018: Indecision vs Perfectionism: Which is keeping you stuck?

 
Indecision vs Perfectionism — podcast episode
 

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Show Notes

Lauren provides an update on her home renovation — sharing how they've been trying a bunch of different options for her kitchen layout. She thought she was being indecisive, but then realized it was a different culprit: perfectionism.

Lauren dives into the differences between perfectionism and indecision, and gives some examples of each, to help you determine which you struggle with, so you can problem-solve the best way to move forward and make decisions.

Key differences: Indecision often stems from fear, while perfectionism is rooted in control and a desire for flawlessness. Perfectionists are often indecisive because they fear less-than-perfect outcomes that don’t meet their standards, vision or expectations.

Lauren gives some other episode numbers to listen to if you struggle with indecision, and some tips for making faster decisions for when you struggle with perfectionism.

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Transcript

 Are you indecisive or are you a perfectionist? Is there a difference there? Tune into today's episode, as we dive into the differences between indecision and perfectionism and also how they're definitely related, so you can problem solve how to make your best decisions based on whether you're just being indecisive or whether you're being a perfectionist. Plus I have an update for you on our house renovation projects.

So stay tuned.

Intro: Welcome to the Anchored Decision Show. I'm your host, Lauren Black, the world's biggest overthinker turned decision coach, all by the grace of God. Now I'm on a mission to help you make easier decisions, discover God's will, and live with purpose. Tune in weekly to hear real life decision stories, expert insights, and faith based strategies to help you navigate your decisions with confidence. So ditch your pros and cons list and learn to make better decisions without asking your mom or losing another night of sleep. Let's go.

 So people have been asking me, how are your house renovations coming along? Well, they're not. We are working on plans for our kitchen still. And my dad came over the other day and said, what's the latest drama with your kitchen? Because honestly, every time we talk with him or other people, we have a new plan or idea for what we want. And I felt a little weird about it.

Like here I am helping others make decisions and I cannot, for the life of me, commit to one plan for our kitchen renovation. But then it hit me. It's not because of indecision. It's because of another energy sucking mind, controlling mind, draining tendency: perfectionism. So a little backstory for you and an update on our project. As you know, from episode 11, we're getting ready to remodel our house. We're doing a full kitchen renovation, floors, doors, some updates to the living room. And some of the problems that we're trying to solve with redoing our kitchen: first of all, it's super, super outdated and just really ugly. We have these like yellowish tile countertops that have some spots with black grout that no matter what I try to use, grout pens, and bleach, still can't get them to look clean and it just feels like even if my house is as tidy as possible, it still feels like I'm living in a dirty house. And I hate that feeling. Next one is it's super loud right up against our son's wall. So our older son, his bed is up against the wall that where our main row of cabinets are, and we do not have soft closed drawers and doors. So every time you open one of those doors, he wakes up. Or at least it disturbs him in his sleep. And when my husband has to get up super early for work. Carson wakes up and he hears stuff going on in the kitchen.

So, soft close drawers and doors should hopefully help with that. But, part of us wanted to explore thinking of like, okay, can we move the kitchen to a different space so that it's off that wall. Our kitchen is also decently enclosed. It has walls on two and a half sides, almost like three sides.

And so when everybody's in there, even if it's just our family, I'm trying to cook and we're like bumping into each other. They say that you should have 42 to 48 inches between countertops or between the counter and the wall. And ours is about 32 inches in some places. So it gets really claustrophobic when more than one person's trying to be in the space and cook and prep food.

And then when we're entertaining, it gets even worse because everyone gathers around the island, which is where we put the food. And so then it's even more enclosed. Then it gets really hot and loud because it's a smaller enclosed space. So we've got the oven and the stove going a lot of times that's right by the island. And it's just, no matter how much we crank down the AC, I feel like he gets so hot in there and I'm sweating as I entertain people. And then one other issue, that's not the biggest deal, but, you can't see the TV from the kitchen because it's not open floor plan. So for having people for a football game, or if I want to supervise what my kids are watching while I'm making dinner, then you can't see it from the kitchen. Or even if you're watching a movie, when I jump up and grab a snack. Not the biggest deal, but it still would be nice to be able to see a TV every once in a while from the kitchen. So we've been trying to solve these problems. And we've been exhausting, all options. So we've have looked at switching the dining room and the kitchen. But the dining room has a bunch of big windows and sliding glass doors. So it's not really feasible there, even though it's a bigger space.

