Why Advice-Seeking May Be Blocking You From Moving Forward

I’ve been sitting on a big career decision for the past year. Yep. A full year of back and forth, like the Clash—should I stay or should I go? And I found myself going in circles of reassurance seeking. I would call a good friend while on my morning run and ask for advice, only to argue the other side when she gave it. Then I’d stop by my mom’s to ask if I’m doing the right thing and when she’d reassure me I would feel even less certain.

I finally made the decision last week. And in doing so I realized that all that reassurance-seeking was a barrier to moving forward. Why? Because it was blocking me from feeling what I needed to feel to get to the other side. It takes psychological flexibility, willingness, and self-compassion to walk through the muck of letting go.

Feeling better isn’t always the best solution.

Sometimes we seek reassurance because we want to avoid the bad feelings that come with an ending or change—when we avoid feelings and our avoidance gets in the way of living our values, it’s called experiential avoidance. We seek out others to help us “feel better” so that we don’t have to feel the grief, fear, loss of ego, embarrassment, or judgment of taking a leap. It works short-term to quell our anxiety but can stall us from making painful but important changes.

For the last 15 years, I’ve worked with clients who’ve struggled with decisions such as ending a marriage, changing jobs, starting a new medication, leaving graduate school, or setting interpersonal boundaries. And, as their therapist, I try my best not to give advice, or to reassure them that “everything will be alright.” To paraphrase Steve Hayes, it’s not about feeling better, it's about getting better at feeling. Instead of knocking on everyone’s door to get their approval, this is what I suggest we do instead.

Strategies for Moving Through Indecision:

1. Practice deep listening. I first learned this skill from Thich Nhat Hanh long before I became a therapist. Deep listening, according to Hanh, has only one purpose—to help someone “empty their heart.” Take some time to deeply listen to yourself. Empty your heart on paper, in a song, or verbally to someone you trust—without asking for reassurance or advice. Then listen to what is in your heart with compassion. Trust it.
2. Ditch the pros and cons list. Pros and cons lists have their place when weighing out the costs and benefits of two options. But by the time you are reassurance-seeking, you likely have gone back and forth over the pros and cons too many times to count. As Barry Schwartz describes in The Paradox of Choice, being a satisficer as opposed to a maximizer may be your best bet when it comes to deciding. Instead of splitting hairs to find the optimal answer, land on something that is good enough.
3. Choose discomfort. Ask yourself: What feelings are you avoiding by seeking reassurance? What feelings are you avoiding by staying stuck in indecision? What is the dreaded experience? When I spoke with Rick Hanson on the From Striving to Thriving Summit, he said that learning to be with our dreaded experiences is one of the most important skills to practice. When you choose to enter the dreaded experience it no longer is dreaded, it is just an experience.
4. Take the leap of acceptance. Deciding can feel like jumping off a cliff—only to get caught on a branch, having to jump again. Expect relief, followed by shock, remorse, and self-questioning. It’s normal to have second guesses after making a decision. Accept your full range of emotions, reminding yourself that this is part of the process of moving forward.
5. Stay by your side. Ultimately the best advice is that from your heart and the best reassurance is that you give yourself. What’s more important than making the “right” decision is to not abandon yourself or berate yourself in the process. This is already hard enough—why make it harder? Instead, be your own compassionate coach. Use a tone of voice that is encouraging, remind yourself of the times you have made it through tough decisions before, and speak to yourself with a little more tenderness. If you hold your own hand in the process, maybe, just maybe, everything will be “alright.”