Why Do I Keep Second-Guessing Myself? How to Start Trusting Your Own Decisions

Dr. Amirah B. Abdullah
4 hours ago
7 min read

Woman with long braids in a white dress stands on a sunlit tree-lined road, looking ahead in a calm mood.

You did it again, huh?

You were presented with an opportunity that required you to make a decision.

So—

You gathered the information.

You thought about what could happen.

Maybe you prayed about it, researched it, talked it through, or gave yourself time to consider what you really wanted.

And yet, here you are.

Still thinking.

Still reconsidering.

Still wondering whether there is one more thing you should know before you finally decide.

😶

Isn’t that exhausting?

There is so much life available to you.

There are opportunities you haven’t experienced yet. People you haven’t met. Places you haven’t gone. Ideas you haven’t tried.

There are ordinary Tuesdays that can surprise you and blessings from God you couldn’t have planned for yourself.

🙌🏾

….But experiencing any of it requires something remarkably unglamorous:

You have to make decisions.

Every day.

You have to decide what deserves your yes and what needs your no. What you’re going to try. What you’re going to leave alone. Where you’re going.

Who you’re becoming. What you’re willing to risk. What isn’t worth the cost.

Sometimes you will have plenty of time to decide.

Sometimes life will hand you a moment and expect an answer.

….And if every decision requires another opinion, another search, another round of thinking, another attempt to guarantee that you won’t regret what you choose, you can spend a lot of your life

preparing to live instead of living.

That’s the part I want us to talk about.

Because second-guessing yourself is not the absence of a decision.

It is something you are actively choosing to keep doing instead of deciding.

Now, sometimes that’s appropriate. New information matters. Wisdom matters. Prayer matters. Thoughtfulness matters. There are decisions that deserve more time, professional expertise, or counsel from people you trust.

But sometimes you already know enough.

And if you keep searching after you have what you need, perhaps the question isn’t:

What else do I need to know?

Perhaps it’s:

Why am I having such a hard time believing that I can choose?

Because you can research your options.

You can ask everybody you love.

You can make the prettiest pros-and-cons list known to humankind.

But eventually, somebody has to live your life.

And that somebody is you.

So let’s talk about how to hear yourself, make the decision, and keep moving—even when you can’t know exactly how everything will turn out.

First, Listen to Yourself

I am not going to tell you to “trust your gut” and blindly follow whatever you feel.

Listening to yourself and obeying every thought that crosses your mind are not the same thing.

Listening simply means that before everyone else’s voice becomes louder,

you give your own a chance to speak.

🤔What do you think?

🤔What do you want?

🤔What do you already know?

🤔What information are you actually missing?

🤔What are you afraid might happen if you choose?

….And if you removed everybody else’s expectations for a moment, what would you be leaning toward?

Sometimes those questions will reveal that you genuinely aren’t ready to decide.

Good.

Don’t.

Sometimes you need more information. Sometimes you need to sleep on it. Sometimes you need expertise. Sometimes you need to pray. Sometimes someone you trust can see something you can’t.

Sometimes waiting is wise.

Sometimes it’s avoidance.

You need enough honesty with yourself to know the difference.

If you can name what you’re waiting for—information, counsel, clarity, timing—go get what you need.

But if you’ve gathered everything you reasonably can and you’re still looking for something to make the decision risk-free, you may be waiting for something that doesn’t exist.

Woman with long braids sits at a wooden desk, holding a pen and gazing right, with laptop, notebook, candle, and plant in a calm room

Knowing Yourself Makes Choosing Yourself Easier

There was a time when I second-guessed myself more than I do now.

Looking back, I don’t think it was always because I didn’t trust myself.

Sometimes,

I didn’t really know what I wanted.

I knew my values. I knew how I was raised. I knew the foundational things about myself. But knowing facts about yourself and developing a relationship with yourself aren’t quite the same thing.

There was still a person inside of me saying:

👋🏾Hey. I’m here too.

👋🏾What about what I think?

👋🏾What about what I want?

….And sometimes listening to that person is uncomfortable, especially when you know you haven’t always been right to them.

You know when you’ve repeatedly overridden yourself.
You know when you’ve said yes while something in you was asking for a no.
You know when you’ve ignored what you wanted because admitting it would require you to do something about it.
You know when you’ve chosen what kept everybody else comfortable while creating friction inside yourself.

That doesn’t mean every inner desire is right or that every uncomfortable situation is wrong for you.

It means your voice deserves to be

part of the information you’re considering.

The better you know yourself—your values, your boundaries, your desires, your responsibilities, your faith, the person you’re becoming—the less every decision has to begin from zero.

