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No decision is right by itself
Plenty of extraordinary people lose years to the overthinking trap: second-guessing every move, gathering more information, and planning out every step of the path. It rests on one flawed belief, that the decision is what matters.
There are good decisions, built on clear logic and evidence, and bad ones, made in the heat of emotion with none. There are no right decisions. Whether a call turns out right depends on the daily effort that backs it.
Looking back over one person's own list of wrong decisions, most were really just inconsistent follow-through: the call was made, and then it was never supported with disciplined daily effort. Blaming the decision is always easier than holding yourself to the work that follows.
Why do people judge decisions by how they turn out?
Psychologists Jonathan Baron and John Hershey described this as outcome bias in a 1988 paper. In their experiments, people rated the same medical or gambling decision as better when it ended well and worse when it ended badly, even though the available information was identical. The bias tends to make people overrate lucky choices and condemn sound ones. Poker players describe the same trap as resulting.
Does gathering more information make decisions worse?
Psychologist Barry Schwartz and colleagues published a 2002 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology comparing maximizers, who search for the best possible option, with satisficers, who stop at one that is good enough. Maximizers tended to report lower happiness, more regret, and more depression on the scales used. They often achieved objectively slightly better results, such as higher starting salaries, but felt less satisfied with them. The extra search seemed to raise expectations faster than it raised outcomes.
How does follow-through change what a choice produces?
Peter Gollwitzer, a psychologist at New York University, studied what he called implementation intentions: specific plans in the form "when this happens, I will do that." A 2006 meta-analysis by Gollwitzer and Paschal Sheeran covering 94 studies found a medium-to-large effect on goal achievement. The plans work by tying the action to a cue, so the behavior starts without a fresh decision each time. This kind of structure applies the daily effort a choice depends on.