An unmade decision can last forever.
An unmade decision can quietly take over your life. You keep thinking, waiting and gathering more information, but never get any closer to choosing. This is an article about what prolonged limbo costs us—and what we get back when we finally decide.
I’m waiting to hear back on an opportunity and I tell you what - not knowing is killing me. Every day feels like an eternity.
One moment I’m in the fantasy of the “YES” - I’m planning my outfit, rearranging my schedule, getting super organised in advance of the phone call telling me it’s happening.
The next I’m trying to level my expectations. I tell myself it doesn’t matter because right now I actually need to get on with life, and attend to business as usual.
But despite telling myself I’m being borderline ridiculous I feel like I am being kept hostage.
I am wasting precious energy and pockets of time sweating on something that is no longer in my control. I find myself delaying things - like writing this article, or confirming a schedule, or booking in a client until I have certainty on whether my life is going to look the same or not.
Where I am left is in limbo. I am struggling to work out my next two steps because my direction could change at a drop of a hat.
I am distracted. I am scrolling a little more. I have this uneasy feeling in me and I know better than to numb, but I’m a bit sick of myself by this point so I do.
I also know that in a week or less I will have the relief of an answer. I will know if this opportunity is mine or not. And once I know I will be able to either crack the champagne or lick my wounds, and then the next two steps become clear and I can move again.
But what happens when the decision rests in your own hands?
When you are entertaining the idea of leaving your husband, or starting a business, or taking a sabbatical, or exploring a new career, or having a baby you deliberate, speculate and anticipate.
You will keep revisiting the same question again, and again. You will look outside for more data, more evidence, more certainty. You will likely find new ways to make the current situation work more for you. You try to envisage the future if nothing changed, you try to envisage the future if everything changed. You keep waiting for a better time.
But at some point, more thinking stops helping you decide. It only helps you postpone your decision.
You can sit there for weeks, months, years. If there is no external event that forces a resolution you can find yourself spending your entire life sitting on that unmade decision.
Limbo is not neutral.
You can spend years thinking about leaving and never get any closer to actually doing it.
But how much of your life are you actually inhabiting if on some level you’re also preparing to leave it?
I am willing to bet that on some level that unmade decision is impacting your life.
You might have just tuned out, giving the bare minimum and no longer fully investing in where you are.
You might be like I was - postponing plans because your future might change.
You might be subconsciously conserving money or energy that could be invested now for a different time, a different life.
On paper things might look more or less the same. But inside you’re in conflict. You aren’t properly staying, or properly leaving.
And the people around you can sense it.
You probably don’t need more time to think.
You may already know what you want. The harder part is separating that truth from the fear, pressure and consequences wrapped around it.
Make the Decision You’ve Been Avoiding is a free 10-day email series to help you stop circling the same question and hear what you already know.
By the time I came around to finishing this article I had received the phone call.
I didn’t get it.
I can tell you - I was stung. But I am also a lot more free for knowing the outcome.
I took half a day to feel sad about…
and then I got moving.
In the face of failure I’ve received good data - I wanted this. Something I was umming and ahhing over is now cemented as something I desire.
When I was waiting on whether this opportunity was coming my way I put parts of my life on hold that I’m not really that proud of. The uncertainty and the vagueness had held me hostage, and I was not taking any real direction.
Even off the back of receiving a painful no I have renewed clarity, focus and momentum. Two weeks ago I was stuck. Now, I am orchestrating.
In the end, my limbo was finite.
But when the decision is yours there’s no phone call incoming.
Some days are cruising by and you think it might just work, so you stop thinking about leaving. Then something shitty happens and the question returns.
The thing with it is that there’s no end date. There’s no phone call. There’s no one else making the decision for you.
So instead of making a decision that would have you orchestrate your life - you sit on it. And subtly and slowly it consumes you.
We avoid decisions because we are afraid of what could happen. There is so much at risk and so much uncertainty. But what I see over and over again is that waiting has its own cost too.
The circling, stewing and stagnating wears us down. Sometimes to the point we’re only half-living. And that is where we get stuck - and it sucks.
Deciding is frightening. It can feel like the most impossible thing in the world. It can hurt.
But in the end, what you get back is agency.