Doubt in Decision Making Podcast Episode

The piece with uncertainty is we have to be able to move forward even when we don’t have everything figured out. Yeah. Welcome everyone to Breaking Bread, the podcast brought to you by Apostolic Christian Counseling and Family Services. Excellent as always, to have you along. Ted and Kathy are with me today and we’re going to talk about Decisional Doubt. 

Yes. Welcome. Yes. Hi Matt. Hi. You know, after I asked you guys to do this, I was just really second guessing whether you guys were the right ones. Oh man. How do you know for sure? I was just spinning like, oh man, could there be better voices out there to speak to this? For sure. 

Okay. Tell me what Decisional Doubt is. So, you’re going to start off by dinging us. Is that what you’re doing? I think I’ve got some guesses on what decisional doubt is. Take it at any level and bring us into this topic. What is this? Yeah. So, first of all, Matt, the reality is that all of us face decisions in which we’re not sure how to respond or what decision to make or what are the pros and cons. And so, each one of us has those kinds of decisions. Some are big, some are small, but we can start to spin on those. And so, I’m going to just lay out three different types of those as a starting place.  

First of all, I’ll call it 85% of the time when we’re dealing with one of these decisions, it’s just the fact that we’re not sure the right answer. Do I buy the blue car or the brown car? Should we go here or there? Is this the right brand to buy? And there are rights or wrongs but they’re not really moral issues, but they’re ambiguous and we feel some desire to get it right. But we don’t know, is this one going to last? Well, we don’t know, and we hope it does, but we just don’t know. About 85% of the time, that’s what we’re dealing with. Okay. We all deal with that. Then about, I’ll call it, 10% of the time, we deal with things where there’s a big decision in which there’s ambiguity and also it feels very high stakes. 

We’re picking a college to go to or decide whether to get married. I mean, big decisions. These are not small decisions. They’re important decisions that might be about health or other things. And when that happens, when there’s ambiguity and there’s a big decision that we feel responsible for, what we want is to know how it’s going to turn out so we know how to make the decision. Unfortunately, we don’t know how it’s going to turn out before we make a decision. We have to make the decision first. And so, a lot of times we get counsel from people and weigh pros and cons, count the costs, and those things. But the reality is we still don’t know. 

And sometimes that’ll cause us to spin in a way that we just keep looping and keep searching and it doesn’t really get us closer to the decision. You said spinning and looping. I think I understand what those mean. Would anxiety be another word for it? We feel angst about the decision that we need to make. 

I think the core is that it’s just uncertain. So, somebody might say stress or I can’t get my mind shut down. Some people will easily accept the word anxious, like we would view it as an anxiety piece probably. But there are a lot of people that will say, well, I don’t feel anxious, but the spinning is happening. 

Okay. And if I’m tracking with the conversation, while I introduce this topic as decisional doubt, you’re really placing it in the middle of two things, because I’ve been doing my math and we’re up to 95%. That’s right. Were you keeping track? I actually was this time because I had to map it out. 

Okay, so the vast majority is what you call just dealing with uncertainty. Yeah. And so, then you have this decisional doubt. Yes. Which is a little bit more angsty. Yes. High stakes but situational. Okay. Situational because somebody might be worried about a decision about buying a house or moving or taking a job across the country or whatever that is, but that’s situational. 

But they might not worry about something else in their life. They might handle uncertainty in other ways. So, it’s not pervasive in all areas. Okay. So, the last 5% we’re going to refer to as Obsessional Doubt. And in this one we are referring to a smaller group of individuals who are dealing with the looping and rumination that comes from an anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, or another kind of disorder. 

That creates an ongoing loop that ongoing reassurance and seeking out answers accidentally feeds the anxiety, it doesn’t actually reduce the anxiety. So, should we think about these percentages as 85% of people just deal with it broadly and then a smaller subset deal differently? Or are we talking about all the decisions in our life fitting in these? 

Yeah, that’s a tough one to answer, Matt, because I’m going to back you up on that one because everybody is going to have the first category. Okay. Most people are going to have the first category, and second one, some people are going to have the first one, second one, and third one. 

