Give me a decision to make and I’ll be happy with that choice for about five seconds before a plethora of arguments against my instinct will take over. I’m a world-class debater – but only against myself. This reflex has haunted me my whole life, applying to anything from going for a job as a cinema usher back in the ’90s (“You’ll get a spoiler every time the audience comes out of a screening”), to buying new shoes (“They won’t go with 90 per cent of your wardrobe”) or deciding to message a friend and catch up (“They’ll probably be busy”).

Sometimes small decisions can be just as paralysing as big ones. Credit: iStock Even choosing something from a cafe menu can be fraught. But why do I do this? Why don’t I end up buying the shoes, making that coffee date or trying the chicken burger? Well, experts have some ideas.

Protection mode is on At a very basic level, talking ourselves out of decisions is all thanks to our brains ging into survival mode. “Our brains are wired to scan for danger and to problem-solve,” says Dr Christine Raab, a Melbourne-based clinical psychologist. “Having made a decision, your brain is doing what it’s designed to do, which is to safety check.

It’s asking: is this actually going to be OK?” Decisions often push us outside our comfort zone, so our in-built desire to stay within the pack is triggered. “We have a tendency to want a sense of belonging and attachment to other people,” Raab says, whether that means .