Sliding vs Deciding
Catch yourself drifting through life's big transitions and make each one a conscious choice.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 62%
Sliding vs Deciding is a lens borrowed from couples-counselling research for spotting the difference between drifting into life's transitions and consciously choosing them. The mechanism is simple: each life stage tends to flow into the next by default (dating to living together to marriage to kids; university to a safe degree to a first job to a promotion), and at no single point does a person feel they actively decided. Momentum acts as a restrictor: 'this is what I've always done' becomes the reason to continue. The antidote is to treat each threshold as a decision point, name the default trajectory, surface the alternatives you never conceptualised, and make an explicit yes or no. Applied repeatedly, it turns a passively-accumulated life into a deliberately-chosen one.
Origin
Chris Williamson raises the concept from couples-counselling literature during a conversation with comedian Vittorio Angelone about how people drift through relationships and careers. Angelone applies it to comedy's annual tour-write-tour treadmill and his decision to deliberately take a year off standup rather than slide into another.
Core principles
- 01Most major life changes happen by momentum, not by choice.
- 02The 'next logical step' is a default, not a decision.
- 03People often can't see that other options even exist.
- 04Naming a transition as a choice restores your agency over it.
- 05Opting out on purpose is as valid as opting in.
How to run it
- 1
Spot the threshold
Recognise the moments that are actually transition points rather than continuations. Moving in, taking a promotion, booking another tour, or renewing a routine are all thresholds disguised as inevitabilities.
Pro tip Anniversaries, contract renewals, and 'the obvious next step' conversations are reliable threshold markers.
- 2
Name the default momentum
State plainly what will happen if you do nothing. 'The next logical thing is to write another show and get another tour on sale.' Making the default explicit strips it of its invisibility.
Watch out Momentum is a hell of a restrictor: 'this is what I've always done' will masquerade as a reason.
- 3
Ask: am I deciding or sliding?
Interrogate whether you are actively choosing this step or being carried into it. If you cannot recall a moment where you chose, you are sliding.
- 4
Surface the un-considered options
Deliberately list alternatives you have never conceptualised. Often people continue not because they weighed options but because they never realised there were any.
Pro tip Ask a curious outsider to talk you through your reasoning; the gaps reveal themselves fast.
- 5
Make the explicit choice
Commit to a conscious yes or no and own it. Choosing to opt out on purpose, like taking a year off from your core work, is as legitimate as choosing to continue.
Pro tip A deliberate pause can restore the desire to return: step away so you genuinely want to come back.
In the wild
Angelone describes comedy's default loop: tour, write another show, turn it around, get another tour on sale, every year, every year. The next logical thing is always more of the same. Rather than slide into it again, he decides to take 2027 off standup entirely to write scripts, maybe a book, and just live, reasoning that art has to imitate a life you have actually lived. The podcast keeps the lights on, so the pause is a conscious choice against momentum, not a drift.
→ A deliberately-chosen year off instead of an un-decided fourth consecutive tour cycle.
Chris illustrates the pattern with a generic career slide: you don't know what to do at university so you pick business studies, then a job at KPMG comes up and KPMG is great, then you stay, then you get a promotion. Parallel to relationships, you hang out, then it's a situationship, then a toothbrush, then a drawer, then living together, then a golden retriever, then marriage and kids, and you wake up never having felt you decided to enter any of it.
→ A whole life assembled from individually un-chosen but locally reasonable next steps.
Common mistakes
Treating the default as inevitable
Mistaking 'the next logical step' for the only step means you never realise a decision was available to make.
Confusing motion with choice
Being busy and progressing feels like agency, but momentum can carry you through years of un-decided transitions.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone who senses they are on autopilot through a relationship, career path, or annual routine and wants to reclaim intentional choice.
Not ideal for
Situations that genuinely require fast reactive action where deliberate reflection would be paralysing.
From the transcript
“There's a cool idea of sliding versus deciding and it's like from couples counseling stuff that you move on to the next step of the…”
“At no point did I feel like I decided to get into this and it happens with a lot of things in life people slide…”
“Momentum is a hell of a restrictor on that. Oh, this is what I've always done or this is what I do.”
From the episode
“My Autism Keeps Upsetting People” - Vittorio Angelone - #1119
Vittorio Angelone