All of us at some point will face difficult decisions. Whether you are facing life’s big choices such as a change in your career or the feeling a change of location is what your family needs, or you just need help navigating modern life, more and more of us are suffering indecision and confusion.

We all want to make the right choices in life, especially if it will affect those around us, but for many it is far from an easy process.

While simple tricks such as making a list of pros and cons or talking it through with others can be a good place to start, it often won’t stop the sleepless nights.

But if you find it more difficult than normal, you are not alone. A new report, Confused Nation, by confused.com suggests the vast majority of us suffer crippling indecision at some point in our lifetime with many saying even little decisions can be hard to make, let alone life-changing ones.

So what can you do to help ease the stress and come to a conclusion that you are confident with?

If you are after some much needed advice watch our live web TV show where psychologist Dr Peter Collett will offer some clear and simple advice that can be used in every area of your life, from where to buy your next home to whether you should expand your family and how to make sense of the world around you. He will also help you figure out what decision making personality type you have and how you can take steps to make a confident choice.

And if you just can’t wait to find out which one you are, click here from Monday August 2nd to find out in time for the show: www.confusednation.co.uk

Dr Peter Collett joins us live on Tuesday 3rd August at 2.30pm to discuss decision making made easy.

Confused Nation Webchat

H: Vicky Letch, host

A: Darren Black, confused.com

B: Dr Peter Collett, psychologist

H: Hello and welcome to Life and Style, I’m Vicky Letch. Now the choice for today’s consumer is endless, from deciding on simple things like a bottle of water or choosing from a wide range of dishes on a menu, picking the right holiday or even deciding whether to stay in our jobs or not. The more choice we have it seems the more confused and indecisive we get. Now these are the main findings of a Confused Nation report, a major sociological study undertaken by the University of Bristol and confused.com which states nearly half of the UK have trouble even making the smallest of decisions. With a third of us admitting that we are very indecisive, what exactly are we so confused about, and how can we learn to start making decisions quickly, easily and with confidence? Well worry no more. Joining me now with a foolproof plan to turn you from an indecisive, battled Brit into a savvy decision maker is psychologist Dr Peter Collett and Darren Black from Confused.com, welcome to you both

A: Hi

H: Thank you very much for joining us. Can’t wait to get unconfuddled, but first let’s have a look and see what’s coming up on the show today. Now we’re going to take a look at the results of the Confused nation report. Psychologist Dr Peter Collett offers some practical advice on how you can avoid the stress and anxiety caused by indecision, and we tackle all of your questions live. Oh yes, now on that note don’t forget that we are totally live so if you have any questions or comments, all you have to do is pop them in the box on the screen and click submit, and if you want to Tweet all you have to do is use the # tag Studio Talk. We look forward to hearing from you. So let’s kick off Peter with you, sorry no Darren I’ve changed my mind. I’m so confused! That was an accident. Let’s start off with you and have a talk about the report. So we’re saying that half of us sya life is more confusing than it was ten years ago, is that accurate?

A: Yes absolutely, around 47% of people claim they say life is much more confusing now than it was just a mere decade ago. And when you think about it, what happened in the last decade, it’s pretty much been the introduction of the internet in pretty much every home in the UK, and that’s really brought with it a whole draft of extra choices, which has made life a little bit more confusing, so you’ve got sites such as Wikipedia making available all sorts of information to you. Sites such as Amazon with every product under the sun available to you as well, and of course with insurance, all different insurance providers available online providing quotes for everything conceivable as far as cars to caravans are concerned at the moment

H: Yes

A: So life’s got a little bit more confusing. We’ve had much more information to deal with over the last ten years

H: Absolutely. And because things are so much more accessible, we have all of this information now available at our fingertips, it can be really difficult to make the right choices, but I suppose Peter it would be dependent on where you live as well, that would affect the sort of decisions you have to make?