Okay. So. I’m not sure what to say, okay. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure how I’m understanding those layers to be that not everybody has obsessional doubt, right? No, absolutely. And it runs on some other complexities. Yes. So, we definitely want to go there, but let’s just start at a high level of uncertainty. I’ve heard both of you talk about dealing with walking through uncertainty and how that’s a core matter of doing life. Yeah. Here on earth, it is. What equipment do we need to walk in uncertainty, I guess, is maybe another way to ask it. Okay, so for example, you don’t have any certainty when you get into a car that you’re going to arrive at the place that you plan to go. 

I’m sure the insurance companies know exactly what percentage of car rides end in an accident. Yeah, but we get in our cars all the time. We don’t worry about it. Okay. There’s a percentage all the time. We deal with that uncertainty. The problem is that when we get to a place where we feel like we have to stop and resolve it before we start. We can’t know, so we have to just do our best and then we have to be able to say this, I can cope with this uncertainty. I might go on a bike ride, and I might fall off and skin my knee. But that’s not a reason to not go on bike rides. 

Okay. And so, it’s about being able to say, I can cope with this. And so, it sounds to me like there’s confidence but it’s in a different place. Am I right? Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. And I think with the uncertainty piece of it, again, it turns into this decisional doubt piece of it. 

So, I think that doubt words are important there. Ted said this earlier, but when the decision we have to make or when the thing that is uncertain feels extra high stakes. So, if you think about it, yes, we do things all day long that are uncertain. We don’t know what the next three hours are going to bring. 

But if I have to say, this is the college I decided on, or this is the career path I decided on, or whatever the high stakes thing is, it feels like there needs to be a level of absolute certainty before we can step into that. And because both college A or B can be correct, the answer is, yes, either one can be okay. And so, that’s where an individual might go into that doubting piece. How do I know for sure? What if I make a really poor mistake here? Well, and I think it runs on this idea that we want the best, right? Yes, and even between two good options, we know one’s better than the other. 

Yeah. Yes. And that’s haunting. Yes. Right. Well, many of our listeners will be familiar with the acronym FOMO, fear of missing out. At the same time that was first originated, there was a second one, FOBO. It’s fear of better options. And so, what happens is the fear of missing out on something else coming along. Okay. So, what if I choose now? And I didn’t take the best option because another one came along, who knows what it would be. So, what happens is it’s like the flip side of something. I have to jump. What if I jump too soon?  

Okay. So, the flip sides of coin, I’ve decided to jump now at the win. Yes. And so, this is a good opportunity to talk about the role of faith in these kinds of questions. And that is that God does not have to predict the future about these kinds of things. Okay. He’s asked us to use wisdom, commit our ways to him, seek counsel, but he then asks us to trust as we walk forward. 

And much of life is about feeling our way forward through uncertainty. In fact, all of the people in the Hall of Faith in Hebrews chapter 11 went from places where they felt certain they knew where they were, who they were, what they were. They went through the uncertainty, the change, the times, all those different things. 

And they ended up in a different place, but they were rewarded. Why? Because they trusted God. Okay. So, the point isn’t actually that we have to predict at point A where we’ll be at point Z. The point is that we’re committing our way to the Lord and we’re walking in that in that way, and so that’s it. 

It’s interesting because we want to get it right. Oftentimes, God gives us an answer. Sometimes there’s specifics we’re supposed to do. But the vast majority of the time when we’re dealing with uncertainty in life, he isn’t actually asking you whether you should buy this kind of paper towels or that. 

He’s actually more concerned about the kind of person you’re becoming and where you’re headed than he is in whether you pick the right kind. Peace with uncertainty is we have to be able to move forward even when we don’t have everything figured out. Yeah. There are three things that it sounds like a person really has to turn over and give up, which is so difficult. 

One is, might I be wrong? Okay. So that’s a card you have to turn in. The answer to that is, yes, you might be wrong. That is super hard to do. Okay. Another card you have to turn in is, is there a better option? Now, what’s difficult about this one is that the answer probably is, yes. 

There’s a better house out there, probably. Of course, there probably is a better career situation or, if I kept looking for schools like and certainly there’s a better drink at Starbucks, right? I just can’t read them all. Yes. Right. And then, this last one is this binding nature. 

