Facing a Difficult Decision? 8 Steps to Help You Find the Right Path

Many people struggle with deciding what to do next, especially when the stakes are high. Someone may be recommended for a promotion they don’t feel qualified to take, or question their connection with a spouse after decades of marriage. The circumstances vary, but the question is often the same: What is the best option, and how do you choose?

There may be multiple “good” answers, arrived at differently depending on a person’s values, deepest desires, and circumstances. But having more than one reasonable choice doesn’t make deciding any easier.

For nearly two decades, Lauren Hackman-Brooks listened as people wrestle with questions of what to do next. As a spiritual director, she is a trained guide who helps people of faith and spiritual seekers sift through the ordinary circumstances of their lives to uncover how God is inviting them to respond. Sometimes this occurs in one-on-one conversations; other times it unfolds as part of a retreat or workshop.

Photo by Sharon Krone

While people might wish that someone would simply tell them what to do, the reality is that few actually want to trust others to make important choices on their behalf. What can help instead are practical tools and thoughtful guidance that allow them to make decisions aligned with their own values, meaning, and purpose.

A Guide to Empowered Decisions

As Hackman-Brooks has accompanied people of all ages through decision-making, she has discovered power in the following eight-step process:

1. Cultivate a posture of possibility and openness

What assumptions, preferences, or biases do you bring to the issue? What expectations, whether your own or someone else’s, might influence the process?

2. Specify your question

Complex decisions often contain several questions at once. Break the larger issue into smaller, more specific components, working through one clear question at a time rather than trying to resolve everything at once.

3. Consider the full picture

What is actually being asked, and what is the timeline? Consider how the decision interacts with other commitments and obligations, who will be affected, whose perspectives matter and what additional information you still need.

4. Seek out conversation partners

Identify people whose perspective you trust. That might be a friend, spiritual director or other wisdom figure, or, depending on the decision, a mental health professional, physician, or coach. It may also help to talk with someone who has navigated a similar situation.

5. Engage your intellect

Get the decision out of your head and onto paper. List or chart the possible positive, negative and neutral outcomes of each choice, considering not only the number of pros and cons but how much weight each carries. Which direction does reason point?

6. Formulate a tentative decision

Imagine that you have made the choice and pay attention to what happens. If possible, spend a few days going about your usual routine as though you have chosen one option. What emotions or physical responses surface when you imagine saying “yes”? What happens when you imagine saying “no”?

7. Gain some distance

When you are too close to a decision, changing your perspective can help. Hackman-Brooks suggests trying one or more of these exercises:

Imagine someone you don’t know is in a similar situation. What advice might you give them?
Imagine the most authentic version of yourself — you at your best. What would that “you” do?
Imagine yourself at the end of your life. Looking back, which option do you find most fulfilling?

8. Take action

Come to a conclusion on what’s best for you in the moment, and take action on your decision.

Following these steps with attention and intention can deepen a sense of clarity and conviction about a path forward.

The process is not linear. The steps are intended as a flexible guide and can be rearranged, revisited, or repeated as helpful. They may unfold over days, weeks, or months, alongside meditation, prayer, journaling, art, or time in nature.

A 500-Year-Old Approach to Modern Decisions

Although the process shares elements with modern psychological research and contemporary management practices, the steps outlined by Hackman-Brooks are inspired by a nearly 500-year-old way of discerning and deciding.

The process is adapted from the teachings of an injured knight turned wandering mystic turned global administrator named Inigo Onaz de Loyola (St. Ignatius of Loyola). Researcher and teacher Dr. Annmarie Cano has incorporated these steps into her research on mindfulness and other reflective practices and notes that while St. Ignatius uses the language of faith, the method can be of value to anyone.

For almost five centuries, people of all ages and walks of life have utilized these steps to guide decisions about their life’s trajectory. Today, that tradition continues at Jesuit retreat centers around the country, including Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House outside of Chicago.

Bellarmine offers spiritual programs and retreats, offering guests a welcome yet rare experience: extended quiet and time disconnected from devices. Social scientist Arthur Brooks, a New York Times bestselling author and Harvard Business School professor, recommends regular fasts from technology as a means to open individuals to deeper exploration of life’s questions. Silent retreats support that practice and help people attend to important insights related to a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

At Bellarmine, spiritual companions listen and offer guidance to guests. They come for time and space away from daily life so they can return to that life with greater peace, clarity, attention, and intention. They return, again and again, amidst the new questions and circumstances of their lives.

Tools for Making a Difficult Decision

For those looking to put these ideas into practice, these resources offer ways to learn more, seek guidance, or make space for reflection:

Review

Explore an article, video, or podcast episode on discernment from this curated list or work through a discernment worksheet. Select an entry from this decision-making starter kit created by author and spiritual director Emily P. Freeman. Listen as spiritual teacher Mark Thibodeaux guides you through a crash course in discernment.

Reach out

Connect with a spiritual director. Retreat centers near you can help you connect with a local guide. Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House can pair you with a seasoned spiritual director trained in the Ignatian tradition. The Office of Ignatian Spirituality connects individuals living on the East Coast through a Catalog of Spiritual Directors. Spiritual Direction International offers a global directory of companions from a variety of spiritual backgrounds.

Read

Draw from relatable examples and experiment with various tools for reflection and decision-making in What’s Your Decision? How to Make Choices with Confidence and Clarity: An Ignatian Approach to Decision Making (J Michael Sparough, SJ, Jim Manney, and Tim Hipskind, SJ) and The Way of Discernment: Spiritual Practices for Decision-Making (Elizabeth Liebert).

Retreat

Participate in a 6-week Discern and Decide virtual retreat series (and 2026 Gabriel Awards winner) beginning in January 2027, or visit Bellarmine for Personal Retreat Days that fit your schedule.

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How to Help

Bellarmine Jesuit Retreat House offers a place of quiet and renewal where individuals encounter and come to know God. All are welcome to this place of grace and peace just outside of Chicago. Explore the diverse programming rooted in the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius Loyola, including weekend retreats, days of reflection, and online prayer series. Bellarmine holds space for high school student retreats and faith-based organizations and people experiencing poverty. For more than 75 years, this ministry helps assist community members through prayer by offering individualized prayer intentions.

Lauren Hackman-Brooks is a parent and spouse, a lay minister and educator, a spiritual director and retreat facilitator. She first came to Bellarmine as a campus minister on high school Kairos retreats and served on Bellarmine’s Board of Directors for nine years. Lauren holds a Master of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Dayton (Go Flyers!). She works for the Jesuit Schools Network supporting educators in Jesuit secondary and pre-secondary schools across North America. Lauren lives in Spokane, WA, and can usually be found with a novel, in the kitchen, or on a mountain.

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