Fear of making decisions this significant doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you understand what’s at stake.
What If You Make the Wrong Choice?
There’s a specific kind of fear that shows up when you’re on the verge of a real shift in your business.
It’s not loud or dramatic. It’s quiet. Heavy. It’s the constant, looping whisper in the back of your mind: “What if I make the wrong choice? What if I try this and fail? What if I make things worse?”
It’s the fear of the unknown battling the very real pain of the known. And it is utterly paralysing.
"What If We're Beyond Help?"
In a recent conversation, a founder told our own founder, Justine, that she knew she couldn’t keep going as she was. The burnout was too deep, the systems were too broken. But every time she considered a change, she froze.
“I’m just scared,” she told Justine, her voice quiet. “What if we’re beyond help?”
That fear is the loneliest place a founder can be. It’s where you obsess over everything that could go wrong if you make a change, while ignoring everything that is already going wrong by staying exactly the same.
Why A Fear of Making Decisions Keeps You Stuck
The truth is, we have been conditioned to see risk as taking action. But for a founder in a business that is no longer serving them, the equation is flipped.
The real risk isn’t failing at something new. The real risk is succeeding at staying stuck.
It’s the risk of waking up in one year, or five, in the exact same place: just as tired, just as overwhelmed, with a business that still demands everything from you and a life that feels like it’s on hold. That isn’t a “what if” … it’s a certainty, if nothing changes.
This fear of making decisions isn’t irrational, it’s your brain trying to protect you from loss. When you’ve built something valuable, every major choice carries real weight. The fear isn’t the problem. It’s what the fear prevents you from seeing.
A Better Question to Ask Yourself
Fear loves to ask, “What if it doesn’t work?” It’s a paralysing, dead-end question.
So the next time that whisper starts, don’t argue with it. Don’t ignore it. Just answer it with a better, more powerful question:
“But what is the cost of staying right where I am?”
Get specific. What does your health look like in a year? Your relationships? Your passion for the business? What moments with your family will you miss?
The fear of moving forward might not disappear. But when the fear of staying stuck finally becomes bigger, clarity appears alongside it.
Fear Doesn't Have to Disappear for You to Move
If you’re wrestling with your own version of that fear, here’s what we want you to know: the worst-case scenario isn’t that you’ll try something and it won’t work. The worst-case scenario is that you’ll look up in five years and realise nothing has changed at all.
You don’t need to be fearless to take the next step. You just have to decide that your future is more important than your fear.
Fear doesn’t have to disappear. It just has to stop being in charge.
The Founder Who Was Beyond Help?
That same founder who quietly asked us, “What if we’re beyond help?”, the one paralysed by the fear of making the wrong choice … sent us a photo a few months later.
It wasn’t a picture of a sales chart or a completed project.
It was a picture of her son at his soccer game on a Tuesday afternoon. The note was simple: “Just because I could.”
Where is she now?
She’s not “beyond help.” She’s reclaimed 15 hours a week.
Her team now runs their own weekly operational meetings. She isn’t invited, and she doesn’t need to be. They solve problems she never even hears about.
She’s no longer the chief firefighter. Her time is spent on the two things only she can do: mentoring her senior team members and developing the new service line that she’d been dreaming about for years but never had the headspace to build.
Last week, she booked a family holiday for a month from now. And for the first time, she isn’t dreading the mountain of work she’ll come back to.
She’s proof that the biggest risk wasn’t making the wrong choice. The biggest risk was staying right where she was.
She didn’t conquer her fear of making decisions by becoming fearless. She made the decision anyway. Knowing it might be wrong, knowing it might be hard, knowing she might need help.
Ready for a Moment of Clarity?
This is a heavy topic, and the first step toward moving through fear is getting a clear, objective picture of your situation.
The Visionary Reset Quiz is designed to do just that.
Think of this as a moment to breathe. No follow-up calls, no pressure. Just a clear picture of what’s going on in your business. It’s a diagnostic that will pinpoint the exact bottleneck draining your energy, so you know exactly where to focus first.
FAQs
Why can't I decide even when I know things need to change?
Because knowing something needs to change and feeling safe enough to change it are two completely different things.