B: Well how confused you are depends on a whole host of factors, like whether you’re male or female, how old you are, and of course where you live. And it’s fair to say that as a kind of rough characterisation, if we were looking for the most and the least confused person in the UK, the most confused person would probably be say a 17 year old girl living in Cardiff, whereas the least would be a 60 year old man living in Edinburgh

H: Gosh that’s so interesting – so do you think it has something to do with age and experience and –

B: Absolutely. In fact there’s a counter-intuitive effect there because you’d expect that as people get older, they’ve got more to worry about. They don’t even understand how to use all these gizmos. In fact that’s not the case. It’s the youngsters who are much more concerned, much more confused than old people

H: Well I can’t wait to dig into this because I am quite a confused human being – all the time I would say, but do you know what this is about you so we actually took the streets and found out exactly what it is that’s making you all so confused. Take a look

Video Footage

Girl 1: “I get confused by the choice in restaurants. When you see the menu there’s whole lists of things, you like more than one thing and you can’t choose, it’s really difficult. So I particularly like it when you’ve got a set menu, so you don’t have to choose, you get bits of everything, that solves the problem, takes the choice out”

Girl 2: I recently came to the end of my mobile phone contract and had to get a new one, and I was like bombarded with all these different companies offering you different tariffs, different amounts of minutes, and then you had like different costs for handsets, different handsets, there was all these different handsets coming out so yes really hard decision to make, could really do with some help along those lines.”

Girl 3: “I’m never more confused than when I have to buy a new pair of jeans, and you walk into a shop and you’ve got rows and rows and rows of jeans. Different sizes, different colours, different styles – none of them fit anyway. It’s the worst job in the world.”

Man 1: “We have a son living with us as the moment whose just qualified but at the end of the pipeline there were no jobs, so he is the master chap with the computer, and whenever he gets my hands on the television set he leaves a DVD that he’s been watching in and when I turn on the television – nothing! I can’t get it without sort of sending for him and he’s not there”

Man 2: “I’m trying to buy a camera at the moment, but, it’s just… I don’t even know where to start. There’s so many options, so many brands, so many different types, I have no idea where to start so it’s actually proving a real headache for me at the moment.”

Man 3: “Well, I get confused about women. On the one side they want to be vulnerable, but they want to be in control. On the other side, they want to be cuddled, but they also want to be loved and I suppose like most men, basically I’m so different to them, but I need them. That’s what confuses me.

Girl 4: “I just think that men don’t put the effort in to figure it out, because we’re quite simple, actually. Just put the effort in to figure it out.”

Man 4: “I think the most confusing thing is, you’re looking to buy a new mobile phone, or you’re looking to buy a new TV, or you’re looking to buy broadband, how the hell do you know which is really the best? They all say they’re the best, but it’s utterly confusing. It’s frustrating, because you know that there’s a better deal out there, but how do you find the right one? I never have, I don’t know how you find the right one, and if you’ve got an answer to that it’s got to be good for all of us, hasn’t it?

H: Fantastic. Do you know what, it’s so interesting to actually talk to you out there and find out what it is that is confusing us all, and it’s so interesting to see that we all have the same woes, even the one about the jeans. I know it sounds daft, but I can literally spend the entire week thinking “What brand am I going to go for?” and then I think “Ooh, is this just me, being self-obsessed?” but no look, the whole nation worries about these things!

A: Yeah. Absolutely, I think that people really do - can be concerned about, one of the things people really can’t make decisions about, whenever they’re confronted with a whole load of choices…

H: Yeah

A: …a whole load of decision out there, it really does take it down to what is it that’s personal preference on that side…

H: Yeah, exactly

A: … and it’s about trying to make that decision, and it’s really, really hard.

H: So, Peter, why do you think it is that we are so confused?

B: Well, I think we’re going through a historical process, really. You know, think back several decades. In those days, our society was much more traditional, in a sense, our decisions were made for us. We followed in the footsteps of our parents and society made our decisions for us. It was to do with convention, habit, things like that. Nowadays, we live in a much more individualised society. There’s much more emphasis on personal choice and decision, responsibility – Goddammit! Psychologists are talking about self-actualisation! That’s another problem we’ve got to contend with!

H: Yeah.

B: So there’s a lot of focus on the individual. We’re now thinking a lot about ourselves. Now, as a consequence of that, we become self-conscious. We are now the locus of having to make decisions, not other people, and we’re bombarded.

H: Yeah.

B: Now, life has also, as we’ve just seen, become much more complicated. You know, objectively, we are confronted with enormous arrays of decisions to make, not only about jeans, but when we go to the supermarket…

H: Yes.

B: …or when we go for that matter into the restaurant. So it’s the coupling of those two factors that’s lead to this, effectively epidemic, of confusion.

H: Absolutely, and we will definitely go back to the restaurant one. I am someone who likes to dine out and sometimes it gives me a headache, I won’t lie to you. Another report also interestingly uncovered the fact that 4 in 10 of us lay awake fretting about these decisions. Now we can talk about this in quite a light-hearted, frilly way, but actually that then becomes quite a serious health problem, if you’re not getting sleep. That’s quite serious.

B: Yes, absolutely. Now, let’s not forget that one of the really critical findings from the project was that there’s an inverse relationship between how confused people are, and how happy they are. In other words, the more confused you are, the less happy you are. Now this suggests that there’s a consequence for well-being and health, and in fact that turns out to be the case.

H: Yeah.

B: The more confused you become, to the point where in fact it starts to affect your well-being, and sometimes leads on to things like depression.

H: Yeah. I can believe that, yeah.

B: Now, take the case of the person who lies awake at night. 42% or more of the people that we sampled actually experienced this. Now, I have to say, without attempting to be sexist, that this is something that’s much more common to women, and understandably because they’ve got many more responsibilities, and they tend to think about the more mundane, major issues, to do with things like the mortgage, insurance, cars and the like, but because they tend, by and large, to be responsible for things to do with the running of the household, they also are in to the procedural, kind of scheduling aspect of the household.

H: Yes.

B: “How am I going to get the kids back from the party? What are we going to do when we go on holiday?” It’s all to do with co-ordination…

H: Yeah

B: … and those are things that they fret about a lot.

H: Yes. I would definitely say you are bang on with that one. Now, when we talk about confused people, there are actually different categories of being confused. Can you run us through those?

B: Well, what’s emerged from the research is a kind of rough typology of different kinds of people, and one of the…the first one, right at the top, and they all have – all these five types begin with “f” – is “The Floater”

H: Yes

B: Rather like a floating voter. Somebody who is never quite sure which way to go, partly because they can’t make a distinction, they can’t see the difference between, say, the two parties concerned or the two jeans. “Oh my God. What am I going to do? These jeans look effectively the same to me” and it’s that that stultifies and obstructs them from making a choice. Then we have people who are “Flippers”. People who, when faced with a and b decide to go for a, sometimes quite quickly, and then think “Hmm…maybe b is better.”

H: Yes

B: And sometimes you find this in romance, you know. The lady decides she’s going to go with John, no Charlie would be better.

H: Yeah

B: I’m not so sure about Charlie, I think I’ll go back to John. OK? Then we have “The Flounder”. As the name suggests, it’s rather like the fish that lies at the bottom of the sea, keeping out of all trouble. Those are the people that don’t want to make any decisions at all.

H: Uh-huh

B: And I, I’m afraid, am one of those.

H: OK

B: Then we have “The Fixer”. The person who prioritises, works out the pros and cons, and just goes for it. Kind of Barak Obama in a way, you know? And finally, we’ve got “The Flooder”. Somebody who is so immersed, inundated, oppressed, with so many decisions to make, flooded with decisions, that they become immobilised, they just can’t do anything.

H: I think this is really interesting actually. Do you have any famous examples of people that fall into those categories?

B: Yes, of course, there are all kinds of people. I mean, the classic Flipper, I think, is Liz and Richard Burton.

H: Yes!

B: They got married, and then they separated…

H: Yes

B: …and then they married again.

H: Yes

B: You often find this when you talk to people about their romances. I did some research years ago on marriage and I was just astounded to discover, how many people down at the registry office where marrying their ex-partner.

H: Yes. You see, it’s so interesting, I also think once you work out what category you’re in, it could then help you in future make better decisions, because once you work out how you process your thoughts and your choices and your decisions, surely then you can work out ways to do it in a more efficient way, once you know “Am I a Floater? I don’t know, I am going to seriously think about this.” Now, stay watching, because coming up we’ll be looking at how you can tackle your though process and decision making, so there you are.

