A Phenomenological Opening to the Experience of Decision-Making, Freedom, Doubt, and Responsibility
Introduction: Decision as an Event at the Threshold of Being
Some moments resemble borders — neither fully here, nor yet there. Moments in which an inner question calls us, without offering any clear answer. Changing careers, migrating, leaving a relationship, entering a new path, or even choosing whether to say or withhold a single sentence. Decisions, if they are to be authentic, are always accompanied by a kind of pause at the threshold; a place where we do not yet know what should be done — and perhaps do not even know whether anything should be done at all.
This writing is an attempt to reflect on precisely this suspended moment; on that inner condition which is neither merely the result of thinking nor simply the product of fear, but something between being and becoming. An experience that may be named with a simple yet weighty word: the anxiety of decision-making.
An anxiety that is not necessarily negative, not always painful, and not something from which we must rush to escape. Sometimes anxiety is an opening — a clearing — through which what has long remained unseen finally comes into view.
Decision-Making and the Paradox of Freedom
At first glance, decision-making appears inseparable from freedom. The capacity to choose, to determine one’s own path, and to respond to one’s own choices is often regarded as a sign of autonomy and inner maturity. Yet if we pause, we discover that this very freedom carries within it an ontological weight.
Freedom, as it appears in lived experience, is not always liberating. At times it throws us into a kind of nowhere — a space without instruction, without a predetermined path. To exist in freedom is to stand before an infinity of possibilities, and this very openness can become a source of doubt and anxiety.
But why does choice become intertwined with both freedom and anxiety?
To have the right to choose seemingly means that we may realize ourselves through different paths. Yet in the very moment that one possibility is chosen, other possibilities — other ways of being — are necessarily set aside. It is precisely here that anxiety emerges: to choose is to negate what might have been; to confront the non-being of that which could have become real.
Beyond every choice lies something still unknown — an unfamiliar horizon, neither fully within our control nor fully predictable. In this sense, every choice carries with it a form of negation. When we affirm one way of being, we simultaneously say “no” to other ways of being. This negation is not merely limitation; it is the very source of existential anxiety — an anxiety that arises from the obscure touching of non-being.
In such moments, we may feel caught between two forces: on one side, the desire to choose; on the other, the fear of consequences. In between, anxiety lingers like an unnamed shadow — always present, quietly heavy.
But must we flee from this anxiety? Or might we instead remain with it, live within it, and listen to what it awakens in us?
Doubt: A Sign of Awareness, Not Weakness
In many public discourses — and even in applied psychology — doubt is often treated as a disturbance, an obstacle, or a sign of immaturity in decision-making. Yet from a phenomenological perspective, doubt may be precisely a sign of lived awareness: awareness of the multiplicity of possibilities, of uncertain consequences, of inhabiting a world in which meaning is not pre-given.
Doubt, in this view, is not weakness but a form of ontological sensitivity — a listening to the plurality of voices within oneself before one voice alone commands the act of choice.
In coaching practice, clients frequently arrive with this doubt:
- “I don’t know what the right decision is…”
- “I’m afraid I’ll regret it if I choose…”
- “Both options are good, but neither feels complete…”
The task of the coach in such moments is not prescription, nor decision-making on behalf of the client, but remaining alongside the client within the state of doubt itself. A doubt which, if held with compassion and silence, may carry within it a gradual illumination — not as an answer, but as an existential insight.
Responsibility: What Begins After the Decision
A decision may occur in a single moment, yet its reach extends into the future — into a choice that must be lived, defended, and encountered with all its consequences. Here, responsibility appears.
In simple choices, responsibility may not feel heavy. But the more authentic, personal, and irreversible a decision becomes, the weightier responsibility grows. A responsibility not only toward others, but first and foremost toward oneself — the one who has chosen.
Responsibility does not mean that if we later discover our choice was mistaken, we must stubbornly remain within it. Responsibility is not an obligation to remain unchanged. Rather, it means that even if we revise our path, abandon our decision, stay where we are, or even choose inaction, we must be willing to accept the consequences.
To accept responsibility is to stand before what is born of decision — whether success, doubt, or failure.
In this sense, responsibility is not the burden of obligation but the free acceptance of dwelling within consequences. In a world that often attempts to distance us from the effects of our choices, responsibility is a return to oneself — to the choice we have made and to the response only we can carry.
Coaching can only be meaningful here if it does not attempt to lighten this weight prematurely, but instead acknowledges it — not to instill fear, but to honor the seriousness and authenticity of choice.
Coaching and the Threshold: Accompaniment, Not Direction
If coaching is understood as an intersubjective dialogue and a space in which lived experience may appear, then the role of the coach in moments of decision is neither guidance, nor advice-giving, nor psychological analysis. It is simply remaining at the threshold of decision alongside the other.
The coach is not one who facilitates choice, but one who does not flee from the anxiety of choosing.The coach does not seek to resolve doubt, but accepts that doubt may reveal something of the self.There is no haste toward action, because some decisions require a silent ripening from within, not external pressure.
Within such a space, coaching itself becomes a threshold for the emergence of decision — not to prove correctness, nor to predict outcome, but to remain faithful to the present moment and to the human being standing within it.
Closing Reflection: Do Not Seek to Solve Anxiety — Remain Within It
At the end, a question may arise:
If we are not to resolve doubt, eliminate anxiety, or rush toward a decision, then what is the role of coaching?
The answer is not simple. But perhaps it may be said this way:
When decisions become difficult and existentially formative, the role of coaching is not to facilitate choice, but to be present at the threshold of choice — present without judgment, without pressure, without predetermined answers.
Within such presence, anxiety sometimes quiets — not because it disappears, but because it transforms: from obstacle to sign, from shadow to lantern, from pressure to a reminder that life still takes us seriously.
Coaching is presence — the presence of another in whose mirror one may see one’s own being more clearly. The clearer that mirror, the clearer one’s own being becomes.
Yet sometimes that “other” reflects not merely who we currently are, but a self that lies beyond — a self not yet understood, not yet lived, not yet named, yet visible in the gaze and silence of that listening presence.
Here coaching becomes an interaction of worlds — a place where my lived experience and the gaze of the other call forth a new world; a world that perhaps had neither existed nor been seen before.
And perhaps this is the essence of meaning-centered coaching: not determining direction,
not solving problems, but creating a field in which what is becoming within us may appear.
