The Trap of Outsourcing Your Decisions

Why it feels easier to let others decide for you—and how it quietly drains your confidence and power.

You’ve worked hard. You’re smart. You’re no stranger to making things happen.

So why does every next move in your career, relationships, new opportunity, or tough choice feel like you need a panel of advisors, a mentor’s blessing, or a family member’s approval before you can move forward?

Why do you catch yourself running decisions past everyone else… and still walking away unsure?

If you’ve been leaning on advice, input, and opinions a little more than you’d like to admit, you’re not alone. You might even tell yourself it’s smart. Wise. Responsible.

And yes — seeking counsel is often a good move.

But there’s a fine line between gathering wisdom and giving away your power.

For a lot of high-achieving professionals, that line gets crossed more often than they realize.

The Hidden Cost of Outsourcing Your Decisions

At first, asking for advice feels harmless — even helpful. You talk to your mentor about your next move. You ask a trusted colleague for their take. You float an idea past a friend.

But over time, a quiet shift happens.

Instead of seeking perspective, you start seeking permission.
Instead of wanting insight, you want certainty — someone to tell you the “right” answer.

Why?

Because high performers often carry a deep fear of making the wrong choice.

Of wasting time.
Of missing out.
Of blowing an opportunity.

So instead of trusting our gut, we collect input like armor.
As if enough opinions will protect us from failure.

The reality is, that strategy backfires.

The more you depend on others to validate your decisions, the shakier your confidence gets.

The more you poll the crowd, the harder it feels to hear your own voice.

The more you outsource your choices, the less you trust yourself.

It’s like chasing a moving target of certainty and every time you get close, it shifts.

Advice is a Mirror — Not a Map

None of this means advice is bad or that input is useless. In fact, wise counsel can be invaluable… when you know how to use it.

Think of advice like a mirror. It reflects things you might not see on your own. It helps you notice blind spots, patterns, possibilities.

But a mirror doesn’t tell you where to go. When you treat advice like a map — expecting it to direct your every step — you surrender your agency.

You follow someone else’s path instead of your own and no amount of outside guidance can replace the one thing only you have: the ability to choose

If You’ve Been Outsourcing Your Decisions…

Don’t beat yourself up. It’s a human response to uncertainty—and it’s one you can change. Disrupting this pattern doesn’t have to be dramatic and it doesn’t have to risk everything.

It just takes one small practice—one simple way to start checking in with yourself before you check out with others.

That’s exactly what we’ll unpack inside Thursday’s premium post: The Shift From Permission-Seeking to Self-Trust.

I’ll walk you through a simple, practical method to move from advice overload back to inner alignment—without blowing up your life.

If this felt like the truth to you… imagine what it’s like inside the full Get Untrapped™ experience. Upgrade for Thursday’s post + full archive