Are INTPs Bad Decision Makers? (Or Just Dangerously Thoughtful)

Let’s just get it out there: INTPs and decision-making? It’s… complicated.

We’re not indecisive because we’re clueless. Quite the opposite—we’re too aware of every possible outcome, every potential variable, and every weird butterfly effect that could happen if we choose wrong. And so, our brains do what they do best: overanalyze.

I overanalyze everything. Even the tiniest decisions—like what to eat, what to reply in a text, whether I should say “yes” to something or buy that random thing online. It sounds small, but this habit is also one of the reasons I procrastinate so much. I want to make the right choice, and sometimes the sheer weight of possibilities makes me avoid the choice altogether.

The strange part is, I often end up making fast decisions anyway. Gut-based, logic-tweaked, spur-of-the-moment calls. And then, immediately after? I’m thinking, “Wait. Could I have done that better?” The answer is always: probably.

I second-guess nearly every decision I make. Not always out loud—but internally, the loop never really stops. “What if I had said this instead?” “What if I had waited a day?” “Was that really the most efficient option?”

Regret isn’t a constant shadow, but it shows up enough that I notice. Especially when I feel like I rushed the process. I hate being rushed. Hate being pushed into decisions without time to think. When someone corners me with urgency, I’ll snap into action—but it’s a mental coin toss whether the result is genius or disaster.

And don’t even ask me to make decisions for other people. That’s not my job. I’ll gladly give you a well-balanced, logical breakdown of the pros and cons. I’ll lay out the scenarios, the pitfalls, the upsides. But the final choice? That’s on you. It’s your life, not mine. I can barely decide what to do with my own most days.

That’s part of being an INTP—we’re thinkers first. We’re not built for fast, emotional, shoot-from-the-hip choices. We like to sit with things. Turn them over in our heads. Explore outcomes. Even simulate decisions before making them.

But the real problem? Life doesn’t always wait. And when it doesn’t, we make do with our logic-leaning intuition—and hope for the best.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, we learn something. And then we file that lesson away for next time—along with about 400 other mental case studies we’ve built over a lifetime of quietly overthinking everything.