From a workshop for the Histadrut union of practical engineers and technicians, March 2026

The Fear of Making Decisions

Written: מרץ 2026Updated: 15.10.2026עברית

Before we start: which decision are you putting off right now?

Most of us have one decision waiting. Sometimes for a week, sometimes for half a year.

It might be a career move: a new role, a negotiation, a resignation. It might be about money: an investment, a purchase, a funding round. It might be at home: a conversation you keep deferring, a boundary not yet set, a commitment. Or something else entirely.

Personal exercise, step 1: Write down, in one sentence, the decision you are putting off. On paper or on your phone. No need to explain why. We will come back to it throughout this article, and by the end it will have a first step.

Fear is not the problem. It is information

Most people treat fear as a fault to be worked around. I suggest reading it differently: fear points to what matters to you. Listen to it instead of running from it, and it gives you direction.

This is not a private feeling. In HSBC's 2024 survey of 17,555 respondents in 12 markets, 50% of the general public said they often regret opportunities they did not take [1][2]. Among business leaders, 42% said making decisions feels uncomfortable, so they tend to put off thinking about them for as long as possible [1][2].

In other words, the problem is not a shortage of decisions to make. Uncertainty leads us to delay, to consult endlessly, and to miss the moment.

The five fears that hold us back

Each fear sounds different in your head, and each one stops you in a different way.

You don't have to pick just one. Most people carry two or three at once.

Procrastination is not laziness

Procrastination is fear wearing a "no time" costume. The things we tell ourselves sound reasonable. What lies underneath is usually simpler.

Personal exercise, step 2: Write the sentence you tell yourself about your decision. Now replace it with what is really going on, in the first person and without softening it.

Your body knows before your mind does

Fear shows up in the body before the mind puts it into words. Three signals recur:

• Your breath gets shorter before a conversation, an email or a decision. Three deep breaths bring your thinking back online.
• Your heart pounds. It is not the enemy. It is a sign that something important is on the table.
• Your stomach tightens. This is the most precise signal. Ask yourself: "What is worrying me?"

The other side's fear

Almost every decision, business or personal, is in practice a negotiation: with a partner, a manager, a client, or yourself. Good negotiators don't rely on luck. Sound management decisions rest on skills, and those skills can be learned. When I work with leaders, I bring field experience and tools from the Harvard negotiation method. Here is one of them, as a taste.

This tool neutralizes the fear of the other side's power. Read it in three layers, for example in a request for a raise:

1. The position, what is said out loud: "I can't approve the raise."
2. The interest, what is needed underneath: "We can't go over this budget."
3. The fear, what they worry will happen if they agree: "The whole team will ask for the same."

The lock opens at the third layer. Resolve the other side's fear, and you get your position.

The exercise: four questions, ninety seconds

How do you decide without certainty? Answer four questions, in this order, within ninety seconds.

1. What is the worst that could happen? Write it down. Most of the time it is less terrible than you imagined.
2. What would I do if it happened? If you have an answer, that is a sign you can decide now.
3. What will I never know if I don't act? That is the price of indecision. It is almost always higher than it looks.
4. What is the smallest step I could take tomorrow? Not the big decision. The step that gets you unstuck.

An answer to three out of four is enough. You don't need to wait until you feel 100% ready.

Personal exercise, step 3: Fill in the page below for the decision you wrote at the start.

In the workshop we did this in pairs, and you can too: one person presents the decision in sixty seconds, the other asks the four questions, then you switch.

AI: a thinking partner, not a magician

AI tools can surface angles you haven't seen. Two questions worth running tonight:

• "The decision on my table: [the decision]. What three fears are hiding here, and what question should I ask myself about each one?"
• "What are the five strongest arguments against this decision?"

The tool sheds light. The decision is always yours.

From here to the end of the month

• In the next 24 hours: Write one line. "The decision I'm putting off is ____, and the fear is ____."
• This week: Go through the four questions, and write your answers on a single page.
• By the end of the month: Take one step. Not the big decision, the small step that gets you unstuck.

Instead of a summary

The fear won't go away. But you can move forward while it is still in the room. Fear is not the problem. The information it carries is the lever.

At Maya Shnur Advisory, I work with leadership teams and boards at the moments when an important decision is waiting. maya-shnur-advisory.com