Chronic decision fatigue arises from a lack of time, rather than from losing trust in one's inner knowing.

A person can come to a choice not only through analysis, but directly — as an embodied, sensory knowing.

By studying moments when they knew without doubt, a person builds a baseline for knowing.

"I don't know how to make decisions anymore. I don't trust myself."

She said it before she had fully sat down, and then reached straight for the remedy: time-management skills, a way to prioritize, something to cut through the fatigue of choosing.

"How can I know how to trust myself?" she asked. "I am stuck in decision fatigue. I need a matrix with criteria to evaluate my options on this project."

I asked her if I could ask a question; she agreed to try answering it with her eyes closed. "Can you remember a moment when you knew exactly what to do?"

She was quiet. Then: "This morning, when I picked my aubergines in my garden. I know exactly when they are ready. And I like to pick them with my eyes closed."

With your eyes closed, I said, how do you know?

"When I touch them, they're plump—the pores in the skin feel a little warmer, juicier, not as hard as when they're not fully ripe. And there's a scent coming through them; they smell different. When I open my eyes, I can see the most shimmering purple color, and my whole mouth remembers my grandmother's cooking, still warm in that earthen dish, the mud dish, we called it—the one she made everything in."

And then she adds, "My grandmother taught me about the garden and all the vegetables and the fruit, and the........

© Psychology Today