Making Career Decisions: How to Avoid Analysis Paralysis
Recently, two of my favorite people in the world needed to make some major career decisions:
My husband is going through a layoff and is in the early stages of deciding what his work life looks like next. He’s both relieved and stressed, and looking forward to some time off to explore his options. (Yes, he’ll get the special career counseling discount for family & friends when he’s ready to figure out what’s next and revise that resume).
My daughter has been facing that major life question: What do I do after I graduate from high school? She knew that a 4-year college was a good fit and that she wanted a medium-sized school that was not in Minnesota. After some whirlwind college visit trips to the East and West coasts, she had narrowed the list to three schools but needed to make that final decision. (For the curious, she chose the University of Delaware – go Blue Hens).
Watching them go through the emotional ups and downs of the process has made me reflect on decision making. How do we make those big decisions?
How exactly do we pull the trigger on major decisions such as what school to attend, what to study, what job to take, when to take a new role, switch careers, or move away from the paid workforce?
A huge piece of my job is helping people make decisions. People typically seek career counseling because they are stuck and unsure how to figure out what to do next.
Getting stuck in the muddy decision-making process can show up in different ways:
Flooding: Feeling overwhelmed to the point that you get frozen and can barely tolerate thinking about the decision
Analysis Paralysis: Caught in the loop of continually gathering information but unable to use that information to decide
Dependency: Doing what other people say you should do without thinking through the decision yourself
Procrastination: Momentarily avoiding the decision by putting it off until later
Impulsivity: Making a quick decision without fully thinking it through, so you can avoid the discomfort of decision making
Most decisions about our work lives have high stakes, which means that a good amount of anxiety comes along for the ride when making a career decision. Getting stuck can be a sign that we need to find a more efficient way to manage the anxiety about the decision.
So how do we humans manage to make those big decisions about our work lives?
Let’s start with what the research literature tells us about making work decisions (I may be an ex-professor, but I still love a good theory).
Psychological Perspectives on Career Decision Making
Psychologists have thought about decision making from a few different angles, which I’ll call the Steps, Styles, and Strategies perspectives. All three perspectives have some helpful takeaways. Let’s begin with the Steps models:
What are the Steps to Making a Decision?
Psychologists love to develop models that describe human behavior and outline the typical ways to behave. The steps models argue that we make the best decisions when we go about them in an orderly, logical, and linear fashion.
Step 1 – Prescreening
First, recognize that you have a decision to make. Spell out what the decision is and identify what is most important to you about this decision. Eliminate the options that do not fit with your values and needs.
For example, in choosing which college to attend, my daughter identified (with lots of help from her parents) what was most important to her: on the East or West coast, public school, mid-size, options for research experiences, walkable city, and ideally no one else from her high school attending. She used this to eliminate a few schools, leaving 3 on the final list.
Step 2 – In-Depth Exploration
Next, explore the options or possible paths and gather as much information as you can. Uncover information through research, talking to people, and getting as much data as you can about the pros and cons of each option and how well each fits your values and needs.
In my daughter’s college choice example, the exploration entailed visiting the schools on their “Decision Days.” Touring campus and attending different programs, we gathered information to compare the schools on a bunch of aspects: cost, housing, dining, research, career support for her major, how much she felt she could see herself on the campus, how easy it was to get from the airport to campus, and which gave us free food (okay, that was just me).
Step 3 – Choice
After sifting through the options, make the choice that aligns best with your values. Commit to the decision.
Although my kid chose the school that gave us free lunch, she said the decision came down to feeling like she could see herself on the campus, the size of the campus, and the walkable town. We put down the deposit and there’s now a “Delaware Bound” sign in our front yard.
If you read through this and are still awake, you probably did not learn anything new. These decision-making steps are nice and boring, with no surprises. You already knew that it is good to explore your options, see how well they align with your values, and pick the one that fits best.
Here’s the problem…we can know these steps, but still not be able to follow them. We humans are messy and chaotic. The higher the stakes, the more anxiety and uncertainty there is, and the harder it might be to follow these lovely decision-making steps.
To truly go through an Exploration process you have to spend some time floating in the sea of uncertainty. You have to sit in a place of not yet knowing the answer, and for many of us, tolerating that uncertainty is painful. We can easily get stuck when we try too hard to avoid experiencing the fears, worries, unknowns, and uncertainties that come with decision making.
Who we are – our histories, our personality traits, our anxieties, our relationships, our responsibilities – all of these play a role in how we approach major decisions.
Just because we know what to do, doesn’t mean that we can always do it.
What’s your Decision-Making Style?
This brings us to the psychological perspective on decision making that considers how our individual personality traits and styles influence the way we make decisions. Who we are affects how we go through the decision process.
Think of a time when you went out to eat with a large group of people. When it was time to order, how did each person make their food choices?
One perused the menu online ahead of time and already knew their order.
Another scanned the menu and quickly picked the first option that sounded good.
Another asked everyone at the table what they were going to order.
And then there’s the friend who made the whole table wait because they couldn’t decide between salmon and tacos.
Ordering food is much lower stakes than a career decision, but it illustrates the ways that who you are - your personality traits – all influence the way that you make decisions.
The research literature described three general styles or ways of decision making:
Systematic
These are the logical, thoughtful decision makers who follow the Steps models: Prescreening, Exploration, and Choice. They identify what is most important to them, gather information, identify the pros and cons of each option, narrow down the options, and chose the option that fits best. They make decisions based on facts and analysis and spend less time considering their feelings or the opinions of others.
