You’re making dinner when your partner walks into the kitchen.
“My sister wants to know if we can come over Sunday.”
You’re trying to keep something from burning while looking for the lid to another pan.
“I don’t know.”
“She needs to know tonight.”
“Fine. Tell her yes.”
On Sunday morning, you remember that you already had something you wanted to do that afternoon.
This happens more often than you’d like. Someone asks you something while you’re doing something else, and you answer because the question is there. Later, when you have time to think, you realize you would have answered differently.
The next time it happens, you’re putting away groceries.
“Do you want to have dinner with Mark and Lena on Friday?”
You almost answer.
Instead you say, “Give me a minute. Let me finish this and look at Friday.”
Ten minutes later, you check your calendar. Friday is free, but Thursday is going to be long and you already have plans Saturday morning.
“No. I think I want to keep Friday open.”
Nothing about making decisions has changed. You haven’t become better at knowing what you want.
You’ve stopped requiring yourself to know while someone is standing there waiting for an answer.
If you often know what you wanted to say only afterward, try changing that condition before trying to become better at answering in the moment.
“Give me a minute.”
“Let me think about it.”
“Can I tell you tonight?”
The other person may prefer an immediate answer. Sometimes they may actually need one.
But when they don’t, you don’t have to make their waiting the condition under which you decide.