Why Do Simple Decisions Feel So Damn Exhausting Now?

Contributed by Joyce Layman, Hive Member, Overland Park

Have you ever walked into a room and completely forgotten why you’re there?

Stared at your planner and felt irrationally annoyed?

Found yourself overthinking a decision that really shouldn’t require this much effort?

A lot of women in midlife immediately wonder if this is a menopause thing. Hormones can play a role. That’s a real conversation, but it’s not the whole story.

This also happens when your brain has been making too many decisions for too long.

I know this because I’ve learned to recognize it in myself.

When my energy starts draining faster than it should, it’s usually not because I’m doing anything dramatic. It’s because I’m managing a lot. As a business owner, that means constant choices, constant prioritizing, constant mental switching. When that fatigue shows up, it’s a signal: I need to pay attention to the number of decisions I’m carrying.

That awareness is what made something click for me when I thought back to the holidays.

For four years in a row, the holidays meant eleven days of my life between Thanksgiving and mid-January devoted to managing family gatherings. Three major meals. Twenty-plus people. Every decision accounted for, which meant every detail was mentally tracked.

This past holiday season was different.

It was just me, my brother, and my sister-in-law. One meal. One question: Can you bring a side dish?

Objectively, that should’ve been simple.

And yet I caught myself overthinking it. Running through options. Salad? Green beans? Spinach? Zucchini? Sweet potatoes with rum? I was making it harder than it needed to be.

That’s when it clicked.

Even when the circumstances change, decision fatigue doesn’t automatically reset.

Because decision fatigue isn’t about one busy season. It’s about what happens when your brain has been carrying the responsibility of choosing, planning, and anticipating for years.

Brain Insight

Decision fatigue is what happens when your brain has to make too many choices without enough recovery in between.

The prefrontal cortex is the part of your brain responsible for planning, prioritizing, problem-solving, and decision-making. It helps you think things through, weigh options, and decide what happens next.

It’s also the part that gets tired first.

Every decision pulls from the same mental energy source. Big decisions, small decisions, and all the in-between ones you barely notice still count. By midlife, that cumulative load adds up fast.

When the prefrontal cortex is overloaded, your brain doesn’t stop working. It shifts gears. It looks for relief. That can show up as overthinking, hesitation, forgetfulness, or getting irritated by choices that shouldn’t feel this hard.

That’s not a character flaw.

It’s not age, and it’s not that you’ve lost your edge.

It’s a tired decision-making system doing exactly what it’s designed to do when it’s been running at capacity for too long.

Try This

Instead of trying to do less, try deciding less in the moment this week.

●      Notice the decisions you keep revisiting. If you’re circling the same choice over and over, your brain is probably tired, not undecided.

●      Decide once, then stop re-opening it. A “good enough” decision costs less energy than rethinking the same thing five times.

●      When something feels weirdly hard, pause. Ask whether it’s actually important — or just happening at the end of a long decision chain.

You don’t need more discipline or a better system.

Sometimes the reset is recognizing when your brain is out of decision fuel… and choosing not to push it further.

_____________________________

Joyce Layman is a business coach, speaker, and author who has been teaching neuroscience in layman’s terms since 2008. Her work sits at the intersection of strategy, behavior, and real-world decision making—helping people understand why they do what they do, especially when things get complicated.

She is the author of two books, including Your Connecting Advantage and Just Another Leap: How to Rewire Your Mindset, Stop Procrastinating, and Finally Do the Damn Thing.

You can find Joyce at:

Websites: The Midlife Leap (https://substack.com/@joycelayman), and joycelayman.com

Instagram: joycelayman

Book: Just Another Leap (https://amzn.to/4pivVdx)