You’re not stuck because you can’t see the problem. You’re stuck because making the decision feels like stepping off a cliff, and your brain is doing exactly what it’s designed to do: keep you alive.
Here’s what’s really happening:
You’ve built something that works …. at a cost.
It’s exhausting, unsustainable, and increasingly painful. But it’s YOURS. You know how to manage this version of hard. You’ve survived it this far. The fear isn’t about the decision itself, it’s about losing your grip on the only version of your business you’ve ever known how to control.
The decision feels permanent.
Even though logically you know you can course-correct, emotionally it feels like once you choose, you’re locked in. What if you hire someone and they don’t work out? What if you change your model and clients leave? What if you step back and everything falls apart?
Your fear isn’t irrational. It’s that your brain is treating every big decision like it’s irreversible.
You’re afraid of who you’ll have to become.
This is the one most business owners don’t say out loud. Making this decision means admitting you can’t do it all anymore. It means letting go of being the person with all the answers. It means becoming a different kind of leader, and you’re not sure you know how to be that person yet.
Research shows that fear of making decisions often stems not from the choice itself, but from anxiety about whether the outcome will be better than the current situation. Even when the current situation is painful.
The thing is: not deciding IS deciding.
Every day you stay frozen, you’re choosing to keep things exactly as they are. The weight you’re carrying, the exhaustion, the isolation … that’s the result of the decision you’ve already made by not making one.
You can’t think your way out of this. You have to move through it.
And usually, that means having someone in your corner who isn’t emotionally attached to your fear. Someone who can help you see what you can’t see when you’re standing at the edge.
How do I make a decision when I'm this afraid?
You don’t wait for the fear to disappear. You make the decision with the fear sitting right there beside you.
The mistake most business owners make is thinking they need to feel confident before they act. But confidence doesn’t come before the decision, it comes after. After you’ve taken the first step. After you’ve survived the discomfort. After you’ve proven to yourself that you can handle what comes next.
Here’s what actually helps:
Make the smallest version of the decision first.
Fear of making decisions often comes from feeling like you have to commit to everything all at once. You don’t. You don’t have to hire a full leadership team tomorrow. You don’t have to rebuild your entire business model next week.
What’s the smallest step you can take that moves you in the right direction? That’s your decision. Just that one.
For most business owners, it’s having a conversation. Not committing to anything. Not signing contracts. Just talking to someone who understands what you’re carrying and can help you see options you can’t see when you’re standing in the middle of it.
Get the fear out of your head and onto paper.
Write down what you’re actually afraid will happen. Not vague worry, specific outcomes. “I’m afraid I’ll hire someone and they won’t understand my standards.” “I’m afraid clients will leave.” “I’m afraid I’ll lose control.“
Now write down: What would I do if that happened?
You’re more capable of handling hard things than your fear wants you to believe.
Talk to someone who’s not you.
When you’re paralysed by a decision, you need perspective you can’t generate on your own. Not someone who’ll tell you what to do, but someone who can ask the questions that cut through the noise.
The decision doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to be made.
Founders who act decisively and focus relentlessly give themselves the best chance at making a real impact. The key isn’t eliminating fear, it’s learning to move forward despite it.
You can course-correct later. You can adjust. You can change your mind. But you can’t do any of that while you’re standing still.
The question isn’t “What if I make the wrong choice?” The question is: “What if nothing changes?”
What's the one decision I need to make right now?
It’s the decision that frees you from making all the other decisions.
For most business owners, that decision is: Who can help me carry this?
Not what to delegate. Not which system to fix first. Not whether to pivot or scale or restructure.
Who.
Because once you have the right person in place … someone who can take ownership of operations, make decisions, and lift the weight, everything else becomes clearer.
You stop being the bottleneck. Decisions start flowing again. The paralysis breaks.
Because you finally have space to think, to lead.
Here’s how to know if that’s your decision:
Ask yourself: “If I had someone I trusted to handle the day-to-day, what would I finally be free to focus on?”
If you have an immediate answer (a clear vision of what you’d do with that space) then that’s your signal. The decision isn’t about fixing your business. It’s about getting the support that lets you lead it.
And if you can’t see that clearly on your own? That’s exactly when an outside perspective helps you find it.