For all you second-guessers

I've mentioned before that I have trouble making decisions, and then once I make a decision, I usually end up second-guessing myself. It usually happens when I am making purchasing decisions - did I buy the right pair of shoes; did I choose the right tile for our new floors; should I have gotten that scarf in Italy (yes, I should have); I thought this would be a great gift when I bought it, but now I'm not sure...it goes on and on like this. I don't think this is that uncommon of a trait, especially in women (sorry to stereotype), but I feel like this is something that has really held me back in areas of my life.

But I kind of had a breakthrough this past weekend. I went to Santa Fe for a work conference, and I enjoyed the discussion topics because everything we talked about was so applicable in our personal lives, as well as our professional lives. One of the exercises was to choose a behavioral trait about yourself that you want to change, and to ask as many people in the room for advice in 5 minutes. Once you received that advice, the only thing you could say was "Thank you." This is where I received my breakthrough. I talked to an SMU professor who was there (go Ponies!) and this is what our conversation looked like:

Lav Lily: The thing I want to work on is making decisions more easily and not second-guessing myself.

(Professor asks a couple of questions that I can't really remember...)

Lav Lily: Well, I know this is a dumb example, but I'm about to replace the floors in my house, and I had selected tile, and now I think I made a bad decision, and so I think I should try and find different tile.

Professor: Hmmm. My wife and I replaced the floors in our house, but we never regretted it because it was such an improvement.

Lav Lily: Well, that's true, whatever I decide to do will definitely be an improvement...

Professor: When making a decision, think about if the end result is better than what you had, or if you are comparing it to what it could have been.

Lav Lily: [Light bulbs going off in head] Wow, that's really good! Thank you!

I know that sounds terribly simple, and it is. But simple ideas aren't always easy to implement. So I am starting out slowly but surely to think like this. And so I have decided to go with the original tile I picked out several weeks ago! I was so excited about that tile when I first brought home the samples, and it worked with our budget, so why am I worried? I'll tell you why - because I'm afraid that if I don't keep looking, I'm going to miss out on other options that could look better or be better priced. But I could spend forever and day searching and still not find the perfect tile, and the tile I picked out will be drastically better than our cheap laminate floors and ugly berber carpet. And I'll get the new floors by the end of November, so all in all it's a much better situation than a never-ending search.

Do any of you have this problem? Does this advice seem like it could help reduce second-guessing decisions?

Now if only I could decide where to eat lunch today...