The Paradox of Choice: Does More Freedom Make Us Less Happy?
Picture yourself scrolling through LinkedIn, attempting to decide between a dozen similarly desirable internships or searching Amazon for an ordinary pair of earphones and finding yourself fixated on filters, reviews, and brands. We live in an era characterized by choice in professional paths, consumer products, and even social identities. Freedom isn’t the lack of restriction; it’s the plethora of choices. But is that plethora making us better, or stealthily making us miserable?
Psychologist Barry Schwartz dubbed this challenge the “Paradox of Choice.” His central thesis is straightforward but intuitive: whereas choice is necessary for autonomy and happiness, excessive choice might paralyse us, make us anxious, and leave us chronically dissatisfied (Schwartz, 2004). The consulting universe, built on structure and decision-making, provides a rich framework for viewing how overchoice manifests in everyday life and how to respond.
Choice Fatigue: Cognitive Overload
Psychologically, decision-making exhausts mental resources. Called “decision fatigue,” it causes individuals to make more irrational decisions after extended periods of deliberation. In their research, Vohs and colleagues (2008) demonstrated that frequent decision-making undermines self-control, leading to impulsive actions and cognitive fatigue. Students exhibit this through daily consulting-like activities, such as electives, summer school, or club memberships. The stakes seem high, and so does the pressure to choose the “best” one. Ironically, the greater the number of options we consider, the less certain we are of the one we end up picking.
Experts in consulting recognize this intuitively. Strategy consultants often use tools such as MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) to simplify complex client decisions. The same principle applies to personal decision-making: segmentation and prioritization reduce emotional fatigue.
The Tyranny of the Perfect Option
Choice also comes with an unseen price – regret. Given too many options, people have more time to think about the “road not taken.” This brings them lower satisfaction, even when the result is seemingly successful. Iyengar and Lepper (2000) showed that excessive choices can lower motivation and satisfaction — a result that has since become a classic in behavioral economics. For example, a student taking a finance internship may always be comparing it with friends in more glamorous industries such as media or consulting, creating incessant FOMO (fear of missing out) and lower satisfaction.
This is where philosophy meets psychology. Philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre have long argued about the weight of complete freedom. Without any external framework, individuals are left solely to themselves for their successes or failures — an aspect that may seem liberating but often proves suffocating. Clients who seek therapy often desire the freedom to make their own decisions, yet yearn for directed guidance. Students also navigate through a complex array of educational and professional choices.
Simplifying the Matrix: A Consultant’s Approach to Life Choices
The modern consultant is not just instructed to solve issues but to define them well. Such an approach is a powerful antidote for choice overload. By asking such structured questions – “What do I care about?”, “What am I optimizing for?” and “What are my constraints?” Students and early professionals can learn to approach personal decisions from a consulting perspective.
Decision trees, weighted scoring matrices, and MECE structures are some of the methods consultants use to distil signals from noise and align decisions with client goals. People can adapt these methods by converting abstract desires into concrete criteria. For example, when deciding between internship offers, weights could be allocated to learning experiences, workplace culture, pay, and commensurability with long-term vision. In this way, the choice becomes less of a subjective emotional tug-of-war and more of a data-driven, values-congruent process.
Additionally, establishing constraints upfront, such as time availability, required skill sets, or location, can significantly narrow down the set of possibilities and help avoid analysis paralysis. This doesn’t eliminate freedom but rather focuses it more effectively. The mere exercise of translating life decisions into models precludes our having to carry them around in our heads. It lets us externalize the problem and cut down on inside anxiety.
This fits with agile consulting behaviours that follow iteration, not perfection. As Schwartz (2004) proposes, we can shoot for “satisfying” – selecting what’s good enough instead of constantly maximizing to be perfect. By selecting frameworks over feelings, clarity over confusion, and satisfaction over maximising, you can get by in life’s decision matrix with less anxiety and more confidence. In the end, we can learn from the consultant’s playbook not only in boardrooms but in dorm rooms, where the most intimate and critical choices are made.
Conclusion: Fewer Choices, Greater Clarity
In consulting and life, more choices don’t always lead to better outcomes- they often lead to stress, regret, and indecision. True clarity comes not from exploring every option, but from knowing what matters most.
Rather than chasing the perfect option, focus on what truly reflects your values and goals, because often, the wisest decision isn’t to do more, but to choose less with greater purpose.
Citations
Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (2000). When choice is demotivating: Can one desire too much of a good thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 79(6), 995–1006. https://faculty.washington.edu/jdb/345/345%20Articles/Iyengar%20%26%20Lepper%20(2000).pdf
Schwartz, B. (2004). The paradox of choice: Why more is less. [TED Talk]. TED. https://www.ted.com/talks/barry_schwartz_the_paradox_of_choice
Vohs, K. D., Baumeister, R. F., Schmeichel, B. J., Twenge, J. M., Nelson, N. M., & Tice, D. M. (2008). Making choices impairs subsequent self-control: A limited-resource account of decision making, self-regulation, and active initiative. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(5), 883–898.