68. The Comfort of Indecision: Why Making a Small Decision Can Lead to Big Results

In this episode of Weight Loss Made Simple, Dr. Stacy Heimburger explores the sneaky trap of indecision and how it can keep us stuck in a cycle of inaction. Learn how making small, manageable decisions can break the paralysis of indecision, build momentum, and lead to lasting weight loss results. Dr. Heimburger shares actionable tips to help you move forward, from setting healthy habits to avoiding the pressure of perfection. Tune in to discover how you can make small decisions today that lead to bigger, more meaningful changes tomorrow.

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This episode was produced by The Podcast Teacher: www.ThePodcastTeacher.com.

Transcript

Everybody, welcome back to another episode of Weight Loss Made Simple. I’m Dr. Stacy Heimburger, and today I want to talk about something that might have already snuck up on you this year, and that is indecision. So, we’ve all been there. We feel overwhelmed sometimes by the choices we need to make, and sometimes, truthfully, it’s just hard to put your foot down. Sometimes it’s hard to commit for all different kinds of reasons. So, indecision and the unknown feel very uncomfortable, but so does the fear of making the wrong choice, which is a lot of times what can keep us in this indecision.

So, as uncomfortable as indecision is, we often like to stay there because it’s a discomfort that we’re familiar with. It’s not new or scary, and it’s not as scary as making a decision and then second-guessing it. So, I want to talk about how we can start to unwind this and teach ourselves a new way, and how maybe we can just start making some small little baby decisions. That’ll be really powerful for you to kind of flex that muscle this year and help you get closer to achieving whatever your goals are in 2025.

Indecision is sneaky because, on the surface, it feels like we’re avoiding the fear of failure or fear of making the wrong decision. So, it feels safe in a way, even though it really is uncomfortable. And it’s uncomfortable because I know you have all done this when you’re trying to decide something. It’s always like mental clutter, right? It’s in there swimming around in your brain, doesn’t have a place to go because it’s not resolved. OK? Until we resolve it, it’s just stuck in there, and that really can lead to a lot of mental clutter. And that mental clutter, over time, leads to more stress, more anxiety, and more frustration. It can really contribute to decision fatigue.

I don’t know that I’ve done a full episode on decision fatigue—I find it fascinating. I find the people that really model their lives to avoid decision fatigue, it’s like so intriguing to me. So, the premise of decision fatigue is that, and this is a very crude, non-scientific way to state it, but we basically only have so many good decisions we can make in a day, right? So, we have a finite amount of decisions that we can make with clarity, that we can make with some real brainpower behind them, and as the day goes on, if we’ve used all those decisions up, we start making bad decisions. Our brains just aren’t working as quickly or efficiently. We’re not as smart once we’ve made like a million decisions in a day.

So, people that actively avoid decision fatigue will do things like have a very sad wardrobe, right, where they’re not deciding between 100 outfits in the morning. They’re kind of choosing between three or less. I heard one person—what they did is, you know, they became very loyal to a brand of car. So, when it came time to get a new car, there was no decision fatigue, right? They didn’t have to go and look at lots of dealerships and spend all this mental energy on picking a car and test driving. They knew they were only gonna buy this one brand of car, so it really limited the decisions. Everyone makes fun of me. I kind of do this with my socks. I only wear Bombas socks. I love them. I put holes in them constantly. I’m constantly having to replace them, but I love them, and I can kind of avoid that section of the store. I don’t have to, you know, be cluttered by any advertising for socks. I kind of have a stock that I use. My shoes are very much the same. When I used to dress a little nicer for work, I only wore Rothy’s, so it was never—I never got swept into all the decisions about, should I buy? Should I buy? Should I try on all of these things?

So, decision fatigue is a thing, OK? So, indecision can feel safe, but it’s just stacking up multiple decisions that we haven’t made yet that we need to make, because we can only make so many good decisions a day. So, what can we do? We can just recognize that indecision is a decision. I loved when I heard this: by doing nothing, we’re actually making kind of a choice, right? So, if my goal for 2025 is to lose weight and I’m paralyzed by the decision of what food plan I should be on, all the days that I am deciding that I am in indecision, I’m not really having to do anything, right? I’m not having to change anything. I’m not really having to start toward my goal. So, we get stuck in inaction, but what I want us to start to do is just make one small decision just to break that cycle, that spinning that happens in indecision. So, I might not feel comfortable. I might be too indecisive about what my food plan is gonna be for the rest of the year, but maybe I can decide today I’m not gonna snack after dinner. OK? Just one small little choice, one decision that signals to our brain that we’re in control and that we can trust our decisions and that we can take action.

These small little actions, these small little decisions will start to snowball. So, it seems like not that big of a deal to make one small decision, but if you are in indecision and you are stuck, the way out is a small bit of momentum, and we do that by making one small decision.

OK, so I think this is why, originally, I really just prep dinners. And to this day, my meal planning consists of planning dinners. It’s one decision I can make, and it can be set for the day. And once I’ve started that decision, it really does make all my other food decisions easier, because that one was hard—probably because I had decision fatigue, and then I had all the emotional stress by the end of the day. So, that one small decision can set me off into a good spiral of making decisions.

I want to talk about making the wrong choice as well. When we start with these small decisions, they don’t need to be perfect, right? So, if I’m just deciding not to snack after dinner tonight, there’s not a lot of room for error, and there’s not a lot of pressure to be perfect. And I do find that perfectionism sometimes keeps us stuck as well. That can add to the indecision. So, knowing these small decisions just need to be a little bit better than what I’m doing right now can be super powerful as well. So, if I’m in a habit of having chocolate every night after dinner, just deciding tonight for one night I’m not gonna have chocolate after dinner doesn’t feel like a big deal, but it starts the forward progress. It starts the momentum. It gets me out of the spiral of indecision and the spiral of a habit I don’t wanna continue.