Am I willing to give over the binding? Yeah. Right. But certainly, the career you choose, you’re going to probably bind yourself to a certain degree of time and certainly marriages. Right. So yeah, those are some good observations, Matt, and I will say we’re not encouraging people to throw caution to the wind when they’re making a decision. We have to move forward without complete certainty. It doesn’t mean we move forward without values or without counsel. We’re not encouraging people to just rush headlong into decisions. 

Let’s say more about values and maybe Kathy I want you to speak about values, because I’ve heard you speak about values. Right. But I think that is a really helpful thing. Values and counsel can be a place where we put some confidence. Right? And is that helpful? Is part of the mitigation of this finding confidence in other places. 

And so Kathy, speak to that values piece. Because I think it sounds to me like that could be a place. Yeah, I think when there are multiple decisions out there and if the individual has a good sense of what their values are, that is what can help guide or at least start to eliminate things that don’t match up. 

So, if we use the example about college that you’re choosing from sometimes being able to know that people are important to me or my community is important to me. So, moving away, which is a fine option, but maybe moving away is not in line with my values or I wouldn’t have my church community around me. So, knowing what your values are can start to eliminate things that aren’t going to fit you, or would not be the right direction. 

Yeah. And so, that can help both eliminate some of the choices that are out there but can also help somebody step out in faith. This is in line with who I am as a person and what my values are. So, what is some of the work you do with a person to help them even place their finger on their values? 

One that I use a lot is a tool called the Values Bullseye. And it literally is a circle with four quadrants, and we look and say, hey, there are lots of wonderful things we could choose here, but I’m going to really nail you down to four primary things that you want your life to be about right now. 

Okay? And maybe part of that is about their spiritual walk. Maybe part of that is about relationships, maybe how they serve, whatever those things are. But I think one of the things that happens is if I tell you for example, that my relationship with God is my most important thing in my life, but I haven’t done anything and put any effort or any directionality in that in the past two weeks, you’re going to say, Ted, you’re very distant from your values. 

Okay. Versus even small steps in the direction of my values are way more important. Because much of life is about us taking small steps toward the things that are truly important to us. It’s way more important that I am directionally correct than that I know that I have perfect certainty on lots of things. 

I know that if I have my relationship with God intact and my relationship with key family members intact and I am using the gifts and abilities that God has given me to glorify him and be a blessing to others. Do you know what? I’m moving in the right direction. 

Now if I take a job, for example, and it’s a great job but it sacrifices off some of these things, guess what? It’s not a great job. Okay. It’s because it might be a great job, but it doesn’t fit with my values. Can we provide a few large categories for values to help people start thinking. 

So, sometimes I think there’s a variety of ways to do this. Sometimes it can be easy to just go to the four different areas of health. What are the things that are important to me spiritually, physically, emotionally, and relationally. Then you can start to narrow down the types of activities that you do within all of those different areas as you go through different life seasons. The categories don’t necessarily change, but how you live out your values might shift a little bit. Yeah, sure depending on the life season, what’s important to you in college is different than when you’re first married or when you’re raising a family. 

Sometimes when I ask somebody the question of whether this feels in line with your values. They’re probably evaluating, is this something we would make time for in our schedule because we think it’s worth it? Is this something that brings us joy or does it bring more stress to us? Those would all be things to start thinking about and maybe even this title of a family or as an individual. Fill in the blanks and prompts like that will start helping you understand the things that you value the most. 

That’s really good. Yeah, I really like that, and I can see how a person can draw confidence in making a decision that’s in line with their values. Yeah. I feel like I don’t know if it’s the best decision. I don’t even know if it’s right. I don’t know how it’s going to pan out, but I do know it’s in step with my values, a lot of comfort here. 

Now you mentioned counsel is another one. Yeah. Okay. And I can see where that’s really helpful as well. I want you to speak about the fact that sometimes counsel gives us a mixed bag. Oh, for sure. Decisional Doubt might be amped up because, well, Sally said this and Joe said that. Yeah, that’s a really important one. And I will tell you even as Christian people, there are different levels of quality of counsel. So, let’s say somebody’s worried about something. Saying it’ll be okay. You know? Like, oh no, that won’t happen and just these platitudes that sometimes happen. 

