The Why Behind the Decisions We Make

How do people make a decision? There’s no single formula or exact method that anyone follows as most decisions we make involve far too many variables to count. Factors such as our age, career, life experiences, trauma history, mental health, relationship status, responsibilities, financial situation, our children, and our relationships with others, all of these (and more) influence what decisions we make.

I don't believe we consciously think through every one of these factors every time. In fact, most of the time, those thoughts are fleeting, and we arrive at a decision that simply feels like the best fit for our needs in that moment. The brain functions like a powerful supercomputer, processing countless variables and potential consequences in seconds, before we even realize a decision has been made.

Heart vs. Mind: The Two Pathways

I know that some decisions I make, happen in a fraction of a second, while others are carefully considered choices I spend time analyzing and weighing before choosing a direction.

The quick decisions I make usually came from my intuition and feelings, more from the heart than from the mind. For instance, as someone with healthy boundaries, who is extraordinarily careful about who I interact with and allow into my space, I rarely, if ever, invite someone to my home the very first time I meet them. If I did make the decision to invite someone over, it means that in that moment, something deeper than logic had taken over, bypassing reasoning. That decision, guided by a sense of trust and safety that logic couldn’t fully explain, but my heart immediately recognized as something that felt familiar… like home, happened within a fleeting second. Clearly, it was driven by intuition and emotion rather than thought.

At the same time, there are decisions that demand deliberate thought and careful planning, like where I invest my money, how I save for my kids’ education, or how I plan for the future and my retirement. Those require research, strategy, and often the guidance of professionals, choices that are clearly driven more by my mind than by my heart.

I’ve always wondered how people arrive at a decision and why they choose the way they do. Sometimes, logic alone can’t explain it. Like the moments when I can’t fully explain my own choices, but I know my heart and mind have aligned, and that’s enough. The result is a decision I can live with.

However, some of the decisions are difficult, especially when you’re caught between a rock and a hard place or faced with unsolvable dilemmas. In those moments, you do the best you can with the limited choices and information you have, choosing what feels right and causes the least inner turmoil.

Once a decision is made, whether by us or by someone else, the next question we usually ask ourselves is “why?” Understanding the reasons behind a choice can sometimes feel even more important than the choice itself, because understanding the why often feels essential to making peace with the what.

Occam’s Razor

And this is where I want to introduce the concept of Occam’s razor. If you’ve never heard of it, Occam’s razor is a philosophical principle that suggests the simplest explanation is usually the closest to the truth.

To illustrate: if you experience heartburn, it’s most likely because you ate something spicy earlier, and most probably, not because you have oesophageal cancer.

We often overcomplicate situations by jumping to extreme explanations when, in reality, the most straightforward reason is often the truth.

The Simple Truths

For example, when someone ends a connection, the decision is usually driven by emotion rather than logic, made more with the heart than with the head (though, of course, there are exceptions). Instead of overanalyzing, when we apply Occam’s razor to to understand the reason behind that decision, the explanation often becomes much simpler than we tend to assume. The most straight forward reason might simply be that they just didn’t like the other person enough. And as unsatisfying or even hurtful as that might sound, that straightforward reason is often the truest one.

I truly believe that most of the time, people’s decisions don’t come with hidden agendas or complex motives. More often than not, the reasons are straightforward and simple. For instance, When I don’t like someone, I simply stop interacting with them, not out of malice or spite or any hidden motive, but because I have no real motivation to continue engaging. The same principle often applies to breakups as well. As I mentioned earlier, sometimes, it’s not about dramatic reasons or unresolved issues. We complicate things because we want the reason to be deeper than the simple truth. But if you apply Occam’s razor, they just didn’t want to continue the relationship.

This is just one example of many. Whenever I try to make sense of decisions that seem unusual or difficult to understand, I start by applying Occam’s razor first, to see if a simple explanation can account for them. If it can’t, then I begin exploring more complex possibilities. Even then, I try to stay as close as possible to the simplest plausible explanation on the spectrum.

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

Whatever explanations you come up with, for why someone else made the decision they did, or why you made yours, the feelings about what happened often remain the same. From a CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) perspective, thoughts come before feelings. In other words, the story you tell yourself about why something happened shapes how you feel about it.

So, if you tell yourself, “They just didn’t like me,” it’s going to feel very different from telling yourself, “They liked me more than they expected and weren’t ready for it.” The first explanation is the simplest one. The second is slightly more complex but still relatively straightforward. A third possibility could be that they simply have a preference you don’t match. For instance, they might be more drawn to a certain type of person or even a particular ethnic or cultural background. In other words, you're just not their type, and that, too, is still a relatively simple explanation.

Whatever you tell yourself, all of those reasons have everything to do with the person making that decision and nothing to do with you. Accepting that decision gracefully, however, is within your control.

In the end, decisions, whether ours or someone else’s, are rarely as complicated as we make them out to be. Most of the time, they’re not shaped by elaborate reasons or hidden motives. Every decision, whether made in a fraction of a second or after weeks of deliberation, is simply a reflection of where we are in that moment. It’s shaped by what we know, what we feel, what we’re capable of, and what we’re ready for.

Finding Clarity in Simplicity

Applying Occam’s razor can be a grounding reminder: the simplest explanation is often the truest one. And while there are situations where it might feel too simple to fully explain what happened, we’re not focusing on those today.

Most explanations of the choices people make don’t require deep decoding; their choices just need acceptance. And that acceptance is often what allows us to let go and grow, free ourselves from the endless cycle of overthinking, even when simple acceptance, or their decision, isn’t what we had hoped for then or what we’re hoping for in the near future.