Every day, we make thousands of decisions that determine how the day will go. From the moment we wake up, we are faced with options that require us to make a decision.
While some decisions are easy to make, there are times when we feel uncertain and become unable to make the right decision. There can be many reasons why indecisiveness happens, but no matter what reason causes it, letting it persist can be costly whenever it happens.
If you become indecisive at work and you don’t do anything to correct it, here are 8 ways it can destroy your career:
1. You Are Unable To Use Your Expertise
The first-way indecision destroys your career is by disabling you from using expertise, and you tend to keep asking for help. While it is okay to ask for help if you can decide on something once in a while, constantly doing it slowly affects your confidence in your abilities, and in turn, you will struggle to decide on your own. When people see you struggling even for the most basic decision, they will lose confidence in your abilities to lead and complete tasks.
2. You Can’t Think Out Of The Box
No matter your position, you must be creative to make certain decisions. However, when indecision strikes, people will see that you can’t think out of the box and make the right decisions when a challenging situation arises.
3. You Overthink Things A Lot
Indecision also causes you to overthink everything and how it will affect your decisions. Since you take time to consider various factors that can affect your decisions, your decisions will end up too late, which can be detrimental to your projects. Overthinking your decisions and being indecisive over them will also cause you to become anxious and fearful about making more decisions.
4. You Over-Fixate On Being Perfect
Perfectionism is also a negative impact brought by indecisiveness on one’s career. Perfectionism causes us to be fixated on making sure that our decisions are correct, no matter how much time it takes to reach this perfect decision. However, the longer you delay making a decision, the more you are delaying the project for the rest of the team, even if the decision you’ll make is for the benefit of the project.
5. You Can’t Learn From Your Mistakes
Making mistakes is a part of learning, especially when it comes to making decisions. However, as mentioned above, indecision causes a person to overthink and become a perfectionist. When this happens, we become unable to consider the positives of making poor decisions and learn how to avoid them.
6. You Lose Opportunities To Get Promoted Or Lead Projects
Employers want workers who can decide and act immediately without being constantly monitored or guided. While it is okay to become indecisive at times, if it happens all the time, it will cause people to question your capacity to follow through on your word. Your boss will then opt for someone who can meet their targets and is driven to succeed. Your boss may also lose their trust in you.
7. Your Projects Will Always Meet A Deadlock
No one wants to be blamed for a delayed project or making a poor decision. But, if you are given a task or asked to make a crucial decision for the team, indecision can make you the weakest link in the team. Since indecision will make you double-guess yourself about the best decision, you may make rash decisions that may cost your team progress.
If you constantly make the wrong decision because of your indecision, the team may remove you from the project. You may find it harder to get into projects in the future because people will remember your performance in previous projects.
8. Your Career Growth Is Stunted
Being indecisive can affect your overall career growth. Suppose you cannot make decisions on time, overthink your choices, and overcome your indecisiveness. In that case, you may appear unreliable and should be kept from taking on projects or being considered for promotions.
We can never tell when indecisiveness hits us, and when it does, it can be overwhelming. But if you use the experience to learn, you will be able to understand how to bypass issues that affect your decision-making and not become indecisive once you face a similar problem.
Looking at your career path, thinking what to do next? Here are some suggestions:
How Successful Women Sustain Career Momentum
What is Stopping You from Reinventing Your Career
Inspiring Stories From Folks who made A Career Change
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