You have something to measure it against.

🤔Does this fit?

🤔Does this move me toward the person I want to become?

🤔Is this friction telling me no, or is this the necessary discomfort of growth?

🤔Do I actually want this?

Sometimes the answer becomes clearer when you stop asking only, What is the right decision? and start asking:

What is the right decision for the life I am actually responsible for living?

You Don’t Need Everyone to Agree

Advice can be useful.

I ask for it too.

There are people whose perspectives matter to me because I trust them, they know me, they mean me well, or they have wisdom or expertise I don’t have.

But listening to someone doesn’t require handing them the decision.

That distinction matters.

Sometimes another person’s perspective helps you see something differently.

Beautiful.

Sometimes they tell you something you hadn’t considered.

Consider it.

Sometimes they disagree with you.

Okay.

You can listen without immediately abandoning what you thought before they started talking.

The goal isn’t to become someone who never needs anyone.

It’s to stop requiring everybody else’s agreement before you allow yourself to move.

There are decisions in your life that other people can advise you about but cannot make for you.

Eventually, their part ends.

And yours begins.

Woman with long braids and brown shoulder bag walks along a sunny, tree-lined sidewalk in a quiet neighborhood.

But What If I Make the Wrong Decision?

Then you make the wrong decision.

Congratulations.

You’re human.

Now:

🤔What did you learn?

I don’t mean that carelessly. Some decisions have serious consequences.

Those deserve appropriate time, professional expertise, wise counsel, prayer, research, or whatever responsible consideration the situation requires.

But many of the decisions we torture ourselves over are not irreversible.

….And sometimes fear of choosing incorrectly keeps us from discovering something that only choosing can teach us.

You cannot guarantee that every decision will produce the outcome you want.

Sometimes you will choose well and things still won’t work out.
Sometimes you’ll realize you missed something.
Sometimes you’ll wish you had listened to advice you ignored.
Sometimes you’ll discover that what you thought you wanted wasn’t actually for you.

And sometimes you’ll take the chance and think:

Thank God I did that.

All of it teaches you something.

My faith shapes the way I understand this. Romans 8:28 reminds me that God can work through the parts of life I would have chosen and the parts I wouldn’t.

I believe even decisions I wish I had made differently can become places where God teaches me, redirects me, matures me, or helps me understand something I couldn’t see before.

Getting something wrong doesn’t have to become evidence that you should never trust yourself again.

It can become

wisdom for the next decision.

You Cannot Think Your Way Into Self-Trust Forever

At some point, you need evidence.

And evidence comes from living.

You make a decision.

You see what happens.

You learn.

You adjust.

Then you make another one.

That’s how you begin discovering:

☺️I can make a thoughtful choice.

☺️I can handle uncertainty.

☺️I can recognize when something isn’t working.

☺️I can change my mind.

☺️I can recover from being wrong.

☺️I can ask for help.

☺️I can choose differently next time.

Self-trust doesn’t require a perfect track record.

It requires enough relationship with yourself to know that whatever happens next,

you will still be there to deal with it.

Woman writes in a spiral planner at a wooden desk with a mug, laptop, and phone in warm sunlight, calm and focused.

Before You Leave, Make One Decision

I’m not giving you ten tips.

I want you to do one thing.

Think of

one decision you’ve been overthinking that you already have enough information to make.

Not the medical decision you need to discuss with your doctor.

Not the contract you haven't reviewed.

Not the financial choice whose consequences you don’t understand.

Not something you genuinely need more information or time to consider.

I’m talking about

the other one.

The one that came to mind when you read that sentence.

Yep.

That one.

Listen to yourself.

Make the decision.

And then—

do one thing that makes the decision real.

✨Put it on the calendar.

✨Start the application.

✨Write the first page.

✨Make the reservation.

✨Cancel the thing.

✨Have the appropriate conversation.

✨Say yes.

✨Say no.

✨Create the plan.

Take the first reasonable step that belongs to the choice you just made.

You don’t have to know how the entire thing will unfold.

You just need to stop standing at the edge of a decision you’ve already made inside yourself.

Choose.

Then give life an opportunity to answer you back.

But What If You Can’t Hear Yourself?

This is where I want to leave you with something deeper.

Because maybe you tried.

Maybe you asked yourself what you wanted and genuinely didn’t know.

Or perhaps you did know—and immediately distrusted what you heard.

Maybe another person’s opinion still feels more credible than your own.

Maybe you’ve spent so much time overriding yourself that listening to yourself no longer feels natural.

If that’s where you are, I don’t think you need another article telling you to “just be confident.”

There may be a different question worth asking.

Not: