Why do we stop trusting our own judgement?

Most of us make decisions without giving much thought to our ability to make them. We weigh things up, use the information we have, make judgements and move on. But when something feels particularly important to us, that process can start to change.

Decisions about relationships, work, family and things that matter to us naturally carry weight. We don’t just want to make a decision – we want to make the right one. As the pressure to get it right grows, the decision can gradually feel more personal.

We start questioning ourselves:

• Why am I finding this so difficult?
• Shouldn’t I know what to do?
• Why don’t I trust myself to decide?

At that point, the uncertainty is no longer only about the decision. It can begin to turn towards ourselves. And although feeling uncertain when faced with an important decision is not unusual, we need to ask: what can lead us from that uncertainty to questioning our own ability to make the decision?

When the stakes feel higher

When something matters to us, it makes sense that we give it more thought. But the more important the outcome feels, the more pressure we may place on ourselves to get the decision right. Part of that pressure comes from not knowing exactly how things will play out. We can consider what we know and draw on previous experience, but some things cannot be known until we’ve made the choice.

Sometimes there is another layer. It’s not only the possible outcome we’re concerned about, but what getting it wrong might say about our own judgement. We might find ourselves thinking, “I should have known”, or “I should have seen that coming”.

So, “I want to make a good decision” can gradually shift towards “I need to know that I’m making the right decision”, sending us looking for something many important decisions cannot give us: certainty.

Searching for the ‘right’ answer

Wanting to make a well-informed decision is entirely reasonable. But at some point, the task can begin to change. Instead of looking for enough information to make a judgement, we start looking for something that will make us feel certain our judgement is right.

We might revisit options, imagine different outcomes or search for more information that will make the answer feel clear. Underneath this can be an understandable assumption: “If this really is the right decision, surely I should feel more certain about it.”

The difficulty is that many meaningful decisions cannot offer that certainty in advance. We can think carefully about a decision, but some information only becomes available through experience.

Continuing to feel uncertain doesn’t necessarily mean we haven’t thought enough, missed something important or aren’t ready to decide. Sometimes the outcome itself is uncertain. Instead of asking, “How can I know for certain?”, it may be more helpful to ask, “Do I have enough information to make a decision?”

When uncertainty turns into checking

When the available information doesn’t provide the certainty we are looking for, our attention can turn inwards. We may start watching our own reactions as though they might provide the answer the situation cannot. When we do, fluctuations in how we feel from one day to the next can start to look like information about which decision we should make.

This doesn’t mean we should ignore our feelings, but there is a difference between taking them into account and repeatedly examining them for an answer they may not provide, because the closer we look, the more we may find to interpret.

If those reactions still don’t provide the clarity we hoped for, we may return to the decision. Going back over it can be useful when new information emerges, but checking can gradually become less about discovering anything new and more about trying to feel confident enough to decide. We may reach a tentative conclusion, only to reopen it when another doubt appears.

Doing so may bring some relief, or leave us feeling clearer for a while, making further checking tempting. But if this becomes our response to uncertainty, we have fewer opportunities to discover that we can make a considered judgement without resolving every doubt first.

Over time, checking for reassurance can therefore have the opposite effect to the one we intended: the more we feel we need to check before we can trust a decision, the harder it may become to trust ourselves to make one without checking.

Borrowing certainty from other people

When going over a decision ourselves still doesn’t leave us feeling sure enough, we may look to other people for confidence.

Advice can help when someone has experience we don’t or offers a different perspective. But there is a difference between asking for perspective and looking to someone else to make our uncertainty feel more manageable. We may feel more settled after hearing someone’s response, only to find ourselves wanting to ask again later.

There is nothing wrong with listening to other people. But relying on their confirmation can become unhelpful when we feel unable to decide without it, and the final judgement gradually feels less like our own.

Rebuilding trust in your own judgement

Trusting our own judgement doesn’t mean believing we will always make the right decision or feeling completely certain before making one. Some uncertainty may remain. Part of rebuilding that trust may involve recognising when we have considered what is reasonably available to us, and the next step is not to think more, but to decide.

What happens afterwards matters too. If the outcome isn’t what we hoped for, it can be tempting to treat that as confirmation of our earlier doubts. But an unwanted outcome does not necessarily mean the judgement itself was poor. Once we know how something turned out, we have information we didn’t have when we made the decision. Looking back with that knowledge can make another choice seem more obvious than it was at the time.

So then, perhaps trusting our judgement is less about always getting it right, and more about making a thoughtful choice, accepting what we cannot know in advance, and responding to what we learn afterwards.

How cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy may help

Cognitive behavioural hypnotherapy can provide a practical way of working with difficulties around decision-making and self-trust. Rather than telling someone what decision to make, therapy can help identify the thoughts, feelings, and behaviours that arise when they struggle to trust their judgement, along with assumptions that may influence how they respond.

Where appropriate, these assumptions can be explored through behavioural experiments. For example, someone who believes they need to keep checking before trusting their own judgement might reduce that checking in a lower-stakes situation and observe what happens. Other skills can be practised too, such as noticing the urge to seek reassurance without acting on it immediately.

Hypnosis can support this work through focused attention and imagination. Someone might mentally rehearse reaching a decision, noticing uncertainty without immediately trying to resolve it, and continuing with what they have chosen.

Over time, experiences like these may help build greater trust in making considered decisions without needing certainty first.