BREAK

H: So if you’ve just joined me today we’re talking about a new report, commissioned by confused.com which has uncovered worrying evidence of a nation fast becoming stressed with the vast array of choice in life. We’ve had a really good chat about it so far, so I want to carry on. Peter, let’s take a look then about how people can tackle the problem of indecision. What can they actually do, what practical things can they do?

B: Well, there are several things that they can do and they’re all referred to on the website, which I’m sure you’re going to refer to later on. Now, the first finding, one of the really important findings that comes out of the research is the fact that there’s a relationship between how much you know about a subject and how confused you are about it, and in a sense, that’s not entirely surprising. But the consequence of that, for our purposes, is as follows. If you find that you’re confused about something, it sometimes means that you don’t have a full understanding of it. And the way to remedy that, clearly, is to investigate.

H: Yes

B: Invest a bit of effort and time, find out a little bit more. Go on the web, read the book, talk to people. Now talking to people is also another really important way of dealing with your dilemmas. Not only because it allows you to extract from them their understanding of the problem, and thereby enlighten yourself, but also because, it just so happens that when you talk about your problems, when you articulate them you hear yourself, for the first time sometimes, actually addressing the issue.

H: Yes. Do you think sometimes you can do too much of that sometimes, because I was – I’m going to confess to something – I was accused the other week of “over-sharing”. My friend said that because I share my inner monologue at all times, it gets to the point where I can’t make quite basic decisions on my own. “Toast or cornflakes? Toast or cornflakes? I know, I’ll phone my friend and find out.” Do you think you can get into that quandary where you do ask a little bit too much advice?

B: Well it depends what your reason for doing it is. Sometimes people do it because they don’t intend to make a decision. It’s a way of staving off the evil day when they’ve got to make a decision. In a way, you’ve got to say to yourself, “This is a process that I’m embarking on in order to make a decision”.

H: OK. So, investigate…

B: If you’re not doing that, that’s what you need to do.

H: Yes. OK. This is good, like personal therapy for me. I like it. So investigate, sharing the problem can help, what other things can you do?

B: Well, prioritising is a really important aspect of this. Now, what tends to happen, a al flooding, is that we’re just immersed in our problems, we can’t see our way through and in a way what we need to do is to find a technique for gaining control over these issues and I am a great believer in the fact that if you write things on paper, you can scratch them out, tick them off…

H: Yes

B: …circle them, and this is a way of finalising, addressing your relationship to them and sometimes, killing them off as it were.

H: Yes

B: So, how about this as a technique? Draw a line down the centre of a page, on one side write down all of those things that are bothering you that you can deal with. On the other side of the page, those things that are bothering you, but there’s nothing you can do about them. The weather, your ex-girlfriend who’s bad-mouthing you, her new boyfriend, blah, blah, blah. All those things. What do you do now? You take your pencil, and you scratch all those out.

H: Yes

B: Why? Because they’re not part of your agenda any more.

H: Yes

B: What do you do about the others? You don’t allow them just to form an amorphous mass, you say “OK, which is the one that requires my action immediately and what can I do about it and when?”

H: Yes

B: Until you prioritise, identify actions and say when you’re going to do it.

H: Perfect. What about anticipating?

B: Absolutely. That’s really, really important. You know, too much of the time we’re confused because we didn’t see the problem coming. And quite simply, the solution to that is to sit down, do a little thought experiment, say “OK, I’m in this situation now, I’ve got the job, I’ve got the girl...”

H: Yes

B: “…I’ve got the guy, but what could go wrong?” This is not an excuse to engage in meaningless fretting, which I’ll come to in a moment, it’s simply a way of saying “You know what? I could get surprised.” So you need to imagine, you need to image the future in order to address the set of contingencies as to what you’re likely to do.

H: OK

B: But fretting is another really important thing

H: Yes

B: I say “don’t fret”. Now that’s very easy, like “Don’t panic!” or whatever it is, you know. Whenever you say to people “Don’t do that”, they more likely do it.

H: They do the opposite, yes.

B: But, it’s really, really important when it comes to decision making, not to fret. You know we have the image of the poor housewife, lying in bed, fretting about what she’s going to do with her family. That’s the wrong thing to do. Why? Because it’s unbounded. What you need to do is to say “OK. I am going to do my worrying, but I’m only going to do it at a certain time…”

H: Yes

B: “…and in a certain place. I’m never, never going to do it when I’m lying in bed.”

