually, as opportunities decay while you’re paralysed by the fear of choosing wrong. You think you’re keeping your options open by not deciding. You’re actually watching your options close, one by one, until you’re left with whatever’s left when you finally have no choice but to choose.

I know someone, let’s call him Daniel, who wanted to change careers. He identified a field he was interested in, found several training programmes, researched the requirements. He had all the information he needed. But he couldn’t decide whether to commit. “What if I choose wrong? What if I waste money on training that doesn’t lead anywhere? What if I’m not good at it?” So he waited. Researched more. Considered alternatives. Waited more.

Two years later, Daniel was still in the job he hated. The training programmes he’d researched had changed their requirements. Some had closed their applications. Others had increased their fees significantly. The career he’d been interested in had evolved in ways that made his existing skills less relevant. His indecision hadn’t kept his options open. It had closed them, gradually, while he watched.

Meanwhile, his colleague who faced the same decision at the same time had just committed. Picked a programme, enrolled, finished the training. Was she sure it was the right choice? No. Did it work out perfectly? No. Did she have to adjust her plan along the way? Yes. But two years later she was actually in a different career, learning, growing, building something new. Daniel was still stuck, still researching, still waiting for certainty that would never come.

Why Indecision Feels Safer Than Decision

Here’s the psychology behind it. Making a decision means committing to a path and accepting that you might be wrong. Indecision means you never have to face being wrong because you never commit to anything. If you never choose, you never fail. That feels safer.

But it’s not safer. It’s just a slower form of failure. Because while you’re avoiding the risk of making a wrong decision, you’re guaranteeing the cost of making no decision. Time passes. Opportunities close. Your situation deteriorates. Other people make progress while you stay stuck. And all the while you’re telling yourself you’re being careful, being smart, making sure you get it right.

Indecision is also appealing because it feels like you’re doing something. You’re thinking about the problem. You’re weighing options. You’re gathering information. You’re considering angles. This creates the illusion of progress without the risk of action. You feel productive because you’re mentally engaged with the problem, but you’re not actually moving toward solving it.

The truth is, most decisions don’t require more information. They require courage. You already know what you need to know. You just don’t know what will happen if you choose, and that uncertainty is terrifying. So you keep researching, keep considering, keep waiting, telling yourself you just need a bit more information when what you actually need is the courage to commit to a direction and accept that you might need to adjust course later.

When Right or Wrong Only Becomes Clear After Deciding

Right or wrong, sometimes the right answer is only apparent after a decision has been made.

This is perhaps the most important insight my mentor shared. You cannot know if a decision is right or wrong until you’ve made it and seen the consequences. Waiting for certainty before deciding is waiting for something that doesn’t exist. Certainty comes after the decision, not before it. You make the decision, you see what happens, you learn whether it was right, and then you adjust based on that information.

This means the real question isn’t “which decision is right?” The real question is “which decision will give me useful information fastest?” Because both active decisions will teach you something. Operating teaches you whether surgery was necessary. Not operating teaches you whether conservative management works. Either way, you learn. You get data. You can react and reassess.

Indecision teaches you nothing. It just makes you older while keeping you stuck in the same place with the same lack of information you had before. You don’t learn what works because you never try anything. You don’t discover the right path because you never commit to walking down any path. You just stand at the crossroads, paralysed, while everyone else makes progress in whichever direction they chose.

I’ve made wrong decisions. Plenty of them. Careers I thought would work out didn’t. Investments I thought were smart weren’t. Relationships I thought were right weren’t. But I learned from every single one. I gathered data, adjusted my judgment, made better decisions the next time. The wrong decisions were valuable because they taught me things I couldn’t have learned any other way.

The decisions I regret aren’t the wrong ones I made. They’re the decisions I avoided making, the opportunities I passed up because I was too scared to commit, the times I chose indecision and watched my options close while I did nothing. Those are the real failures. Not making the wrong choice, but being too afraid to choose at all.

Making Peace With Imperfect Decisions

Here’s what you need to accept. Most decisions don’t have a clearly right answer. You’re choosing between imperfect options with incomplete information under uncertainty. That’s just how decisions work in real life. If you’re waiting for the perfect option with complete information and guaranteed success, you’re going to wait forever because that doesn’t exist.

Instead, you need to get comfortable with making good enough decisions. Not perfect decisions. Good enough. Based on the information you have, what’s the most reasonable choice? Make that choice. See what happens. Adjust if necessary. That’s the process. Assess, decide, act, learn, adjust, repeat.

The decision of indecision prevents this entire process. You never assess properly because you’re always looking for more information. You never decide because you’re afraid of being wrong. You never act because you haven’t decided. You never learn because you haven’t acted. You never adjust because there’s nothing to adjust. You just stay stuck, recycling the same uncertainties, rehearsing the same fears, avoiding the same choice.

Your Decisions Right Now

Have a look at the decisions you need to make right now. The decisions you have made in the past. The decisions that you need to make in the future.

What are you avoiding deciding? Where are you pretending you’re gathering more information when you actually already know enough to choose? Where are you waiting for certainty that will never come? Where are you choosing indecision and watching your options decay while you delay?

You know the decisions I’m talking about. The career change you’ve been “thinking about” for three years. The relationship conversation you’ve been “waiting for the right time” to have. The business you’ve been “researching” instead of starting. The investment you’ve been “considering” while watching prices change. The move you’ve been “planning” while staying stuck where you are.

These aren’t cases where you need more information. These are cases where you need to decide. And the longer you wait, the fewer options you’ll have, the worse your position becomes, and the harder it gets to make any choice at all.

The Only Question That Matters

The decision of indecision is almost always the wrong decision.

That’s the lesson. That’s what my mentor taught me. That’s what I’m teaching you.

When you face a choice, you have two real options: decide one way or decide the other way. Both are defensible. Both are active. Both can be adjusted if they turn out wrong. Both generate information and create the possibility of progress.

Indecision is not an option. It’s an illusion of an option. It’s fear disguised as careful consideration. It’s paralysis disguised as deliberation. It’s the choice to avoid choosing, and it’s almost always worse than making an active choice and dealing with the consequences.

So stop waiting. Stop researching. Stop gathering more information. Stop hoping circumstances will change or the choice will become obvious or someone else will make it for you.

Make the decision. See what happens. Adjust if necessary.

Because the decision of indecision is almost always the wrong decision, and every day you spend in indecision is a day you could have spent learning from an actual choice.

Decide. Do. Commit.

Further reading

• Schwartz, B. (2004). The Paradox of Choice. Ecco.
• Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995-1006.
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
• Anderson, C. J. (2003). The psychology of doing nothing. Psychological Bulletin, 129(1), 139-167.
• Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2013). Decisive. Crown Business.
• Janis, I. L., & Mann, L. (1977). Decision Making. Free Press.
• Patt, A., & Zeckhauser, R. (2000). Action bias and environmental decisions. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 21(1), 45-72.
• Festinger, L. (1957). A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford University Press.
• Klein, G. (1998). Sources of Power. MIT Press.
• Grant, A. (2021). Think Again. Viking.