Here’s What’s Really Behind Your Fear of Making the Wrong Decision
Do you ever find yourself panicking over the fear of making the wrong decision?
Does your heart rate rise a little bit every time you think about making a big commitment?
Does this subtle panic show up as the fear of choosing the wrong partner?
If so, you are NOT alone.
I see you. I’ve been there. And most importantly, I know that the fear of making the wrong choice doesn’t have to control your life.
I’m Chelsea Horton, relationship coach, body-mind integration expert, Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, and the founder of Healing Embodied. In this article, I’m diving into this super common fear to uncover the real reason so many of us are afraid to make a wrong choice and how you can begin to transform fear into courage and self-trust.
What’s Hiding Beneath Your Fear of Making Decisions?
If you have a desperate fear of making the “wrong” choice, it can become pretty difficult to go through life and enjoy yourself. Every decision, especially ones that feel important, can feel like life or death. Instead of being able to weigh your options from a place of clarity, confidently feeling into the decision that’s aligned with your needs and desires, your body goes into survival mode, causing you to panic, shut down, or avoid the decision-making process completely.
But this doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. There’s a reason why some of us panic and spiral whenever it comes time to make a choice.
Getting Curious About Your Fears
As someone who used to struggle with intense anxiety and the fear of making the “wrong choice” (especially when it came to my choice in a partner), I’ve learned to approach my fear and overwhelm from a place of curiosity.
Whenever I’m feeling anxious or afraid, I practice self-inquiry. Instead of automatically believing my fears and telling myself stories about what they “mean,” I settle in and get curious. I start a conversation with my fear to understand what’s really going on.
Let’s try this with the fear of making the “wrong” choice:
What do you fear would happen if you made the “wrong” choice?
Maybe it’s the fear of failure or of making a mistake.
Ok, so what would it mean about you if you failed or made a mistake?
“It would mean I’m a failure. That there’s something wrong with me.”
And how would you feel if there was something wrong with you?
“I would feel embarrassed, ashamed, sad, unworthy.”
See what we uncovered there?
If this dialogue resonates with you, it could indicate that your fear of making the “wrong” choice is rooted in a wound related to your sense of self-worth. You might subconsciously believe that your choices are a direct reflection of your worth and who you are as a person. So you do everything in your power to make sure you never feel this way by obsessively seeking the “right” answers and “right” choices.
If the example above doesn’t quite hit the mark for you, try having your own internal conversation to get to know what’s going on beneath your fear of making decisions.
Where Did Your Fear of Making Decisions Come From?
Now that we know a little more about what’s hiding beneath our fear of making the “wrong” decision, we need to get curious about why and how we first learned to be so afraid.
What experiences have you had — perhaps as a child or young adult — that left you believing your worth depended on you getting things “right?” Did someone make you feel unloved or unloveable when you made a mistake or didn’t live up to their definition of what’s “right” and “good?”
So many of us were taught from a young age that we had to be “good.” We were taught that certain emotions, desires, and ways of expressing ourselves were “bad.” This might have been explicitly taught (“boys don’t cry” or “god sends sinners to hell”) or implicitly taught (“If I’m too silly, mom will get mad” or “If I show my true colors, I will get bullied at school”).
Through these unhelpful and often hurtful lessons, we begin to believe that certain parts of us are unworthy, unlovable, or unacceptable. Because we naturally crave acceptance, connection, and love from our friends and family, we internalize the belief that the parts of us that leave us vulnerable to being “othered” or rejected must be banished. We learn that our worthiness and acceptance into a family or community is earned by doing, saying, believing, and feeling all the “right” things.
Instead of being guided by an internal compass rooted in our authentic needs and desires, we learn to navigate the world by looking outside of ourselves for guidance, affirmation, instruction, and approval. We outsource our sense of trust, direction, and identity to others, leaving us feeling completely disconnected from our own sense of what’s right or wrong for us.
So now, as adults, some part of us believes deep down that if we get it “wrong,” something terrible might happen (like losing friends, family, or community), which could understandably leave us feeling terrified and unworthy.
How to Learn to Trust Your Own Decisions
To learn to confidently make decisions, we must reconnect with our internal sense of worthiness and self-trust. This process takes time and practice, and it’s not always easy, but learning to trust yourself and overcome the fear of making decisions is absolutely possible.
Feel Your Feelings
Start by letting yourself grieve the pain of being told that your worthiness exists outside yourself — that your worth has to be earned through “good” behavior. This was never true, and it’s important to let yourself feel the pain of having lived a life guided by other people’s approval instead of your own authenticity.
Since feeling into these deep, painful feelings can be challenging and, at times, overwhelming. It can be helpful to do this work with the help of a therapist or coach trained in somatics and embodiment. At Healing Embodied, we specialize in supporting people all over the world as they uncover and move through the roots of their fears for long-lasting, embodied transformation.
2. Be Kind to Yourself
If you notice any shame or self-blame come up as you feel into these deeper feelings, it’s important to forgive yourself for outsourcing your trust and confidence to others. As humans, we are hardwired to seek belonging and acceptance in community, and as children, we will literally do anything to survive through connection, even if it means coping in ways that ultimately aren’t good for us.
If you struggle with self-trust and self-worth, it’s not your fault, and it’s extremely important to not blame yourself.
3. Practice Believing You’re Worthy No Matter What
To truly transform our relationships to self-trust and learn to make empowered, self-guided decisions, we must learn to accept that there is no rulebook for life and love, no formula for “right” and “wrong” when it comes to our life paths. Therefore, even if you choose something that doesn’t turn out the way you hoped, you are still worthy. Your self-worth does not hinge on what career or partner or house or hobby you choose, no matter what.
4. Learn to Connect to Your Authentic Self and Desires
The final step in learning to re-establish trust in your own decisions is reconnecting to your authentic self and desires. In order to make empowered decisions that truly align with your needs, goals, and values in this life, you must first know yourself deeply. To do this, practice doing what you can to reconnect with the version of you that exists outside of social conditioning.
We must bring the parts of us that were cast into the shadows back out into the light and love them.
Once we learn to accept and embrace our full, authentic selves, facing decisions will no longer feel like life and death. Instead, you will be able to make decisions — even big, life-changing ones — from a place of confidence, self-alignment, and inner trust.
Healing Embodied Can Help You Cultivate Self-Trust
The process of establishing self-trust and learning to love yourself more fully can feel overwhelming and scary. For many people just starting out with this type of inner work, it can be difficult just to know where to start. If you’re feeling this way, we see you!
Our team at Healing Embodied helps people approach and move through this life-changing work every single day. Our somatic coaching methods are rooted in compassion, acceptance, and creativity, and we work with a wide array of clients from all over the world. If you’re ready to dive in with us, apply for a free clarity call with one of our team members to get a personalized recommendation for how we can best support you.
If you struggle with fear and anxiety in your relationship specifically, check out our one-of-a-kind self-paced course Safety Within for support moving from fear and self-doubt to confidence and self-trust. You can also browse through our other services on our offerings page to learn about our group programs, opportunities for 1:1 coaching, and more self-paced resources.
We can’t wait to support you!