The Problem With Being Indecisive

Indecisiveness can hardly be considered a positive character trait, because if you are unable to make a decision and stick with it, you generally find yourself drifting along in a sea of uncertainty. You can frame indecisiveness in a positive light by saying that it is a good thing to take your time to weigh up the pros and cons before making a decision. However, that is exactly the point, because you do have to reach a decision, eventually, and choose which option is preferable. It could be something as trivial and, in the grand scheme of things, unimportant as choosing what to wear to a party or it could be something as important as what to study at university and which career path to take.

This is when indecisiveness can become a problem, because you think you know what you want, then you do some reading or come across other information and suddenly you're no longer certain. Consequently, you can end up wasting your time, or it might be that you make a decision, only to quickly change your mind again, thus finding yourself stuck in a position you're unhappy with. You may decide you want to study a certain subject at a particular university only to find yourself swayed by the arguments of others who think that a different subject or university would suit you better. Really, you should know yourself better than anyone else, but even when you take a good hard look at the person you are, sometimes it's hard to know what you actually want in life.

If this is the case, you may end up drifting from course to course or job to job, never really feeling completely satisfied, because you just can't decide what you want. It is tempting to hope that you can keep floating along until one day, out of the blue, something happens and your whole life changes. Suddenly, somebody offers you a high-paying job in a competitive, exciting industry; you meet the man or woman of your dreams and settle down and have children, or not, as the case may be. It doesn't work like that, though. If you want a particular career, you have to be prepared to fight for it and that means believing in yourself and your decisions, rather than vacillating and always wondering whether you're made the right choice.

The same goes for your personal life. You can keep wishing that one day you're going to bump into someone who you will want to settle down with, or you could join dating sites or make an effort to put yourself into situations where you're likely to meet someone. However, you still have to make decisions - do you want to get involved in a long-term relationship? Do you want to get married? Do you want to have children? If you're uncertain about what you want, it's not really fair to drag someone else along for the ride. Mind you, if you find someone who is also indecisive, you can bumble along together in your own particular way! Indecisiveness is not your friend, because it is so easy to keep putting off living and to avoid committing yourself to anything, even though doing so is not in your best interests.