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Don’t Be Ambivalent About Ambivalence


Ambivalence is a feeling that we all have experienced at one time or another in some important aspect of our lives.

I know I certainly have. But if you’re ambivalent often or in a lot of areas of your life, the feeling of ambivalence itself can actually destroy your quality of life more than you know.

Theoretically, if you had everything you could possibly want going for you, but were ambivalent about the decisions you make, particularly with respect to your life direction, no matter what you did have going for you, no matter what you choose to do, you could be dwelling on the fact that you should be doing something else.

Thus, no matter what kind of life you have made for yourself, being chronically ambivalent could ruin the quality of it all!

So let’s first acknowledge that we all have at least some degree of ambivalence.

Since life itself is such an extremely complex process, and certain aspects of it often get more complicated as they evolve, a certain amount of ambivalence is actually normal.  In fact, a tiny amount of ambivalence might even serve to protect you sometimes from being thoughtless about certain things that need to be reasoned out more carefully.  But the problem is with the degree that you allow yourself to operate under the all-too-common myth that there is one and only one absolutely right answer that will contain no shades of gray.

The myth continues when you believe that by being indecisive and holding out long enough, some indisputably certain and absolute answer will come to you. And when it does you fantasize it will come with the ironclad guarantee that you will never have any regrets, nor will you ever second-guess yourself. Since this standard is so incredibly high (not to mention cartoonishly black and white), it then follows that you will resist making tough decisions at all that you are the least bit ambivalent about. 

Some people actually have a fear of making decisions altogether.

If that’s you, it is likely you have many regrets about things that may have passed you by, simply because you didn’t act decisively when you had the opportunity to do so. If you think my statement that “ambivalence can ruin your life” is a little too strong, perhaps you may even take comfort in the ambivalence.

But my stand on ambivalence is rather unambivalent; to the extent that ambivalence exceeds prudent caution it will generally serve to hold you back; and that can be in any area of your life. Here are a few ways to attack this problem that I have offered for people who have ambivalence about love relationships in my book Can Your Relationship Be Saved, but these simple tips can be applied to absolutely any area in your life.

Remember that just about all of your important decisions are, to one extent or another educated guesses.

And most of them have factors that would pull you in the opposite direction.  After all, a decision without conflicting factors to one degree or another is simply a no-brainer.

Forget about certainty. The concept of certainty itself is a myth. Instead believe in yourself.  Hindsight as we all know at least intellectually by the cliché is 20/20. There are many things every one of us would do differently “if only we knew then what we know now.” But that’s never an option. So stop pretending it is! Where do you have unlimited power (even if at times you are not in touch with it) is in making changes that will affect you from today on, and for the rest of your life beginning right now. By focusing on your power you can start looking upon decisions not as burdens, but as empowering challenges.

Think of some significant important life choices you have made in the past: Recently or even a long time ago of which you are most proud. Make a list of them and continue to expand the list.  Make sure to include those choices that may have led to major life changes. Keep this list as a frame of reference that you can refer to for a shot of empowerment, anytime you find yourself thinking that you’re incapable of bypassing that ambivalence.

Regardless of which area of your life where you find yourself most ambivalent, you won’t move forward until you allow yourself to take charge and make the best decision you can with the information you have available to you.  So resolve not to waste another moment with the decision to not decide.

Read more posts by Michael S. Broder, Ph.D, a renowned psychologist, executive coach, bestselling author, continuing education seminar leader and popular speaker.

 

The online feature magazine, JenningsWire.com, is created by National PR Firm, Annie Jennings PR that specializes in providing book promotion services to self-published and traditionally published authors. Annie Jennings PR books authors, speakers and experts on major high impact radio talk interview shows, on local, regionally syndicated and national TV shows and on influential online media outlets and in prestigious print magazines and newspapers across the country.