How to Make a Hard Decision: A Therapist’s Guide
Making a hard decision can leave you feeling torn, stuck, or anxious, especially when both choices come with risks or rewards. Whether it’s choosing between two jobs, deciding to end or stay in a relationship, or making a life-changing move, the process can be overwhelming.
This blog offers strategies for navigating difficult decisions, drawn from therapeutic insights. If you’re seeking support in making life transitions, therapy in Central Phoenix may help you build clarity and confidence.
Identify Your Core Values
The decisions that leave us feeling most at peace are those that align with our core values. When there’s a misalignment between what you’re choosing and what’s important to you, discomfort, dread, or confusion often follows. For example, feeling stressed at work may not just be about the job itself but a deeper conflict with your core values.
Examples of values to consider:
Connection
Stability
Adventure
Contribution
Creativity
Growth
A simple exercise is to identify your top five values. Once you’ve determined what matters most, evaluate how each option in your decision fits or misaligns with those values.
For clients seeking EMDR therapy in Phoenix, this step can also uncover deeper emotional patterns, such as whether unresolved past experiences are influencing current decision-making.
Explore All Possible Options and Outcomes
When making decisions, we tend to narrow our focus to only two options: stay or leave, yes or no, quit or keep going. But most decisions are not binary. Expanding your options can open up new possibilities and reduce the pressure of feeling stuck.
Consider this example for a job decision:
Stay in my current job
Leave my current job
Negotiate different hours
Explore a new role within the same company
Work part-time while pursuing side projects
Next, list potential outcomes for each option and assess the likelihood of those outcomes. For instance:
Stay in current job:
Outcome 1: Continue feeling unfulfilled and burned out (Likelihood: 70%)
Outcome 2: Make peace with it as a temporary situation (Likelihood: 60%)
Leave current job:
Outcome 1: Find a job that is just as challenging (Likelihood: 40%)
Outcome 2: Discover a job you love (Likelihood: 50%)
This process helps reduce emotional overwhelm and clarifies which options align with both your values and desired outcomes.
Trust the Process and Reflect
Making decisions often requires an act of self-trust, as there’s no way to guarantee the “perfect” choice. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is choose what feels right in the moment and trust that any regret or doubt will lead to growth and learning.
For many, the fear of regret is the biggest obstacle to decision-making. But regret isn’t inherently negative—it’s a form of feedback that helps refine our understanding of what matters most. Allow yourself to experience regret as part of the learning process.
For individuals facing major life changes, such as career shifts or relationship decisions, working with a complex PTSD therapist in Phoenix can help explore the emotions underlying hesitation and regret.
Conclusion
Hard decisions are rarely easy, but by identifying your core values, exploring multiple options, and trusting the process, you can make choices with greater clarity and confidence.
If you’re struggling with a life transition or need support navigating a difficult decision, trauma therapy in Central Phoenix or therapy for life transitions in Arizona can help.
Reach out for a free 15-minute consultation to see how therapy can support you in finding clarity and making decisions that align with your values and goals.
