Hello April! Let's Talk about 35,000 Decisions
Apr 07, 2026
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In Think Ahead, Craig Groeschel shares that we make 35,000 decisions every single day.
Thirty-five thousand.
You woke up this morning and…
Hit snooze or get up?
Wear the jeans that fit or the ones that make you feel put together?
Coffee first or get the kids moving?
Toast or oatmeal or skip breakfast altogether?
Check your phone now or wait?
What gets your attention first—the work email, the permission slip, or the text from your mother?
And that’s just the first fifteen minutes.
By noon you’ve made thousands of small decisions and maybe you haven’t even made the “big” ones yet. It’s draining. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. It’s decision fatigue: the mental exhaustion that sets in when you’ve been making choice after choice after choice.
Decision fatigue grows from three realities:
· Volume…there are simply so many decisions.
· Methodology…how we’re making them.
· Cascade…one decision leads to another.
There are also a few things that amplify the number of decisions and how exhausting they are. Let’s talk about four of them:
1. Overwhelm There are too many options and your brain short circuits.
You’re trying to plan meals for the week, but first you have to figure out what’s already in the fridge, what needs to be used up, who has which activities on which nights, what you have energy to cook, and whether you can afford takeout on Thursday. So you order pizza again because at least that decision is simple.
2. Fear Do you have the needed conversation with your teenager now? Do you take the job opportunity? What if I choose wrong? What if this decision ruins everything? Fear convinces us that every decision is high-stakes with a clear right or wrong answer. We burn the same mental energy deciding what to wear as we do deciding whether to take the job. Small decisions get treated like high-stakes ones, and we burn through precious bandwidth, which isn’t always renewable in the moment.
3. Emotions When you’re tired, hungry, anxious, or stressed, our decision-making capacity drops. It’s 9 PM, you’re exhausted, and suddenly you’re volunteering to head the committee. Or you’re scrolling your phone at midnight, adding things to your cart, which feels like a decision until you’re comparing coupons and price and following links. What were you even looking for?
4. The Myth of the “Right” Decision This might be the most draining of all. We convince ourselves there is one “right” choice and our job is to find it.
Should you homeschool or send them to public school?
Take the promotion or protect your boundaries?
Confront your friend or let it go?
We agonize, research, pray, make lists, ask everyone’s opinion. What if decisions aren’t right or wrong? What if they simply open some doors and close others? What if the perfect decision you’re trying to find doesn’t exist?
I’ve been there. Staring at two good options, paralyzed, trying to guarantee the outcome before I choose. You stir yourself up and end up not making decisions and getting stuck. From that state, it’s hard to remember that it’s when you decide that you create movement.
Yes, you close off some paths, but stop carrying every possibility. Stuck is exhausting, sometimes more exhausting because you’re trying to hold every possibility at once.
The danger isn’t making the “wrong” choice. The danger is becoming someone who stays frozen.
We can’t let the decision process stall us because ultimately, when we make a decision, we’ll find more on the other side of it and we have to have resources to make those. Decisions cascade.
You decide to take the job. Now you have to decide how to tell your boss, how to negotiate the salary, what to do about childcare, and how to handle the commute.
You decide to have the hard conversation. Now you have to decide when, where, what words to use, how to respond if they get defensive, whether to follow up with a text.
You decide what’s for dinner. Now you have to decide when to shop, how to prep, whether to make extra.
We think of decisions as endpoints—make the choice, check the box, move on. They’re more like doorways. Each decision you make puts new decisions in motion. It can be exhausting, but we also can’t escape that we have to make them.
A Simple Exercise
This week, I want to invite you to try something. For just one day, keep a running list of the decisions you make. Start from the moment you wake up:
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What time did I get out of bed?
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Which foot hit the floor first?
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What did I eat?
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What did I wear?
Write them down. All of them. The big ones and the ridiculously small ones. You won’t be able to catch all of them because you do have to do that day’s work, but I’m betting you’re going to be stunned when you see the volume for yourself. Of course you’re exhausted. It makes perfect sense when you see your own list.
This month, we’re going to explore decision-making together; how decisions work, what gets in our way, and what becomes possible when we protect and honor our own bandwidth.
Hit reply and tell me where you’re having decision fatigue in your life.
I’ll be cheering you on, but first I need to decide what’s for lunch.
P. S. You’ll find journaling prompts around decisions on my Pinterest board. (I’d love it if you followed me.) A new one comes out each day. Look for the pins that have the cup of tea and the notepad. 😉
Click here to purchase Think Ahead.
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