It is almost always easier to make decisions about what other people should do in a given situation. You hear their problem and, unless it is on the level of seriousness of brain surgery, the path that they should take seems crystal clear to you – obvious – why don’t they see that?

So how come that problem solving ability seems to vanish when you have to make decisions about your own life? My theory is that our own decision making process gets bound up by our emotional attachment to the outcome. Afraid to make the wrong decision, we get stuck and often haunted by the jeering ghost of a bad decision from the past (like why didn’t I listen when my mother told me not to buy a plain white kitchen floor).

To try to remove some of the angst, first clarify the decision to be made, weigh all the alternatives, and then ask other people. The last can be the most important, as long as you do it after all your other research first. You never know who will lend a different perspective that you had not considered. You are not asking them to make the decision for you (though I wish for that sometimes). Just lay out the problem and the information you have and ask:

• Can you think of any other information I need to have?
• Can you think of questions to ask myself?
• What do you think you would do in my situation and why?

Other people’s input, whether fact or opinion, expert or not, will throw light on the decision that you have, subconsciously, already made. If their opinions are in line with yours it will make you feel validated. If it really conflicts with what your gut tells you it can make you trust your own feelings more. But often, someone will just offer a piece of info or ask you a question that opens up a whole new way of considering the problem, as my friend Janet did for me recently.

The key here is to not only ask the person you KNOW will agree with what may already be in your heart. We all have friends who can enable us in our decisions – frivolous or serious – and will tell us what we secretly want to hear (if I want to buy something I call Marian LOL). But for a really solid decision you have to ask the contrarians as well because they may make you consider things in a different way.

I have had to make so many big decisions this summer that right now my fondest wish is for a few weeks where I don’t have to make any decisions beyond Dewars or Chivas! In fact, I will let you guys decide even that!