Perfectionism and Indecision: You're the Certainty You've Been Waiting For
"Certainty is not something that arrives. It is something you build."
I have delayed things I genuinely wanted because I was not sure enough yet. Not sure the timing was right. Not sure the outcome would justify the risk. I told myself I was being responsible.
What I was actually doing was waiting for a guarantee that was never going to come, from a source that does not exist.
What the research says
Courtney Love Gavin points out something most perfectionists have never considered. The certainty you are waiting for is not outside of you. You are the one who creates it. Every decision you stand behind, every outcome you commit to learning from regardless of the result, that is how certainty is built. It is a skill. Not a condition.
The perfectionist waits for certainty as a shield against what might happen if things do not go as planned. But that shield is borrowed. You are the one who has to return it.
What it actually costs
Waiting for certainty is not caution. It is a quiet vote of no confidence in your own ability to handle what comes next.
The decision you are delaying is not waiting for better conditions. It is waiting for you to trust yourself enough to make it. The conditions are already good enough. You are the variable.
The people around you do not just experience your indecision as hesitation. They experience it as absence.
While you wait to be sure, they wait too. For the commitment. For the answer. For the version of you that has decided. That version is not arriving from the outside. It is built one decision at a time, from the inside.
Decision Worth Making
This week, I am making one decision I have been waiting to feel certain about, and I am standing behind it regardless of the outcome. Not because I am sure it is right. Because I am choosing to be the one who brings the certainty. I am inviting you to do the same. Find the thing you have been waiting on. Make the call. You were always the one it was waiting for.
This is the final issue in a four part series on perfectionism. If this one landed, send the link to someone who needed to read it.
Until next week,
Termeil Hall