The comfortable lie of doing nothing (and what to do about it)
Omission bias. It screws us over. Don't let it screw with you.
There are moments when you stand there: hands in your pockets, eyes darting around, waiting for life to sort itself out. You don’t make a move. You wait. Let the storm pass. Let someone else handle it. Maybe it’ll all fix itself. It’s easier, safer. And when it falls apart? At least you didn’t do anything wrong.
Welcome to the twisted comfort of omission bias. It’s that little trick your mind plays on you, making you believe that doing nothing is safer, cleaner, less of a mess. You hate your job, but you don’t make a move. Your relationship makes you miserable, or you hate where you live, but you ride it out. You’re lonely, your friends suck, and you want a life partner – but you sit back and wait for things to change. You think, "If I don’t act, I can’t screw it up." If you don’t hit the gas, you can’t crash the car. Right?
Wrong. Inaction isn’t innocent, and it isn’t free.
Why We Do Nothing
Doing nothing feels safer. If you make a decision and things don’t go well, what happens becomes your fault. But if you let it happen? At least the blame’s not yours. This feels easier. Safer. Less risky.
But omission bias is a trick your brain uses to protect you from regret. Unfortunately, our brains move too fast (by design) to think things through enough. If you slow down to think about it, the outcomes of your decisions have to do with way more than just your decisions. Lots of variables bouncing around in the world impact how things turn out. I mean… you’re great and everything, but you’re not all-powerful. Your choices don’t have that much control over the future. So, holding back out of fear of ruining everything isn’t really… rational.
How many times have you put off an important conversation with your romantic partner? Left that job application in your drafts because hitting send feels like a risk? Or let someone else make the decision because it’s easier to avoid the responsibility?
How many times have you passed by opportunities that could actually make your life better? That’s omission bias, and it’s screwing us over. Here’s how to make sure it doesn’t.
Do this right now.
Take just a minute to think of one big thing about your life you’ve wanted to be different for a while. Maybe you’ve been wanting to be in a relationship, or perhaps you’ve wanted some aspect of your relationship to be better. Maybe you’ve wanted a better job, better friends, better health – but you’ve just been dealing rather than acting.
Write it down in your laptop, phone, or journal.
Reframe inaction as risk.
Ask yourself: what if you continued to do nothing? Imagine all the bad things that could happen. In fact, just say it out loud: “If I do nothing about this thing I want changed, bad things could happen.”
Then write down 1-3 bad things that could come of it, to make clear to you how doing nothing could be more risky than safe.
For example, staying in an unfulfilling relationship, or remaining alone, could mean dying before ever knowing what true happiness with someone feels like. That’s tragic. Every day you go to a job that makes you feel dead inside is… well… another day you will feel dead inside. Also tragic.
Our brains tell us that not deciding is how we avoid pain. But not deciding can be tragic.
Visualize an ideal situation.
Omission bias doesn’t happen because there’s something wrong with your brain; it’s an outcome of your brain’s natural design. Forcing yourself to act is fighting nature, which is hard. And you don’t want to jump into a thoughtless decision just because you need to do something.
Try short-circuiting your brain instead. You can do this by thinking about what you want before you start thinking about what to do.
In other words, dream a little. What does a fulfilling relationship, career, or friendship look like? What does the ideal life look like? Maybe even close your eyes and imagine yourself going through it, living it. What do you see? Write that down so you always have it to look at, to remind you.
The more you dream about the ideal life you want, and the more you see inaction as depriving you of that life, the more likely you’ll be to make a solid decision. The less likely you’ll tragically put your decisions off.
Wake Up
The world’s full of people sitting on their hands, waiting for life to happen to them, hoping that something or someone else will fix what’s not working. But here’s the truth: chance won’t care about you like you will, and you’re more able than anyone or anything else to create a good life. You’ve got to override omission bias and make choices. No way around it.
Don’t hide behind the illusion of safety. Inaction has consequences, just like action does. The only difference is, when you act, you have a shot at changing something.
Don’t you owe it to yourself to take that shot?
To learn about how omission bias shows up in business, check out yournextbusinessdecision.com.
Thank you for putting a name to this. You’ve provided the prodding I need to have “the conversation” with my spouse. Tired of being stuck. Time to find out where we stand.
Fascinating to learn the name for this bias, I’m (sadly) definitely familiar with it. Appreciate the advice for not falling prey to it.