Actually, God doesn’t promise how the house is going to turn out or how health is going to turn out. He promises to be with you in those things. Good counsel is going to help us answer questions. Does this seem biblically sound? They are also going to counsel related to the presence of God with you through this. 

But the point is, it’s to help people sort out what their resources are. How they can work through it and that we’ll be with you. We’re doing this together. Yeah. You know, I think the person seeking counsel also needs to be able to identify what they’re looking for. 

Because I think sometimes what happens is we go to people because we want them to just answer the question for us. And that’s the work we have to do ourselves. I think the question you ask yourself is, I’m seeking counsel for clarity or to learn from this person. They have life experience and they have some wisdom. 

How did you navigate this in your life? Have you thought about these three things? That’s helpful counsel. The problem is when you find yourself in the middle of a big decision, you’re usually looking for certainty more than counsel, and that is where the concern is. Sometimes asking what I should do is not a fair question to ask anybody. Right. Because it puts the other person in a place of feeling the same level of amped up urgency. We have to figure this out. And the person that gets asked that question really needs to be able to put it back on the other person. And then the flip side of the coin which also happens is our mind is made up and we’re wanting affirmation. 

Absolutely. And so, we’re close to any sort of corrective counsel. Right. Which isn’t probably the right spirit for either. So, there’s a way to do this on both sides of the table there. Yes. And you know what? Sometimes the best advice is I don’t know what to do and be able to say, it’s okay. You’re doing the best you know how to do and it’s okay. Certainty isn’t the only answer there. It’s understandable that you’d want it but we’re walking through it.  

I will say though, that if somebody’s in that obsessional place, Kathy and I are much more likely to answer very differently. If somebody is dealing with obsessive compulsive disorder and is doing obsessive checking where they’re like, oh, I have to know for sure and they’re paralyzed by this. When they ask us for the right answer. We’re not going to give it. And we’re going to be very distinct on that. Is that because that would perpetuate the problem? Let’s say that I have what’s called health anxiety or illness anxiety. And let’s say that somebody says I’ve had this sensation. Okay. And I’ve had it checked out by three doctors and all the blood tests. And I still think it’s all wrong and I’m very anxious about it. The reality is when I come to you, if I ask you, Matt, you’re not a physician, you’re my friend. 

If I said, Matt, what do you think about this? That’s a bad question. Yeah, okay. It’s a bad ask because you don’t know any better than chance. Okay. Number one. Number two, the question isn’t driven by looking for some kind of real counsel. It’s actually saying, Matt, I’m asking for and looking for confirmation. 

I’m asking you to take my anxiety down to zero. Yeah. And what happens is you’re going to look at it and go, Ted, I think you’re okay. You know? And you know what? Then I’m going to feel comforted because you said I was okay. But the problem is that it’s very time limited and I’m going to come back and it’s going to be exceptional when it continues to get asked. 

Yeah. You’re okay satisfies once and then it needs to be re-satisfied. Yeah. So that’s how you know. Yes. Instead, over here on the ambiguity side, we’re saying, you can handle this, God’s going to be with you, go forward. We’re going to push people or nudge people forward over here on the obsessional doubt part where somebody has a clinical disorder. 

We’re going to actually ask them to face some of their doubts and uncertainty in a treatment setting so that we can actually unhook that. I think the other piece that adds into maybe this middle category of decisional doubt, it can apply to all three, but we just have access to so much information, and I think what happens to so many of us is we get paralyzed by over analysis. We take in so much content, researching everything there is to research about it, and then it feels like there’s so much information that the decision feels like it’s impossible. The more we analyze gets us to analysis paralysis. 

Yeah. And that is what can lead to some decisional doubt. One of the things we’re finding even in the OCD literature is that online checking is going way up. Yeah. People are online, you know, and checking and checking and checking. And it feels like they’re doing research. Yeah. Okay. I just want to know. I want to be well informed. But at a certain point, I’m trying to take uncertainty down to zero. It’s not like you’re necessarily going up to the people in your community asking all the questions but you’re scrolling from the couch for all the information that you need. 

