DECISION FATIGUE HAS AN OFF-SWITCH
One Practice Turns Difficult To Fun
4-Minute Read
The most exhausting part of leadership might be entirely optional.
A 2025 survey by Sifted on founder burnout found roughly seven in ten say stress is already warping their decisions, and about half say burnout has already cut their output. That matches what shows up in my conversations with clients every week: not a crisis, a slow drain known as decision fatigue quietly humming in the background.
The standard prescription is fewer decisions. Delegate more. Trim the calendar. Implement decision-making frameworks.
All useful, but only after addressing the stress at its source.
Decision volume feels like the problem. Decision perception is the actual lever: what making decisions means to you.
Add an assistant to a founder who is dreading every call on the calendar, and you have a founder with more time to dread. Change what decision-making means, and your stress starts vanishing before you've changed one thing about your situation.
This issue of The Grip shows you how to make the shift at the source and what happens to your results once you do.
decision fatigue is a lens problem
How Richard Feynman Turned a Wobbling Plate Into a Nobel Prize by Treating Physics Like Play
Richard Feynman helped build the atomic bomb, and it wrecked something in him.
So he made himself a deal. He would only work on physics that amused him: physics that was fun, full stop, regardless of what it proved, whom it impressed, or what a Manhattan Project physicist was supposed to produce next.
That deal changed more than how he felt about his work. It changed what he even noticed as worth looking at.
A wobbling plate is nothing of particular importance. Feynman wasn't hunting for important anymore. He was hunting for fun, so when someone tossed a cafeteria plate in the air, he actually saw it: the medallion on the plate wobbling and spinning at different rates. For no reason he could justify to anyone, he worked out the physics of it.
That idle bit of play—or as he called it, “piddling around”—became the seed of the work that won him the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics.
He got his breakthrough by choosing to turn the serious work of physics into play, and play is what let him see the opportunity in the first place.
What decision in front of you right now would you solve differently if you let yourself get playful with it?
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Fun vs. Difficult: The Two Operating States Running Every Founder Decision
You always act consistent with your perception of a situation, not the situation itself.
See a decision as fun, and you do what you do when it's fun. Curiosity shows up. Energy shows up. You experiment, test ideas, notice new options. It's easy and enjoyable. You can't wait to get at it.
See that same decision as difficult, and you do what you do when it's difficult. Stress shows up. Frustration. Fatigue. Default thinking. It's heavy and daunting. You avoid it like the plague.
Nothing about the decision changed between those two outcomes. Only your lens changed. And the lens is the one part of the whole equation that is yours, every time, no exceptions.
The most direct way to spot the lens: your language.
Fun sounds like:
I get to.
I can't wait.
This is wonderful.
This is going to be great.
I love this part of the job.
Difficult sounds like:
Why me?
I have to.
It's so hard.
I can't stand this.
When will this be over?
I've just got to make it through.
Same decision. Two completely different versions of you showing up to make it, and only one of them is burning out.
Your language shapes how you see your situation, and how you see your situation determines whether it's enjoyable or stressful for you. The source of your experience right now isn't your situation, it's what you're saying about it.
Consider the decisions you're facing this month: who to hire, who to let go, what the number needs to be for revenue to work, the conversation with your spouse about the hours you're keeping, the client stringing you along, the tax bill. Every one of those gets filtered through your lens: is it fun or difficult? And that lens is being generated by you.
“The lens is the one part of the whole equation that is yours, every time, no exceptions.”
The 60-Second Reframe That Turns a Heavy Decision Into a Game This Week
Before you touch the next "difficult" decision on your list, do this:
Write down the thinking behind the difficulty. It's likely a default phrase you use anytime something is hard: "I have to deal with this." "This is going to be a fight." "I don't have time for this."
Next ask yourself two questions:
Who do I need to be so that this decision is fun?
How do I need to see the decision so that making it is fun?
Then rewrite your original sentence using language that sounds like fun to you: "I get to." "This is actually kind of interesting." "This is going to be awesome."
It will feel fake the first few times, the same way any new skill feels foreign before it feels like yours. Keep practicing. Fluency comes from repetition, not from waiting until it feels true.
Changing your lens isn't about denying reality. It's about seeing new options so you can deal effectively with it and create the results you desire. It's the difference between decision-making that burns you out and decision-making that lights you up.
If you are already subscribed to The Grip through email, make sure to check your inbox for this issue. We’ve included a link to The Engineering Perception Guide to take this work deeper by helping you create a lens of ease and fun for high performance.
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In my decades working with leaders, I've never come across someone who burned out while truly enjoying themselves; the two are inversely correlated. The more you choose to see fun in your decision-making, the more energized and less fatigued you will be by it.
You have a decision that's been weighing on you this week. Swap your lens before you make it. Watch what you create when it's fun instead of difficult.
Keep creating.
key takeaways
Decision fatigue comes from how a decision is perceived, not how many decisions there are. Changing the perception changes the experience immediately.
A founder's language before a decision determines whether it drains them or energizes them. Shifting that language is a skill, not a personality trait.
The fix takes about a minute and requires no change to workload, calendar, or team. Results show up in energy first, output second.
WORK 1:1 WITH BECKY
As a self-mastery coach, I help mission-driven founders accelerate desired results without sacrificing what matters. If that sounds like good news, REACH OUT to experience how 1:1 coaching can empower you to be the masterful leader your mission requires.
May you prosper in every way!
Becky & TPL Team
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