When my son was in elementary school, I put his clothes in the dryer every morning before I woke him up.
It was a survival tactic. Getting him out of bed had become a daily negotiation. He hated leaving his warm, “tozy” bed, and he told me so every single morning. So I flipped the script. His warm clothes waited next to his bed, and trading one “tozy” spot for another was an easy sell.
My son is what you’d call “difficult.” (He’s aware.) He has strong preferences and has never been shy about asserting them. As a young adult, that trait serves him well. As a kid, it meant almost every decision I made got second-guessed, and almost every second-guess turned into a standoff.
If you lead people, you know this feeling. Some days you just wish everyone would go along to get along. The second-guessing, revisiting, and negotiating are exhausting, and they cost more than you think.
Energy is the real currency
Every workweek is an endurance race. Monday through Friday you’re running a marathon: a few water stops, plenty of competition, and a lot on the line. Plus everything nobody puts on the course map: sore knees, cold rain, a Garmin that won’t sync.
Energy is what gets you through the tough meeting, the high-stakes proposal, the deck due Friday. When it runs low, you start making quiet trade-offs:
- You phone it in.
- You delay the decision.
- You reschedule until you “have time to focus.”
And the drain doesn’t stay at work. It follows you home and eats into your bigger goals for your family, your career, and yourself. Cue “revenge bedtime procrastination,” otherwise known as Netflix and that second Jack and Coke. Then you screw over your next-day self, who starts with even less in the tank.
Why second guessers hit so hard
Decision fatigue is real. Every choice draws from the same limited reserve, which is why so many leaders routinize small stuff like what to eat and wear. They’re saving their best thinking for what matters: strategy, vision, and execution when the path isn’t clear.
Now picture this. You weighed the options, made the call, and moved on. Then someone pushes back, and you’re dragged back to rethink a decision you already made.
That’s the hidden tax of second guessers. You pay for the same decision twice, in energy and in time you don’t have.
Know why they’re pushing back
People second-guess for three main reasons:
- Preference. They’d simply rather do it another way.
- Conviction. They believe strongly in an alternative, especially when the situation is ambiguous and no option is clearly best.
- Doubt. They aren’t confident in your leadership.
Diagnose the reason and you’ll know which response to use.
How to protect your decisions, and your energy
Get ahead of them. You know who your second guessers are. Before you announce a decision, anticipate their angle and decide how you’ll handle it. Don’t let their reaction be a surprise.
Speak with certainty. “I think we should,” “I believe this is right,” and “I’m pretty sure” all leave the door open, and second guessers walk right through it. Compare “I think we should hold the budget” with “We’re holding the budget.” Same decision. Very different invitation to argue. If doubt in your leadership is the issue, this is your first fix.
Kill the upspeak. When your voice rises at the end of a sentence, a statement sounds like a question. Questions invite questioning. Land your sentences. I picture spitting my words against the back wall. Gross, I know, but it keeps my delivery even.
Open the door before the decision, not after. If someone has real conviction about an alternative, bring them in while you’re still deciding. That’s when collaboration, compromise, and changing course are healthy. Once the decision is made, it’s made. Reopening it teaches people that pushing back works.
Find the creative win-win. When resistance comes from preference, don’t give up the decision. Change what comes with it. Find the thing they actually want and give them that instead.
My son still had to get out of bed every morning. That never changed. I just made sure his clothes were warm.