H: Yes. Absolutely. So we’ve spoken about sharing, but what about expertise?

B: Well, expertise is the last of those and it’s absolutely critical, because it really comes back to confused.com

H: Yeah

B: Because you know, they are a repository of expertise. They’re the people that can say to you “OK, these are your issues, we’re going to tell you what your options are, because, nudge, nudge, because they’re ranked in a certain order…

H: Yes

B: …you’re going to be able to infer which one you should follow.

H: Brilliant!

B: They are the experts, so whenever we’ve got a problem, we should be looking for the expert. When it comes to price comparison, then of course we go to somewhere like confused.com

H: Yes

B: When it comes to something to do with romance, purpose in life, profession, we’ve got to look elsewhere, but always try to get hold of the opinions of people who really count, who can deliver good advice.

H: Brilliant! Talking of people that count, you do, and we want to hear from you, so coming up in part 3 of Life and Style, Darren and Peter will be answering your questions, live.

BREAK

H: OK, so welcome back, it’s now time to have a look at your questions, because we are live of course you’ve been sending them in, so are you ready for this gents? Let’s kick off then with a question from Psychologies magazine. It says “How we can help friends and relatives through a difficult decision?”

A: Peter?

B: Oh? Is it mine? Well, you’ve got a friend, they’ve got a problem. What can you do to help them out? Well, first of all and top of the list, what we need to do is to be there for them.

H: Yes

B: I mean, I know it sounds corny, but it’s really integral to be able to deliver any kind of assistance at all. So you need to not only be there for them, but you need to show them that you are there for them and that you support them and that you’re prepared to go the extra mile in order to help them. Now that, I’m going to tell you, is 50% of the problem solved.”

H: Yes

B: Because for the most part when we have problems, we feel lost. We flounder around thinking, what am I going to do? I feel unmoored, I can’t anchor myself properly, and clearly rather like a drowning person, we often cling on to somebody, but the moment we feel we have some kind of security, it makes us feel so much better, so a, or number 1, be there for them.

H: Yes

B: Show them that that’s the case. Secondly, listen. Don’t do the talking. First of all hear what they have to say, reflect what they have to say, ask questions if you don’t understand and try and summarise later on what their dilemma is. I’m not suggesting for a moment that you should come to a solution for them, rather like confused.com, I think we should really be in the business of saying “Do you know what? As I understand it, given what you’ve said, I reckon you’ve got three options.”

H: OK

B: Now, I remember years ago, years and years ago, when I was having problems with a girlfriend, I was in such a bad way. I didn’t know where I was, I kept talking to people and they were no help at all. I then went to a guy, the person you least expect and said to him “Do you know what? This is my problem”. And he listened, asked me a few questions and when I’d finished he said “You’ve got two alternatives. “ I said, “Really?” He said “Yes. You can either get on the phone and tell her it’s all over, or you can get on a plane and go and see her.” I said “Oh, you’re right. There isn’t a third is there? No. Those are the two options.”

H: What did you do?

B: No, no, wait. So then, so then he says to me…I say “Yep. OK. I think the plane’s the one”. No, no. First of all I said “I think you’re right”. So he said “No. Choose.” I said “Choose? You’ve got to be kidding! I can’t choose, it’s too quick!” He said “No. Choose now.” So I said “Go on the plane.” He said “When?” I said “I don’t know.” He said, “Go tomorrow”. And it was fantastic advice.

H: And you did?

B: Yeah.

H: Happy ending?

B: Well of course it ended happily, because I ended up eventually married to my wife.

H: Oh! Lovely! Do you know what, that leads on beautifully to Annabelle Wright’s question. She says “Given that we change as the years go on, how can we be certain of our romantic investments i.e.: our husbands?”

B: Well. Here’s your expert

A: And Peter hands that one over to me!

H: Yes

A: It’s a really, really good question, and it’s something that we can’t be honestly sure about at any one stage, but I think that’s the point. Whenever we invest time, and we invest emotions in a relationship, actually the two become one in some respects – to quote a Spice Girls song! But they move towards each other and you really embrace each other’s personas, and if it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. You will form a bond that isn’t unbreakable in some instances…

H: Yes

A:…but in those situations, invest, go into it with an open heart. Go into it and try it and see how it works. Don’t be scared to be hurt.

