Your Retirement Future- 5 Ways to Overcome Indecision

Indecision. You’re not alone.

We’ve all struggled with decision-making. Sometimes, it’s tempting to forget about the decision that needs to be made and realign your time and talents to something easier.

Not exercising thoughtful decision-making NOW can equate to feelings of frustration, powerlessness, and fear LATER. 

As you weigh your future—which includes many physical, financial, spiritual, and emotional aspects—what’s holding you back from the next step of exploring what life could be like at a retirement community?

Overcoming Indecision

According to Dr. Robert Leahy, Director of the American Institute for Cognitive Therapy, one of the hallmarks of depression and anxiety is indecision.

Here, we offer five of his tips to overcome indecision.

1. Make decisions based on your goals and values, not on how you feel right now. Think of where you want to end up. When we base our decisions on how we feel right now, we often act impulsively, avoid, procrastinate, and lose sight of the endpoint. Start with the endpoint and work backward. 
2. Consider the “search costs” and “opportunity costs” of indecision. What else could you be doing in the time you spend researching a decision? What opportunities are you missing? Don’t forget that searching and waiting mean you have given up on pursuing certain options. Not deciding is a decision, by the way.
3. Examine the longer-term and shorter-term trade-offs. Do you want to feel better for the next five minutes or the next five years? A lot of times, we make decisions for the short term. That chocolate cake looks good— right now. If you are short-sighted, you won’t get to where you eventually want to be. Think about where you want to be five years from now. Reaching for the future means reaching beyond your present mood.
4. Practice successful imperfection. Aim for satisfaction (not perfection)— something that moves you forward that is practical and doable. Your work today doesn’t need to be perfect to progress on getting something done. Moving forward is a step in the right direction.
5. Don’t aim for certainty. We often hesitate and seem to wait forever because we don’t have certainty. You don’t need certainty. You need progress. Important decisions often involve doubts. Accept your doubts and act anyway.
   
   (Tips courtesy of The Huffington Post.)

Author – Jolene Weaver – Director of Communications – Tel Hai Retirement Community