Intuitive
Intuitive decision makers go inward and tune into what they really want or need. They tend to make decisions more quickly, consider their previous life experiences, and spend less time seeking out information than the other styles. They say things like “I listened to my gut” and “I just felt it was right.”
Relational
Relational deciders seek out community and do not make the decision in isolation. They ask others for information, support, advice, guidance, and reassurance. They may defer to the opinions of others and may sometimes wish that others would make the decision for them.
Research initially supported the idea that decisions made using a Systematic Style resulted in better outcomes, but it also wasn’t quite so simple, of course. The Systematic style assumed that you don’t talk to anyone else or listen to internal cues, both of which can be useful. And career researchers understood that we still had a problem with the styles…just because one style is “best” doesn’t mean that everyone uses that style. Just because we might know the way to act, doesn’t mean we can.
So, they kept working to figure out why decision making is difficult. They uncovered a few personality traits that make the process more challenging.
What personality traits make decision making more difficult?
Indecisiveness (related to Anxiety)
People high in indecisiveness have trouble making any decision – big or small. They worry about what could happen, fear making the “wrong” choice, and ruminate over possible negative outcomes. They don’t feel confident about past decisions they made which can make it even harder to feel confident about making decisions about the future. They may procrastinate or manage the anxiety by avoiding the decision for as long as possible.
Pessimism
People high on pessimism tend to have a “glass half empty” mentality and see the negative side of things. When it comes to making decisions, they don’t think they have much control and assume the worst will happen, making it harder to follow through on action steps. They have a hard time seeing the possible options and in persevering through difficult times.
Lack of Motivation
If there’s a decision that needs to be made but someone is not motivated and lacks the internal drive to take action, it can be just about impossible to get them to gather information, weigh options, and make a choice. External motivators sometimes work (e.g., some negative or positive consequence), but this is probably the most challenging factor because it is hard to get someone to do something they don’t want to do.
Low Self-Concept (related to Depressive thoughts)
People struggling with poor self-concept tend to lack confidence, have low self-esteem, and have a hard time believing in themselves. They may not have a strong sense of self and do not have a clear idea of their interests, skills, and values, making it more difficult for them to trust themselves to make major decisions about their working life.
From the Styles approach, we can diagnose where people may be getting stuck in making decisions, but it doesn’t show us how to overcome the difficulties and make the most advantageous decisions.
What are the Best Decision-Making Strategies?
Current approaches combine the best of both worlds: they combine the “best steps” with the “most helpful styles” to lay out the decision-making strategies to use to make the most advantageous decisions.
Basically, they describe the best practice strategies to use in decision making:
Gather a lot of information
The more comprehensive your research, the more data you gather, and the more you talk to people who are knowledgeable about the decision, the better.
Analyze the details
As you gather information, pay attention to the details. Analyze the data and make pros and cons lists to compare the different options. You can still listen to your gut but give your brain the different pieces of information to consider.
Take control over the decision
Having a higher internal locus of control is more advantageous, that is, believing that your actions will influence your outcomes. This can be tricky when it comes to some career decisions because the reality is that some of the outcomes are out of our control (e.g., you are a great fit for a job, but they already had an internal candidate). Taking control doesn’t mean living in a fantasy land, it means taking control of the parts that you can control and pushing away those pessimistic thoughts that stop you from taking action.
Put in the time and effort
The undeniable truth about most career decisions is that they require a lot of effort, time, energy, and a little blood, sweat, and tears. There is no substitute for spending that time and energy on exploring, gathering information, and talking to people to help you make a thoughtful decision.
Avoid procrastinating
It’s easy to say “Just do it. Don’t procrastinate.” But making major decisions can stir up feelings of overwhelm, uncertainty, worry, and confusion. Procrastination is one way we manage those anxious feelings; we put off doing the work so that we can avoid those uncomfortable feelings. Making decisions more quickly with less procrastination means acting even though we still feel anxious and reminding ourselves that we can handle the discomfort of the emotions.
Use others for support, not to make the decision
Talking to other people can provide you with inside information, support, and guidance, but in the end, make sure that the decision in yours. Research findings suggest that people who can take ownership of their decisions feel better about them.
Don’t make the decision only to please other people
I hear stories every day of people who picked a major or entered an industry solely because someone else chose that for them. Now, if you are on board with the decision that someone else wants for you, there is no problem. If you would make a different decision if the other person was not involved, do the soul-searching and have the difficult conversations to prevent the dissatisfaction and resentment that come creeping in later. (I’m a practical psychologist: sometimes you make a decision to please someone else because you don’t have a full range of choices. The psychological work, then, is to own the decision and be clear about why you made it so that you don’t become resentful and frustrated.)
The strategy models provide some clearer guidance for how to go about making decisions. You may have noticed that following through on these best practices often means managing the anxious thoughts and feelings (the “what ifs”) and the depressive thoughts and feelings (the “I’m not good enoughs”) that might creep in when making high stakes decisions.
Final Thoughts on Career Decision Making
This article focused on the how, but not the what, of career decision making. I’ll be the first to admit that the research is dry and boring, but it does give us ideas for how to make career decisions that increase our chances to create satisfying working lives.
As much as I love a good theory, however, it can never consider all the unique aspects of our individual decision-making situations. I’m not a big fan of overly simplistic answers to complex human issues. As a psychologist who helps people navigate complex career and work decisions, it is always clear to me that we can know the “best” ways to behave but still get stuck and benefit from assistance through the process.