Help! I Feel Like I’ve Made the Wrong Decision

As I’m sure many of us did, I opened my Gmail inbox this morning to an onslaught of Cyber Monday sales and deals. Scrolling through my unread emails, a sale on Solly newborn baby wraps caught my eye. I remembered seeing a mom influencer who I admire on Instagram share about her Solly wrap in her stories the other day, and wondered whether I should check the deal. My mind wandered into a mental comparison as I tried to re-evaluate the wrap I had with my first kiddo and the new features of the Solly brand. 

While that example might seem very minor – I mean, aren’t all those wraps basically the same? – I’ve been thinking about whether to buy a new wrap all day! Oftentimes, it is our day-to-day reality as parents that these choices, whether big or small, can feel like a full time job especially when we’re questioning whether or not we’ve made the right decision. 

If you’ve found yourself in a situation where you’ve questioned or regretted your decision, wished you could do something different, but don’t know where to begin when it comes to changing your mind, we’re hoping to offer you some tools to get started with the skill of re-evaluating. 

As we’ve been talking about on the blog recently, a simple first step is to focus on regulating your emotions around the decision. It’s really hard to look at complex decisions thoughtfully when you’re in a heightened emotional state, especially if you’re frustrated or upset that you made a bad choice. Trust yourself in that when you made the original choice, you were trying to make the best decision for your family with the information you had. In reality, there are many decisions that could probably be a good fit for your family — with so many options out there, there’s really so such thing as a “bad thing” or the “best thing.” Take the brands of baby wraps, for example! Reminding yourself of this can sometimes be a useful way to manage your emotional natural reaction. It helps minimize the pressure we often feel to make perfect choices. With that in mind, instead of panicking, you can give yourself time to evaluate your past decision and whether or how you might want to change it. 

Once you’ve given yourself time to think, we suggest a few areas for consideration with questions to ask yourself. 

Evaluate  

• What’s my motivation for changing the decision?
  • Did something go wrong or not work out? If so, was it a major issue or something relatively minor? 
  • Did I feel like my decision was hasty, or was I dissatisfied with it in the first place? 
  • Did I observe a friend or an influencer doing something that looks better than what I chose? 
• Where does this rank on my list of priorities?
  • Is it a big deal? Is it on my list of important decisions? Is this category of high importance to me, or does it fall relatively low on my list? (Check out our post on Prioritizing Parenting Decisions for more details.) 
  • What is the impact of living with the decision I made, at least for a while? 
• What is the timeline of this decision?
  • Is it urgent, or do I have more time to think about it? 
  • Can I make a change quickly and with ease, or will it take a long time? Will I have to invest time, money, or other resources? 

Change 

• What do I want to do instead?
  • Is there a clear second option that I want to switch my decision to, or will I need to do additional research and sort through a variety of choices? 
  • What do I already know about this option (or options) and why is it more appealing to me than what I’m currently doing? 
  • What will it take to make this switch? Is it simple (such as buying a new product) or will it take multiple steps, effort, and time?
• What’s the big picture?
  • How does this decision fit into all the other things our family is doing right now?
  • Are there other aspects or decision areas that would also need to be changed, if I made this change?  
  • What thoughts does my spouse or co-parent have? Do they also feel like we should re-evaluate? Or might I be overreacting to something that we’ve agreed is of minor importance for our family? 

While this list is by no means comprehensive, and one or another of these questions or categories may be more or less impactful to consider for each unique decision, the key to organizing your re-evaluating process really is intentionality. Good decision making is about building a simple process where you can feel confident you’re doing the right thing for your family, instead of constantly feeling like you need to re-visit. In addition, utilizing other tools such as slowing down, regulating your emotional reaction, and referencing your list of priority areas can also come into play when re-evaluating a decision you’ve made. It’s usually not final if you feel like you’ve made the wrong choice, and it’s okay to step back and re-evaluate. 

Ultimately, this approach to what feels like a wrong decision can hopefully help lead you either to an increased feeling of peace and confidence in your choice, or a reasonable and well-thought out strategy for making a change.