We've considered taking down some side walls, removing the pantries. We have a fireplace that's in the living room and it's centered on our pantry wall behind the kitchen. So we're like, okay, do we leave the fireplace and get rid of the pantry? So it opens it a little bit, but then we've got this random, weird floating fireplace, just standing in the middle of the kitchen and living room. But looking at that, we were looking at switching from the island and peninsula to like one bigger island.

Maybe removing some of the windows in the dining room that we just put in a year ago. We're like, did we do that so that we can move the dining room and the kitchen switch them? So, point is we have been trying every option, and weren't finding anything that really met all of our needs and that really solved our problems. And we thought at one point that we had finally finalized our kitchen design, basically keeping the same footprint it has now, since nothing else seemed to be working. And we weren't crazy about that idea because it still didn't solve some of our problems, but we felt like nothing else was going to work.

And then we had a friend come over who's good at flipping houses, and he suggested something crazy that we hadn't even considered at the time. And that was to completely remove the fireplace and the whole wall between the living room and the kitchen. And I almost cried. Because I love our fireplace. We have this shell stone coquina fireplace that's just so unique. It's wood-burning — you don't find fireplaces like that in Florida. And that stone is just really, it's probably very expensive these days, first of all, and, just rare and unique and it's beautiful. And it is a little odd that when you're in the living room, it's the opposite wall of the TV. So if people are hanging out and you're watching TV, you're not even looking at the fireplace, but I do look at it every time I walk through my house and I love it. And at first I said, absolutely not. We are not removing the fireplace. But then we decided to mock things up. So again, go back to episode 11, if you're doing any house projects, because I mention there how to kind of mock things up or visualize things so that you can actually see what it would look like. And that was a complete game changer for making a decision of, do we open up the wall or not? Do we get rid of this beautiful fireplace? Like, what are my main goals? I had to go back to what my goals were for the space. What our goals are for our whole house. And, it made more sense and it ticked more boxes of what we were looking for to remove that wall that will make our kitchen so much more open. It'll feel just completely different if we remove that wall, have so much more space for entertaining for food prep. And yes, we're getting rid of a pantry, so we will have some kind of awkward space issues there, but we're adding a coffee bar and some bench seating in the corner of our dining room, so we can store some of the things that we don't use this much over there, and we'll have this new giant island that we can store things in.

So once I saw it and threw a few new, brilliant ideas of my own in, if I do say so myself, we realized this was the one. Now logistically speaking, will we be able to pull it off? I'm not sure. We're working on finding an architect or a contractor to give us some quotes on what we want done and praying it's not astronomical.

But I say all this to show you. What's the difference between indecision and perfectionism and which one were we dealing with here? So it may seem like in decision because we weren't committing to any one set plan. We'd go back and forth between ideas and haven't been able to make up our minds. But in reality, it's perfectionism. We are putting a good amount of time and money into this renovation. It's a one-time thing. We're not going to change things up in five years if we don't like what we choose. So it is worth it to us to explore every option until we find perfection. Okay. Maybe not like perfection, perfection, but until we find a solution that solves most of our issues with our current situation and is something we love and don't feel like we're just settling.

I'm in this home design and decor Facebook group and I can't tell you how many times I see people doing these two things. One, people will ask questions to the group like, "I'm having my house painted tomorrow. Or I have to decide by tomorrow, which countertop or which flooring, what do you suggest I go with?" And I mean, sometimes they're asking for colors and materials, they haven't even seen in person yet, and yet they need to pick it by like tomorrow. That is not going to get you something you're going to be happy with. And so then you see all these posts where people say things like this, "We rushed our decision. I absolutely hate it. Or I'm tearing up $30,000 worth of flooring to redo it. Or what can I do to make these countertops look less busy with this backsplash?" And honestly, sometimes this comes down to people go into these design spaces and they see a countertop sample that's eight inches wide with a color swatch that's two inches by three inches and one piece of the backsplash. And they're like, "wow, that looks great together". When in reality, once you see bigger swatches and you see the full countertop or you you've got this whole backsplash. It can look horrible together. So that's on their designers, honestly. And the general person might not know any better, so once again, that's why I suggest like mock it up. Go into Canva if you have to, it's a free design program. Go into even Instagram. You can take multiple photos and put it into an Instagram story. You don't have to post the story for anyone but yourself so that you can just see what things are going to look like. But back to indecision versus perfectionism. You just want to take your time with any permanent decisions.

So anyway, you see these people having these issues, and I don't want to be that person.

But back to the difference between indecision and perfectionism, let's take a look at what those could be. So indecision would be having the options in front of you already, but just not sure which one you want. So maybe on Monday you lean towards option A on Tuesday, you like B and on Wednesday C. Then you ask your mom and your sister and your friends and they all like different ones, so that doesn't help. Then you post to a Facebook group and some people loathe the one that you think you like the most and rave about the one you were about to pass on. So now you're even more confused.

On the other hand, perfectionism is seing option A, tweaking it several times, but it's still not right. So you try option B and tweak that a few times. But it's just not what you're looking for. So there's option C and D and E. You make lots of returns. You get more samples.

Are you starting to get the picture?

I'm actually going to give you a little quiz. Don't worry, it's not being graded, to see if you can detect whether these scenarios are indecision or perfectionism.

So 1: you're looking at dresses to wear for a wedding. You love the long green dress for its elegance, but the tea length blue dress is way easier to dance in and feels more you. Is that indecision or perfectionism? I would say that's indecision because you're not sure which option you prefer over the two and they both have different pros and cons.

Scenario 2: you're trying to choose a birthday gift for your mother-in-law. You consider getting her a nice bottle of wine, but how do you know which one she'll like? Or what about jewelry, but what if she doesn't like it and then feels obligated to wear it still? Or there's a spa gift card, but that feels so impersonal. Maybe garden supplies for her beautiful garden. But what if she already has everything she needs for her garden? Okay. So is that indecision or perfectionism? It might be a little bit of both, but definitely leans towards perfectionism. You're torn because you want the best option and don't want to settle for something sub par.

Alright, next one. You're planning a surprise retirement party for your mom and you spent hours looking at decorations on Amazon, reading reviews about them, debating which to choose. You have your cart filled with five different balloon arches, four different banner options, three cake stands, two cake toppers, and five different gift ideas. Is that indecision or perfectionism? It's definitely more perfectionism. You have multiple options, indicating you're looking for the perfect choice, and want to make sure your choices meet your expectations and are able to live up to the vision you had.

All right, and scenario 4: when choosing between cars, you love the trunk space of the minivan and how family-friendly it is with the sliding doors and all that space. But you love how high up you feel in the SUV. And it feels a little cooler to drive and less like a mommobile. Which side note I'm not bashing the mommobile - I drive a van and I love it. But do you think that was indecision or perfectionism? I'm going to call that one as indecision. You like both options and you are struggling to choose between them of which one you're going to like more.

So overall indecision and perfectionism can often go hand in hand. And usually perfectionists tend to be more indecisive because you want everything to be perfect and the best. So you agonize over which option that is. But let's dive into a little more of the differences between them.

Indecision is the inability to make a decision promptly. It often arises from fear: fear of making the wrong choice, fear of the consequences, fear of missing out on a better option. And this fear can be paralyzing. It leaves you stuck in a loop of just going back and forth and back and forth. Indecision is often rooted in a lack of confidence in your own judgment. People who struggle with indecision tend to over analyze every option and potential outcome. And this can lead to analysis paralysis where no decision is made, because you're just overwhelmed by the possibilities. Or maybe you're a people pleaser and you struggle to decide, because even if you have an option in mind, you're concerned about what others will think of it and if they'll be happy with that choice. And also indecision often stems from just not knowing what you want or what you think will provide the best outcome.

On the other hand, perfectionism often stems from knowing exactly what you want but struggling to find the solution that meets that expectation. So you want everything to be flawless. And so you set out in perfection of every detail. Perfectionists have very high standards for themselves and others. They're known to return things more often because the item didn't meet their expectations or standards, or maybe they purchased several in order to see which one is the best. And unlike indecision, which is driven by fear, perfectionism is driven by a desire for control and for excellence. Perfectionist believed that anything less than perfect is unacceptable. This mindset can be a strength, and it can also, as we've been seeing, be a weakness. Perfectionism as a strength can lead to high levels of achievement because perfectionists want perfection. They want to Excel and they're motivated by that, but it can also result in stress and burnout and a constant feeling of inadequacy, or it can take you forever to accomplish things, like my house renovation, because you want to find the best solution.

Perfectionist often struggle with delegating tasks because they don't think other people will live up to their expectations and do things to their standards.

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 So how can we overcome these challenges of indecision and perfectionism? First, I'd say, when you're struggling with a decision or you find yourself in a situation where there are a lot of decisions to be made like a home renovation, you need to evaluate whether you're dealing with indecision based out of a lack of self-confidence, or perfectionism, based off wanting to control and have a flawless execution. Then you can problem solve based off of what you're dealing with.

So for indecision I would love to dive into tips now, but honestly I have a whole podcast on decision-making, so I'm going to share a few episode numbers that will be extra helpful for you. These you can find in the show notes or just write it down real quick. So go back to listen to episode seven — that goes over how to overcome decision fatigue and make easier everyday decisions like what to eat, what to wear, what to pack for a trip, how to just kind of pick and go or how to set some parameters for yourself in order to make easier decisions. That was episode seven. For some of the bigger decisions, episode nine dives into how to research properly so you feel confident in your decisions. And episode 10 helps you to envision the outcome of your decision so you can picture how it will turn out, so whether that's buying a new home and envisioning yourself in it or choosing a career path or a different job or even house renovations. So those episodes are some stronger ones for helping you overcome a decision.

Now, if you're a perfectionist, I don't have as much content on that yet, but I advise you to first evaluate whether the thing you're torn on needs to be perfect. If it's just your mother-in-law's birthday gift or the retirement party for your mom, does that have to be absolute perfection? Really. Like who is going to notice all the little details that you're stressing over and care? And maybe you've got a perfectionist you're trying to please with some of these things, but honestly, in a year from now, are they going to really remember or care about those little things that you're stressing over? So pick and choose what you actually want to be perfect. My brother just got engaged, so we're starting to throw out ideas to help him and his future wife plan their wedding. And I reminded them that people don't remember little details from even weddings. I couldn't tell you what we ate at any wedding, except for three. One was my own wedding, which we obviously picked out the food together. I know what we ate at my wedding. Don't remember the appetizers actually, but I remember the main entree. One of the weddings I went to head Sonny's barbecue, which is a local barbecue place and it was awesome and delicious, and so that kind of stood out. And then my sister had Olive Garden. And there's actually a really funny story behind that because they didn't bring things plated at all. And so all of the family members got called into the kitchen to help dish up these plates of like adding the shrimp and adding the pasta. So of all the weddings I've gone to, only three of them I remember what the food was. So, certain unique things stand out, but overall, no one remembers years later. They remember the overall experience, they remember having fun and dancing. So, focus your time and energy on the things that you remember about other weddings and the things that are important to you. So, if it's a house renovation, if it's choosing a career, if it's deciding on a family vacation. Think about what's important to you, what you're going to remember, what you're going to care about, and put your perfectionism time and energy into just the most important details. Then let everything else go and just pick something and move on. It's going to be good enough.

Now, overall in these decisions when I'm telling you to not be a perfectionist on things, those are for especially smaller decisions, that are not permanent decisions. If you are planning a house renovation or purchasing a home or putting in a pool, things like that, I honestly think it's okay to be a perfectionist there. I would personally much rather spend six months planning and get it right than rush through those decisions in a month and have regrets. So, yes, you can still have regrets if you take six months to plan, but at least you can tell yourself, "Hey, I explored every option and took my time picking things out and did the best that I could," rather than having to say, "well, I was impatient and rushed through the decisions and I wish I had spent a little more time thinking things through and looking at full-sized samples or getting a bigger picture of what it would look like."

And, I was just talking with some friends that said, oh, that sounds like an absolute nightmare. I could not do that. They couldn't not spend months on end picking finishes, deciding a floor plan. They're the type that just go to Home Depot, grab one sample. "Yep. It's good." Pick and go. So it's all about finding what works for you. And if you are the perfectionist type, then I'd say it's better to take your time with those bigger, more permanent decisions, than to rush through things and have regrets.

So I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful to determine whether you are indecisive or a perfectionist and how you can move forward and make easier, more confident decisions in those things that you're facing.

I will see you back in likely two weeks since I have been cutting back a little bit on the podcast for summer. And I hope you all are having a great summer. And I would just love to hear from you if you enjoyed this episode. Just take a screenshot of it and post it to social media and tag me that really helps boost my show and helps me to connect with you.

So thanks for tuning in.

 Outro: Thanks for listening all the way through. If you want more content on making intentional faith based decisions, go through my playlist and download any relevant episodes. Hit subscribe, so you never miss an episode or head over to anchoreddecisions.com to find more decision making resources. See you next week for another episode.

Personal Decisions, Decision MakingLauren BlackCommitment bias, Perfectionism, Indecision, Indecision vs perfectionism, Home RenovationComment