I have a pattern I'm not proud of. When I have to make a big decision, buying a car, moving somewhere new, anything with real weight to it, I call people. A lot of people. I ask what they think. I lay out the options. I wait for someone to tell me I'm making a good choice.

Here's the part that took me embarrassingly long to notice. It never actually worked. I'd get off the phone feeling better for about twenty minutes, and then the doubt would creep back in, and I'd call the next person. And the next. My dad still brings up a certain iPad decision that took me so long to make it became a running joke in our family. I'll spare you the full story. Just know that I was young and it was bad.

I would sit frozen in the middle of decisions that should have taken an hour, dragging them out for days, driving everyone around me a little crazy in the process. And the whole time, I told myself I was just being thorough. Careful. Responsible.

I wasn't being careful. I was outsourcing something that was never anyone else's job to give me.

The Button Underneath the Pattern

I'm an Enneagram Eight, which means I lead strong, I take charge, and most of the time I like that about myself. I can walk into a room and make people feel like they belong there. That's a real strength, and I own it.

But every strength has a button underneath it, and mine is feeling stupid. Being seen as incapable is one of the most uncomfortable feelings I have. So when a big decision shows up, something with a real chance of being the wrong call, that button gets pressed hard. And my solution, for years, was to go find enough outside reassurance that I couldn't possibly be making a dumb choice.

The problem is, that kind of reassurance doesn't actually satisfy the thing underneath it. I could talk to ten people and get ten thumbs up, and it still wouldn't be enough, because the need was never really about information. I had all the information I needed after the second phone call. The need was about feeling okay in my own body while making the choice. And no amount of other people's opinions can give you that. Only you can give you that.

Co-Regulation Is Real. It's Also Not the Whole Job.

I want to be careful here, because I'm not telling you it's wrong to lean on people you trust. It isn't. There's a real thing called co-regulation, where being near a calm, steady person genuinely helps your own nervous system settle down. Babies need this from their parents to survive. Adults need it too, in marriages, in friendships, in good coaching relationships. Leaning on someone else's steadiness is not weakness. It's actually how humans are built.

The trouble starts when co-regulation becomes the entire plan. When you're not occasionally leaning on someone's steadiness, you're permanently outsourcing your own. When the goal quietly shifts from "I want support while I decide" to "I need someone else to make this feel safe enough for me to decide at all."

That's what I was doing. I wasn't looking for input anymore by the third or fourth phone call. I was looking for someone to hand me the calm I hadn't figured out how to give myself.

And here's what nobody tells you about that strategy. It's exhausting for everyone involved. It's exhausting for you, because the relief never lasts. And it's exhausting for the people you're calling, because you're quietly asking them to do a job that isn't theirs to do. It's not your spouse's job to make you feel confident. It's not your friend's job to make your anxiety disappear. It's not even your coach's job to make the uncertainty go away permanently. Support, yes. Rescue from your own regulation work, no.

What Actually Changed It

At some point, I had to admit the obvious thing. I could keep calling people forever and never actually feel ready, or I could learn to get myself to a calm enough place to make the call and live with it.

That meant learning to sit with the discomfort of not being one hundred percent certain, and choosing anyway. It meant noticing the moment I reached for my phone to ask one more person, and asking myself instead what I actually still needed to know, versus what I was really hoping someone else would give me. Most of the time, by that point, I already had every piece of information I needed. What I didn't have yet was the willingness to be the one who calmed myself down enough to use it.

That's self-regulation. Not the absence of doubt. Not some permanent state of confidence where big decisions stop feeling big. Just the ability to bring yourself back down to a place where you can think clearly and choose, even while some uncertainty is still sitting right there next to you.

Why This Matters Far Beyond Buying a Car

I see this pattern constantly with clients, and it rarely shows up as clearly as mine did with an iPad. It shows up as a woman who cannot make a decision about her marriage without her sister's approval first. A man who needs his business partner to reassure him five separate times before he'll sign anything. A mother who calls her adult daughter after every parenting choice, needing to hear she did it right.

None of these people are weak. Most of them are sharp, capable, thoughtful. But somewhere along the way, they learned that feeling okay was something other people handed to you, rather than something you learned to generate yourself. And so they keep reaching outward for a feeling that was only ever going to come from inside.

If this sounds like you, I want you to hear something clearly. Wanting support is not the problem. Needing someone else to permanently manage your nervous system so you can function is a different thing, and it's a heavier job than any one relationship was built to carry.

A Verse I Hold Onto Here

Paul wrote to Timothy, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline." (2 Timothy 1:7, NLT)

Self-discipline in that verse is not about willpower or gritting your teeth. It's closer to what we'd call a sound, steady mind. The ability to think clearly and act, even under pressure. Paul is saying that capacity was already given to you. It's not something you have to go find in someone else's approval. It's already yours, placed there, waiting for you to actually use it instead of handing the job to whoever picks up the phone.

A Practice for This Week

Notice the next time you reach for your phone to ask someone a question you've basically already asked, in some form, more than once. Before you send the text or make the call, pause for just a moment.

Ask yourself two things. What do I actually still need to know? And separately, what am I hoping this person will make me feel? If the honest answer to that second question is calm, or confident, or not stupid, that's your cue. That feeling is available to you without the phone call. It might take a few slow breaths and a decision to trust yourself. But it's there.

Then make the choice. Even an imperfect one. Especially an imperfect one. That's how the skill actually gets built.

You Don't Have to Do This Work Alone

If you read this and recognized yourself, the person who keeps dialing one more friend, one more parent, one more anyone, hoping they'll finally be the one to make you feel ready, I want you to know that pattern can change. It changed for me, and I still catch myself slipping back into it more often than I'd like to admit. Growth here isn't a straight line. But it is possible.

This is a lot of what individual coaching looks like with me. We figure out where you learned to outsource your own steadiness, and we build the muscle to bring yourself back down without needing someone else to do it for you.

If any part of this hit home, I'd love to talk. You can learn more about working with me and reach out through my page at smalleyinstitute.com/reagan-smalley, or text or call me at (719) 629-7238, or email me at [email protected] to get started.

What's the decision you've been outsourcing? Drop a comment below. Your honesty might be the exact thing someone else needs to read today.