H: Yeah, absolutely. That is very good advice. I agree with that. Now this is one that actually effects me personally, all the time. This is from Tim, he says “Is there a cure for food envy?” When you go to a restaurant and as soon as your friend’s meal arrives, you regret your choice and you want what they have. Oh, I have it all the time.

A: Sadly, Tim, there is no cure for that.

H: No cure.

A: It’ uncureable. What’s worse is whenever you end up going there with a girlfriend, and you sit and you make a…you’re a…you know…for me personally, I can make a decision on a menu very, very easily. My girlfriend, not so much.

H: No

A: And then whenever you get your meal, she ends up eating half of what you’ve got as well. You’ve just got to accept that, that’s the way it’s going to go.

H: Yes

A: You’re always going to have food envy. The way I deal with it, is that if you see something you like, remember it and order it the next time, but you’ve got to be happy with what you’ve ordered this time.

H: Yeah, OK. The way I deal with it is exactly what your lady does and just pick off the plate of the person with me, whether I know them that well or not. This is from Dan L. He says “What is your first action when you are confused? That’s if you ever get confused.” You’re like non-confusing legends, you two now.

B: Well, I think he’s confused!

H: But what do you do? What’s the first thing you would do?

B: What? When you find yourself confused?

H: Yes

B: Well I would go back to those, the top tips that we’ve provided. I’d say to myself “Look, I find this very confusing.” I’d try and articulate what it is that I find confusing about it, because if you don’t do that, you can’t move forward.

H: Absolutely

B: You need to express it. You need to articulate what the confusion is. Then you can start to go down the list, saying “OK. What can I do? Can I investigate further? Can I talk to people? Can I address it in the context of other issues?”

H: Yes

B: “What’s my action plan? What’s my schedule?” And so on. But you know, what’s absolutely critical throughout all of this, is giving yourself the sensation that you’re in control of the problem and that the problem isn’t in control of you.

H: In control of you. Oh, I like it. I sort of ruined that tag line by joining in with you on the last couple of words.

B: It’s alright.

H: This one’s from Paul Fisher, thank you very much Paul. He says “A big part of the decisions I make is down to price, as like a lot of people, I’m on a budget right now so how can I be sure I’m getting the right price? Is there still a time and a place for haggling in today’s society?”

A: There absolutely is. Absolutely is. But I think that’s where you’ve got to come to confused.com

H: Yes.

A: For example, with the website, we do all that haggling for you, we do the negotiations with the partners and we’re the ones that bring you back the best price. But what’s really important and what’s really focused is that even though you’re on a budget, you shouldn’t be completely dominated by price. Price is still a very important factor in that, but look at what you get for your money. Look at the features, look at the benefits. If you’re buying anything, whether it’s insurance through the website, or whether you’re buying yourself a frozen meal at the supermarket, don’t always look for the cheapest option, look at the option that covers the best. Whether you get good value for your money, and whether you get what you actually want out of it. A lot of people buy on budget and that budget can constrain them and they end up not being fully satisfied with what they’ve purchased. Let it be a feature, but don’t let it be the overriding feature.

H: Brilliant. I’ll tell you what you two, thank you so much. I’m certainly less confused as a person, and that’s certainly no mean feat, so well done. Peter, any final thoughts from you before we say goodbye?

B: Yeah. I think that confusion is here to stay with us. This is not a passing fad. We’re not commenting on something that is just peculiar to today or something. It’s not like we’re discussing the election, we’re discussing a permanent feature that people are going to be in for the rest of their lives and for that reason I think, it’s really important that confused.com has actually alighted on it, as an issue. I think as a public service in a way, and I think we really need to be thinking quite seriously about the ways in which we can address these issues and move forward, and make our lives, not only more enjoyable, but also more meaningful.

H: Brilliant. Thank you so much to both of you. Well, I hope we’ve helped you out there. If you want to read more about the Confused Nation report, all you have to do is visit confusednation.co.uk and I’ll see you next time…I think…

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