Speak a little bit to those who are asked to give advice, and I’m wondering if there’s something here that is going to be different depending on who you’re talking to, what the situation is and what their age is, right? Is there a posture that we should offer our advice in? 

Go ahead, Kathy. Well, I think what makes this difficult is that every situation is unique and every person is unique. I think sometimes we run across individuals who have had somebody making their decisions for them their whole life. So, if that’s a parent or somebody else you actually will probably do a little bit of both. You will want to help guide and lead but ultimately leave some open-ended questions and walk with them through the struggle of this is the first time I’ve had to make any decision on my own and this is really scary. So, I would call that maybe a little bit more of a coach role. 

Yeah. You hold their hand while they do it. Yes. If it’s somebody who is in urgent need of knowing now, I think the best thing that you can do is try to slow them down. I mean, that would be the role of asking, why is this an emergency? Why does this decision have to be made right now? 

Yeah. I definitely think it also has to do with the role of the person being asked. If I’m asking a friend a question or if I’m asking my accountant a question or if I’m asking an emergency room physician a question, very different roles. They might all be very appropriate at different times. 

Right? Yeah. And so, I think that’s part of it. But even in those situations, minus the legal one where the accountant says you’ve got to do this. Yeah. The doctor will never make that decision. The doctor will always say here’s my suggestion. What do you want to do? If a patient is going into a full cardiac arrest, they’re not calling a committee about this. 

Okay. Everything moves and everybody knows what to do. People get told what to do in those circumstances and things of that nature. So, I think the context really matters. But the other point too is when you ask the question, how do we guide people, oftentimes in a church context, people ask about life decisions, about where, where should I go? What skills should I use? Should I enter this position? I think helping other people by asking them good questions is really a good thing to do.  

If I could say one thing to do, it would be to ask good questions. I think the wisest of teachers, the wisest of people will help that person walk through the decision-making process and the person arrives. Yeah. And I really appreciate that. But I think my question is more of a boundary question. What does it mean to honor a person’s sovereignty and also protect yourself, right? Oh, sure. You told me to marry that person. You told me to buy that house. Yeah. You told me to buy that car, you told me, right? Which doesn’t get them to grow in that responsibility because with decision making has to come responsibility. Right. Sure, it does. So, I think there’s an interesting boundary element about counseling. 

Ah, for sure. Yeah. That’s a great point. And I think as you’re thinking about that with your kids. I think about that as an elder and as a counselor. I mean, there are different things that we lay out to people, but we also have to let them exercise their free will. 

This has been helpful. I think our listeners understand well the space here of decisional doubt. I think we recognize it in ourselves. If we’ve lived some life, we’ve made some decisions. We’ve made good ones and bad ones. Yeah.  

Let’s close on this concept. Ted, you mentioned the presence of God in the context of confidence. So, we’re trying to find confidence. And where we want to find it, we can’t find it. That is in the uncertain decision. Yeah. But you mentioned this counsel of reminding people of the presence of God. Why is that helpful? Why does that confidence go the distance when we say, Lord, I want to do this well, I commit my way to you. I want to commit my career to you. I want to commit these things to you, and I’m going to trust that you’re going to walk with me in that. I think one of the things it creates is an opportunity to surrender the need to know the outcome. 

But also, it commits to say, I’m going to walk this path in a way consistent with who you are. Yeah. That ability to trust that God is sovereign and has a plan for you. That helps. Having that trust helps that we can walk forward in uncertainty. When we can’t trust that God will be sovereign in a situation, then we demand certainty that it’s all going to work out. 

I really like that. Ted, do you like to play chess? Oh, yes. God is so good at the game that even when a bad move is made, he can somehow still win the game.  For sure, that’s how brilliant he is. And not only win the game with the bad move but win the game because of the bad move. 

And I think we would have evidence in Scripture of people who made terrible decisions which God used in incredible ways. And this is in no way saying we should be cavalier with our decisions. Yeah, for sure. But it’s hard for us to imagine in this time of uncertainty that not getting the best, not choosing the right, could possibly be used by God. But he can and he does when we love him with all of our hearts, walk in his ways, and put our confidence in him. 

Thank you, Ted and Kathy for your insights and thank you each one who has listened and bless you in your decision making.