2022-10-17 Asking for Reassuranc

Reassurance-seeking undercuts confidence, including confident decision-making.

In the face of uncertainty with a big decision, it’s natural to feel anxious. And anytime we’re anxious, it’s natural to want to stop feeling so anxious! The trouble is, this gut instinct to alleviate our anxiety shifts our focus from the real problem (making a decision) to the secondary problem of feeling bad.

When your main focus becomes feeling less anxious, a common coping strategy is to seek reassurance from other people — a spouse, best friend, coworker, even a child. And like most coping mechanisms, they unfortunately work.

If every time you feel anxious you immediately try and run away from it or eliminate it, your brain is understandably going to treat it like a threat the next time. And what happens when your brain perceives something is a threat? That’s right: it shoots you up with a bunch of anxiety. Cue the vicious cycles…

The problem with reassurance-seeking is that it tells your brain that the anxiety that goes along with making decisions is dangerous.

This means every time you face a decision that makes you even a little anxious, your brain is going to make you feel even more anxious.

If you’re telling yourself you’re confident, but then compulsively asking other people for reassurance, your mind is going to be skeptical and decisions will become more and more anxiety-producing.

On the other hand, if you’re willing to feel anxious and make a decision anyway (and live with it), you’re training your brain to see the anxiety that goes along with making decisions as no big deal. Which means you’ll feel increasingly confident making future decisions.

In short: If you want to feel confident in your decisions, you must be willing to play the long game. The better you get at tolerating short-term anxiety without seeking reassurance, the more long-term confidence you’ll build.