Why Women Struggle with Decision-Making (& How to Trust Yourself More)
Ever spent an embarrassing amount of time deciding what to order at a restaurant? Stared at your online shopping cart for days, second-guessing every item? Or maybe you’ve felt paralyzed trying to make a major life decision, like switching jobs or moving to a new city?
If so, you’re not alone. Women, in particular, tend to struggle with decision-making—whether it’s big or small. But why? And more importantly, how can we learn to trust ourselves more?
The Mental Load of Decision-Making
One major reason decision-making feels harder for women is the infamous mental load. Women are often the primary decision-makers in households, managing everything from meal planning to social calendars to remembering which brand of oat milk everyone in the house likes. (It’s the blue carton. Or wait, was it the green one?)
When your brain is juggling dozens of daily decisions, adding another choice—especially a big one—can feel overwhelming. The result? Decision fatigue, second-guessing, and the ever-popular analysis paralysis.
People-Pleasing & Social Conditioning
From a young age, women are subtly (and sometimes not-so-subtly) taught to prioritize others’ needs, seek external validation, and avoid rocking the boat. So, when faced with a decision, we’re often not just considering what we want—we’re calculating how it will impact everyone else around us.
Will this choice upset someone? Will people judge me? What if I make the “wrong” decision and regret it forever?
Cue the spiral of self-doubt.
Perfectionism & the Fear of Getting It Wrong
If you’ve ever thought, I’ll feel better once I’m 100% sure this is the right decision, congratulations, you might be a perfectionist! And perfectionism and decision-making? They go together like anxiety and late-night Google searches.
Perfectionism convinces us there’s a single “right” choice, and if we just analyze it enough, we’ll find it. But in reality, most decisions don’t have a perfect answer—just different paths with different outcomes. The pressure to not mess up can keep us stuck, avoiding decisions altogether.
How to Start Trusting Yourself More
1. Identify What You Want
Before seeking a second opinion (or a tenth), pause and ask: What do I want? It sounds simple, but when you’ve spent years outsourcing your decisions to others, tuning into your own desires takes practice. Try journaling or voice-memoing your thoughts before seeking input.
2. Reframe “Wrong” Decisions
There is no perfect choice. Every decision teaches you something. Instead of asking, What if I get it wrong?, try What will I learn from this choice? Mistakes aren’t proof that you can’t trust yourself—they’re proof that you’re growing.
3. Take Small, Low-Stakes Risks
Practice making quick, intuitive choices in areas that don’t have major consequences—like picking a coffee order or choosing a weekend activity without polling five people. Building trust in small ways makes the bigger decisions feel less daunting.
4. Listen to Your Body
Your body is constantly giving you clues about what feels right. If a decision makes you feel anxious but excited, it might be growth. If it makes you feel tense and restricted, it might be a sign to pause. Learning to read these signals can help you bypass overthinking.
5. Make Peace with Discomfort
No decision will come with a 100% guarantee of peace and certainty. Learning to tolerate the ugh of uncertainty is part of trusting yourself. The more you practice sitting with that discomfort, the less power it holds over you.
Women aren’t bad at making decisions—we’ve just been taught to doubt ourselves at every turn. The good news? Trusting yourself is a skill you can build. The more you practice making decisions based on your wants and needs, the easier it becomes to quiet the noise, release the fear, and move forward with confidence.
So, what’s one decision—big or small—you’ve been avoiding? Drop it in the comments, and let’s normalize trusting ourselves more.