The problem with feelings I watched someone pull an entire product from their roadmap last week because they had a bad morning. Not because the market had changed. Not because the numbers shifted. They just woke up grumpy, felt uncertain about it, and decided it was a bad idea. Two weeks earlier, they'd been excited about the same thing. This happens constantly. I see it in London, I see it with people I work with at ALIRA, and I see it in every conversation where someone tells me they're not sure about a decision anymore. Usually what they mean is they don't feel sure anymore. There's a difference. Feeling uncertain is not the same as the thing being uncertain. Feeling tired does not mean the idea is bad. Feeling anxious does not mean you shouldn't do it. Your emotional state on a given day is one data point. It should not be the deciding factor. Why we do this Our brains are lazy. Making decisions feels hard, so we use emotions as a shortcut. If something feels right, we assume it is right. If it feels wrong, we assume it's wrong. It's fast. It requires almost no thinking. The problem is that your emotions are influenced by everything. Did you sleep badly? Did you have a difficult client call? Is there geopolitical uncertainty affecting your industry? Did you scroll through social media for twenty minutes? All of these things move your emotional needle. None of them are actually relevant to whether your decision is sound. I've seen people spooked by market volatility make terrible calls. When oil prices swing on Iran ceasefire news, when Meta's reputation takes a hit from a security breach, when loan interest caps get announced, people feel the instability. It's real instability in the broader world. But it doesn't necessarily affect your specific business decision. Yet the feeling of instability is so strong that it floods into every choice. Airlines are cutting flights and hiking fares right now because fuel costs are genuinely rising. That's real. But if you're running a consultancy, or a software business, or anything not directly exposed to jet fuel, you're feeling their crisis without experiencing it. And that feeling can make you tighten your spending, hold back on hiring, or cancel plans that would actually be fine. You're reacting to the emotional weather, not to your actual situation. How to separate the two You need a decision framework. Not something complicated. Something you can actually use on a Tuesday afternoon when you're doubting everything. Here's what works: before you change your mind about something, write down the three things that would have to be true for this decision to be wrong. Not feelings. Facts. Real changes in your situation. Let's say you decided three months ago to hire someone. Now you're nervous. Write it down. What would have to happen? Revenue would have to drop below X figure. Your main client would have to leave. The market for your product would have to collapse. Be specific. Use actual numbers. Now ask yourself: has any of that actually happened? Or do you just feel uncertain today? If nothing has actually changed, the decision hasn't changed. Your job is to hold the line. This is harder than it sounds because feelings are loud. Feelings are immediate. Facts are quiet and require you to actually look at data. But this is the difference between running something deliberately and just being pushed around by your own mood. I've watched people use a Decision Matrix when they're stuck. You write down the criteria that matter (cost, time, impact on revenue, whether it fits your strategy), you score each option against those criteria, and you let the matrix tell you what's true. It's not perfect, but it's infinitely better than deciding based on how you feel that afternoon. The discipline required The hard part is not the framework. The hard part is actually using it when you're feeling uncertain. Your brain will fight you. It will tell you that feelings are important, that your gut instinct matters, that you know something you can't articulate. Sometimes that's true. Intuition is real. But intuition is something you've learned from experience, and it should be testable. If you can't articulate why you think something is wrong, you're probably just feeling anxious. Set a rule for yourself now, before you need it. Decide that you won't change a major decision without writing down the actual reason. Not the feeling. The reason. What changed? What data shifted? What did you learn that you didn't know before? If the answer is nothing, you already have your answer. I've seen people save 15-20 hours a month just by stopping the cycle of rethinking decisions they've already made. They stop second-guessing, they stop cycling through the same options, they stop asking the same people for reassurance. They commit to the decision and move forward. That time goes into actually building things instead of being stuck in your own head. What to do this week Pick one decision you've been uncertain about lately. Not a tiny one. Something that matters to your business. Write down the three specific, factual things that would have to happen for that decision to be wrong. Check whether any of them have actually happened. If not, commit to the decision for the next four weeks without revisiting it. Your job is to gather real evidence, not to manage your feelings. Second, the next time you feel like changing your mind about something, pause. Write down what actually changed, not how you feel. Be ruthless about distinguishing between the two. You'll be surprised how often nothing has changed at all. Third, stop checking in with people about decisions you've already made. That's just seeking reassurance, and reassurance is not data. You already know what you think. You're just hoping someone else will tell you it's okay to feel different.