Indecisive? Maybe you have FOBO?

I’ll start with a confession – I’m indecisive. Always have been. I’m that person who always asks a waiter for “a few more minutes” whilst I look over the menu yet again. Big purchases are even worse – it took me 6 months to decide on a new fridge freezer last year. I know I’m naturally quite analytical, but it drives me crazy!

A mini–TED Talk by Patrick McGinnis that I watched recently introduced me to a term I’d never heard of before. It’s “FOBO” – fear of a better option. McGinnis explains that when faced with a number of perfectly reasonable options, we struggle to make a decision in case one of the other options is better. This is exactly what I do - I’m indecisive because I’m putting pressure on myself to choose the absolute best option!

But realistically… how do we know it’s the best option? Take a holiday choice for example. Now the stakes are high on a holiday – it’s not something you do very often, and there’s the expense to consider too. So, you want to pick an option that you’re really going to enjoy. Maybe I’m weighing up a city break to either Madrid or Milan – I’m looking at prices, weather, flight times, local attractions, nice hotel etc. Say I opt for Madrid – after this point I’ll never know for sure whether I would have enjoyed Milan better. But in the lead up to picking an option, I have FOBO about Milan.

McGinnis proposes a simple technique to tackle FOBO and make speedier decisions. And it fits right into my analytical nature. Before you weight up options, sketch out some criteria. What’s the ideal price range, what sort of weather would I like, etc etc. Spend more time on this stage, and the decision making will naturally speed up. With the time having been spent deciding on ideal criteria, I then have something to measure Madrid V Milan to, meaning the winner is the one who ticks the most boxes. I won’t have FOBO as I’ve got the stats to prove which is best. Utterly simple right?

But what if they both meet the criteria? This was the first reaction as I instantly thought. It works in theory but what if the options are really close? Well, you can choose a ranking order. Perhaps I’d be happy with colder weather if the hotel is nice. Or given the option of an early morning flight or cheaper holiday I might choose to save on costs. Or… and this was my epiphany moment… if they are both reasonably acceptable options, does it even matter which one I pick? After all I’ve already proved both options are what I wanted anyway! How much time am I wasting picking between 2 options that are both likely to be great holidays?

I don’t imagine this will transform me into one of those people who make instant decisions. But I can see me being able to ‘have a word with myself’ when decisions start to take too long (Oh … confession. It actually took me well over a year to decide on the right fridge freezer.). So next time I’m agonising over decisions I’m going to remind myself of the criteria and ask what there is to gain by spending too long deciding the best option. Is it worth spending all that time weighing up options? Perhaps I should replace FOBO with the better-known FOMO after all!