Alright let’s get real to start this off- decision fatigue can be more than emotionally draining, it can actually take a toll on our physical health. We’re going to talk about that all quick before we get into ways to beat it because it’s essential to know the why behind lifestyle changes so that we actually stick to them! We’re going to jump into an explanation of decision failure and why it’s so rough before talking about practical ways to get rid of it. Let’s go-
What is decision fatigue?
Decision fatigue is what we experience mentally when we fell bogged down and stressed out by making too many or too heavy of decisions. It’s the feeling of brain fog you can’t out-caffeine and leads to your mind feeling disorganized.
What are the signs I’m experiencing decision fatigue?
- Procrastination: Putting off decisions due to overwhelming choices. Specifically an increased feeling of procrastination compared to your “normal” levels!
- Impulsivity: Making hasty choices with little thought… because your brain doesn’t wanna make any more choices!
- Avoidance: Skipping decision-making altogether.
- Indecision: Struggling to pick an option when normally it would be easy.
- Low Energy: Feeling unusually tired when faced with decisions.
- Irritability: Experiencing frustration or annoyance during decision-making processes
So why is decision fatigue draining?
We all have a limited amount of mental energy- and making decisions uses up that energy. Especially making a lot of decisions or really important/ challenging ones. This leads to mental exhaustion which will also make you feel physically drained too unfortunately.
So let’s get into a conversation about how you can beat decision fatigue so you can find clarity and build up your mental strength. Let’s get into it-
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Realistic Ways To Beat Decision Fatigue
How to get past feeling decision fatigued:
1: Work through the emotional impact
First things first- we gotta work through the emotional impact of struggling from decision fatigue. Here’s how were gonna do it by asking yourself these questions
A: what decisions did I make in the past week?
B: how did making those decisions feel? Exhilarating? Draining? Stressful? Exciting? There’s no wrong answer you just really need to be honest with yourself.
C: how does people the “decider” make you feel?
D: WHY do you believe that making decisions is draining you? It’s too much pressure? Too many people to please? Again no wrong answer. You just need to be honest and upfront with yourself in order to get through decision fatigue.
2: Are you delegating enough?
Delegation is really hard for many of us. Including me. I hate handing over the reigns to anyone and like to be in control lol sue me! And I know I am not alone in that and chances are you relate to the idea of “if I want it don’t right, then I will do it myself” if you are reading this and experiencing decision fatigue. That goes hand in hand with delegation- when we refuse to hand over any decisions to others in our lives we are self inflicting our exhaustion.
Delegation is not only important in your career but also in your school/college situations, home life, friends, hobbies/ social clubs etc!
3: Build trust in your intuition
A lot of times what makes decision making so emotionally challenging is that we don’t trust our guts.
I’m not over here telling you to only act on impulse decisions! But I am telling you to lean on your years of living in this earth and knowing yourself to make the simple decisions easier.
Things like grocery shopping- don’t overthink and stress about things like choosing the best apple variety. You remember liking honey crisp? Go with your intuition, don’t overthink it and go with your first choice!
By making an effort to trust your intuition in smaller and less important situations will build your confidence to trust your intuition in more important things. Plus, learning to not make little things a big decision will help to protect some of your mental energy.
4: Embrace habits and routines
Routines take away micro decisions. Knowing what order you are going to do things, doing them out of instinct, and removing that daily schedule decision making is sooo helpful in overcoming decision fatigue. When you have those habits built up you are freeing up a lot of your mental energy too!
Need ideas for daily habits? Read this next- 82 Daily Habits To Track To Build Positive Habits!
5: Evaluate how you’re spending your mental energy
Alright let’s chat more about “mental energy”.
We only get a bit every day. And unfortunately decision making is one of the things in our world that will drain that energy quicker than others. So if you need to make a lot of decisions then you can’t be wasting your mental energy on other things.
AKA stop wasting your brain space on things like judging/worrying about others and prioritize that energy for the important things in life.
6: Use your social battery wisely
On a similar note- our social batteries are limited though how much they hold is really person by person! But if there are people that you feel really pressured and stressed about making decisions around then they may be people you should take a break from while recovering from decision fatigue.
7: Work on your prioritization skills
Prioritizing is SOOOO helpful for getting over dread of decision making. When you know instinctively how to figure out your priorities and implement those priorities you are just really decreasing your decision making and helping your brain take little breaks.
I talk a lot on here about prioritizing so if you are feeling like prioritizing can help your decision fatigue then read these next!!!
- Learn To Prioritize: Delegation
- How To Prioritize When Everything Feels Important
- Learn to Prioritize: Art of Breaks
- How To Create A Productive Daily Schedule With Steps!
8: Build your confidence
Confidence building can help to make those draining decisions feel at least a little bit easier! Of course working on your confidence is a daunting journey but it has so many benefits. Try doing this confidence challenge this year: The ultimate 25 day self confidence challenge!
9: Simplify your lifestyle
Lastly, a simpler lifestyle makes you make less decisions.
A capsule wardrobe? Minimizes decision making surrounding outfits.
Less things to organize and decide about will help relieve some of those mundane decisions and help relieve the feeling of always having to decide everything.
And that is all my friends! I really hope that this helped you understand what decision fatigue is, why you’re suffering from it (assuming you are if you read to this point 🙂 ) and how you can get past it. I know it won’t be a super easy journey but guys trust me- it’ll be worth it when you start to feel the genuine mental health benefits from not being weighed down by decision making!
Korra-Shay
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