Emily Chan
Every day, you are faced with new decisions. Sometimes, it can be as simple as picking out what shoes to wear to work.
Other times, a decision can hold a lot more weight, like when figuring out which house you want to move into. Should you purchase the one that’s closer to work or the one with plenty of backyard space?
The number of choices you have to make is exhausting. You just don’t know how they might impact your life. And if indecisiveness often gets the best of you, you know how tough it is to make a decision.
Some people dread making decisions so much that they suffer from decidophobia, the paralyzing fear of making the wrong decision.
There’s a difference between having some anxiety about big decisions and being so ridden with intense panic about smaller everyday decisions that you avoid the process altogether.
Those who have decidophobia may experience panic attacks just thinking about having to make a decision. Panic attacks can cause rapid heartbeat, nausea, sweating, tremors, and difficulty breathing.
Aside from anxiety and panic attacks, here are some of the other symptoms of decidophobia. For one, there’s procrastination. To avoid making the wrong decision, people with decidophobia may try to put off making decisions for as long as possible.
Secondly, they may tend to inflate the consequences of small decisions, which creates a lot of self-imposed pressure to make the right choice.
Another common trait of decidophobia is undervaluing instincts. If you have decidophobia, you may focus on asking for other people’s opinions instead of listening to your own intuition. This can strain your relationships with loved ones because you’re trying to force them to make big decisions for you.
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