[added]

I been listening to an ADHD podcast for a few weeks now and came across an episode that really resonated with me. I never thought I have had fear of making decisions in my life... Small ones and big ones. For example... When responding to a friend's text, I sometimes question myself how am I going to respond to this person... Is my response going to make a positive impact in his day? What if I do not say what I think will help him? Etc, etc...

Should I do this? or should I do that? What if I make the wrong decision?

How do you overcome this fear?

[Skeezyks]

Here are links to 3 articles, from PC's archives, on the fear of making mistakes:

The Fear of Making Mistakes and Interesting Insights on Being Wrong

Overcoming the Fear of Making Mistakes

Why We All Have Fear of Failure

[sarahsweets]

@added
I think fear of making decisions comes down to feeling a lack of control. Do you think if you felt you had more control over situations decisions would be easier?

Originally Posted by added

How do you overcome this fear?

Feel the fear and do it anyway. Look at it as an exercise in making mistakes and learning lessons from those mistakes. The fear of making a decision is in what if you are wrong?

Look at it as there is no right or wrong.. only pathways and results. Don't add a "judgment" to the decision.

If the results are not what you hoped... look at it as an exercise to learn how to recover from results you did not like.

[added]

Originally Posted by sarahsweets

@added
I think fear of making decisions comes down to feeling a lack of control. Do you think if you felt you had more control over situations decisions would be easier?

That's part of it, yes, feeling that the response or comment I gave is not going to change anything I was hoping would change. More like an internal self-put down if I would've said this, that would have happened, I could've should've said...this, do that...

[added]

Originally Posted by Emily Fox Seaton

If the results are not what you hoped... look at it as an exercise to learn how to recover from results you did not like.

I like this, is almost like training the brain to feel less guilty or negative about those decisions...

I find it hard making decisions too.

in my case it's because I was braught up with a really abusive family who would never let me be in control

so now rather than say: what do I really want, what option will be easier for me, I think.. well what would my abusers say?, and go with that

nnot healthy, and people say I am getting better, but it is still hard and takes me ages to figure something really simple out.

I think this goes a long way in how I see life, too

decisions are always made for me

[added]

Originally Posted by raging vortex

I find it hard making decisions too.

in my case it's because I was braught up with a really abusive family who would never let me be in control

OK, so I really dig that's what happened to me as well, or part of what happened. However, one of the ways I have dealt with the scars is by forgiving my family for the things they did and say when I was growing up. In fact, my disfunction started way back when I was 10 years old. I was raped at knifepoint, and that really messed things up for me since then. My family turned into control freaks because they did not want me to experience another traumatic event like that. It was also traumatic for them too, I must say...
I guess what I'm trying to say is that by forgiving your abusers, you relieve yourself from some of the pain that you carry around in life.

I understand that I am going to make wrong decisions sometimes and I'm going to make right decisions at other times.
I just have to continue to find a way to not be so afraid of making the wrong ones...

But, for me, it was important to forgive my family. It has become easier over time to not hold as much hate towards the guy that abused me without my consent.