The other thing I want to talk about in indecision, because I think it’s very interesting, is this brain of ours and what it does. But a lot of times when we’re in indecision, our brain is making up worst-case scenarios. So, our brain is saying things like, “Well, that probably won’t work,” or “This horrible thing probably will happen.” Right? I remember—I’ll give you an example that’s not about food, but just to sort of illustrate the point—I was in a coaching group with another physician, and she was starting her entrepreneurial career. She was very worried about putting herself out there because she didn’t know if she had a noncompete at work. And so, instead of just going and finding the answer, her brain just kept saying, “Well, there might be a problem, there might be a problem.” And so, by not going and finding the answer, she could stay in this comfort of indecision, right? She didn’t really have to put herself out there or start down this path because there might be a problem. So, sometimes this indecision loop can be broken by getting the facts.

So, that one might be slightly harder to apply to food, but it might be something like, “Oh, I don’t think I can use a meal planning service because I think it’s gonna take too much time to prep when I get home. I think it’s gonna be too expensive, and I think they’re just gonna pile up in the freezer.” We don’t know any of that, right? Did we go price the options? Did we see what possibilities there are? A lot of times, meal plans vary—some of them you do a lot of cooking, some of them you do no cooking, some of them you can order every meal, some of them you can order one meal a week, right? But by staying in this, “Well, it might be too much, I might have to cook too much, it might pile up in my freezer,” we can stay in our little comfort spiral of indecision.

So, I want us to start thinking about just one tiny thing we can do, one tiny decision we can make every day, and I promise that that’s gonna help just stop this little ball of indecision that we sit in.

OK, so maybe something like responding to something in your inbox that you don’t want to respond to, or getting off of social media for a minute and going and prepping your lunch for tomorrow. It could be something as simple as, “I’m gonna put sneakers in my car so I’m one step closer to going to the gym after work.” One small decision.

I also wanna just mention quickly, sometimes we use our past against ourselves when we’re making decisions, especially regarding our food plan and our exercise plan. So, sometimes we have one of two things: we’ll either have almost this magical thinking of this diet that we did one time, or these rules we set for ourselves this one time that really, really worked. And then we think that that’s the only way we can do things. I challenge that, because if it really worked, we would still be working, right? And if it really worked and it wasn’t awful, our brain probably wouldn’t be putting up a lot of resistance against it. So, watch magical thinking and some of this indecision.

So, the example would be, “I don’t know what meal plan to pick. The only time weight loss has worked for me is when I fasted all day and only had a four-hour eating window.” OK, maybe. But I like when our brain starts doing that for this rosy-colored glasses about what happened in the past. I like to remind myself that whether it worked or not, right, we can say it did, “That worked then.” I’m finding out what works now, right? So, we can kind of let that go and make decisions for now. So, in the past, it worked when I only ate in a four-hour eating window. I am figuring out what to do now.

OK, so sort of the rose-colored previous life where things magically worked. And then the other thing is just getting overwhelmed with the amount of information. So, especially our meal plans. I know there’s a lot of information out there. Should I do keto? Should I fast? Should I do, you know, whatever? I just want you to do one small thing. So, I promise you will be less hungry if you eat less sugar. So, maybe it’s just cutting back on your afternoon snack, like your evening snack. If you’re someone that always is eating a sugary treat at 3 o’clock when you’re having that afternoon crash, maybe just changing that small habit. Deciding, you know what, I’m gonna eat something like a healthy fat. I’m gonna eat some nuts instead of reaching for the candy dish. One small thing that you can do. It’s just to change one small habit, make one small decision.

So, your brain might say, like, “No, I need to figure out what my whole eating plan is gonna be for 2025, and I’m gonna have to do keto, and I’m gonna have to do hours of meal prep on Sunday.” I’m telling you, you don’t have to do that. I just want you to make one small decision for now. And then we see, like, almost like a science, right? We’re gonna try one small thing and then we’re gonna see. “I’m gonna try not to eat candy in the afternoon and see what that does. I’m gonna try not to snack after dinner and see what that does.” And then we can build on that, right? If that works, we can build on that. We can also try something for a little while, and if it doesn’t work, we can let it go. Right? So, if I want to try keto for a little bit and I’m like, “You know what? I feel awful. It doesn’t work for me. I don’t like it. I feel heavy,” whatever, we can try something else. That’s why I like small, little decisions. The worst thing is to sit in indecision. It feels comfortable, but it is not helping. It is adding to our mental clutter. It is adding to our baseline stress, and it’s keeping us inaction. We want to move forward, for good or bad. We have to pick a road and start walking down. And if it’s not the right one, then we try something else. OK?

So, if we try keto and it doesn’t work, we try something else. If we try fasting and it doesn’t work, we try something else. We just have to start something. Try something.

And so, if a whole meal plan feels unreachable to you right now, it’s just not something you can do, pick one small thing. “I’m gonna have less sugar here. I’m gonna not put sugar in my coffee. I’m gonna, whatever it is—one small little thing.” We want to break the cycle of indecision, and that is gonna help get the ball of momentum rolling.

OK, I hope that was helpful. Just one little small step. OK, that’s your homework for the week. Pick one thing. Just one thing. These will help build our confidence. It’ll teach our brain that the sky is not gonna fall when we decide something, and then it’s gonna help us make bigger decisions later.

If you want to start doing some of the decision boutique things, I love it. You can look it up. It’s amazing. I think it’s so fun. Just experiment. See what you can do. All right, if this is helpful, please share with a friend. I would love if you would review and rate the podcast. That would be super helpful. We had a few thousand downloads last year, and that’s really exciting. So, if you are enjoying what you’re listening to, please write in review, share with a friend. Until next week, bye guys!