How to Make a Decision When You're Afraid of the Wrong Choice

This morning, one of the most useful lessons I've learned in a long time showed up in the most unexpected place: a quiet game of Solitaire.

Before you laugh, stay with me.

Solitaire has become part of my morning routine. It's simple. Predictable. There are no deadlines, no expectations, and no pressure to perform. I sit down, play a few rounds, and let my mind wander. Unlike most of my day, I don't have to think very hard.

And maybe that's exactly why the lesson was finally able to find me. The best ideas — and the clearest decisions — so often come when you stop trying so hard. We go looking for clarity by gripping tighter, thinking harder, forcing an answer. But some of the most honest insight arrives the moment we loosen our grip.

What a Card Game Taught Me About the Decisions We Avoid

During one game, I reached a point where I had two cards I could move. Both seemed reasonable. Both looked like good choices.

I made one move. A few minutes later, I discovered the game could no longer be solved. So I started over.

When I reached that same point again, I chose the other card. This time, I won.

It was such a small thing. But it reminded me of something so many of us quietly struggle with:

Life is a series of decisions, and we rarely know which one will lead where.

Why We Wait for a Certainty That Never Comes

We spend so much energy trying to predict the future before we're willing to move. The mind runs the same questions on a loop:

• What if I fail?
• What if I waste my time?
• What if this doesn't work?
• What if I make the wrong choice?

The honest answer to most of those questions is that we don't know. We can't.

Just like in Solitaire, we only ever see a small portion of the board. We don't know what cards are hidden. We don't know what's about to be revealed. We don't know which opportunity, connection, lesson, or breakthrough is waiting just past the move we're too afraid to make.

So we wait. We wait for proof. We wait for a guarantee. We wait to feel ready. And while we wait, the game sits frozen in front of us — not because we made a wrong move, but because we made no move at all.

The irony is that certainty almost always comes after the action — not before it.

What Your Nervous System Is Really Doing When You Can't Decide

Here is the part I want you to hear, because most of us were handed the wrong story about it. When you can't make a decision, it usually isn't because you're indecisive, undisciplined, or weak-willed. It's because your nervous system is doing exactly what it was built to do — trying to keep you safe.

Researchers who study this have a name for it: intolerance of uncertainty. For a nervous system that learned early on that the unknown was dangerous, an open question doesn't feel like possibility. It feels like threat. And the body responds to threat the only way it knows how — it braces. It stalls. It freezes you in place until the "danger" of not knowing passes.

That's why a simple choice can feel physically heavy. It isn't the decision that's too hard. It's that uncertainty itself has registered, somewhere below your thinking mind, as something to survive.

When you understand that, the question changes. It stops being why can't I just decide already? and becomes something far more compassionate:

What is my nervous system trying to protect me from right now — and is that danger actually here?

Three Feet from Gold: Why People Quit Right Before the Breakthrough

My Solitaire game reminded me of the classic book Three Feet from Gold. The whole message of it is this: so many people quit just before success arrives. They stop digging because they can't yet see the gold. They assume their efforts aren't working. They turn around — when they may have been only a few feet from the very thing they were searching for.

How often do we do the exact same thing in our own lives?

• We stop applying for the jobs.
• We stop marketing the business.
• We stop going to the gym.
• We stop reaching out for support.
• We stop taking the risks.

Not because we failed. But because we didn't yet have proof that success was coming. We wanted to see the gold before we were willing to keep digging — and the digging is the only thing that ever uncovers it.

The Real Lesson Wasn't About Cards. It Was About Trust.

When I sat with it, the lesson from that game wasn't really about Solitaire at all. It was about trust.

• Trusting that not every decision will be perfect.
• Trusting that mistakes are part of learning, not proof that you're failing.
• Trusting that progress doesn't require certainty.
• Trusting that the next step is enough — you don't need to see the whole staircase.

Trust like that isn't a personality trait some people are simply born with. It's built the same way self-trust is always built — one small, scary, imperfect decision at a time, until your body slowly learns that moving forward did not destroy you.

A Question to Ask Before Your Next Decision

So today, I want to leave you with one question to hold the next time you find yourself frozen between two cards:

Is the decision you're considering moving you toward your goals and dreams — or away from them?

If the honest answer is that it moves you forward, but you're still scared, worried, nervous, or uncertain — take the action anyway.

Do it afraid. Do it worried. Do it while your hands shake.

This is what I mean when I talk about courage over comfort. Not the absence of fear — the willingness to move while it's still there, because waiting for the fear to disappear first means waiting forever.

Because the path to the life you actually want is rarely built on certainty.

It's built on courage.

One decision at a time.

You are not broken. You are becoming. And you are allowed to move forward before you ever feel ready.

— Andrea Abella Marie · Founder, Andrea Abella Marie Coaching LLC · Veteran-Owned Business