We have an orange tree on our rooftop terrace. It’s there for two reasons. One, because we love oranges. Two, because it’s supposed to be nice to look at. But every year, as soon as the oranges start to ripen, the birds arrive and treat it like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

For years, I had the same conversation with our gardener.
Maybe we should put a net on the tree so the birds can’t eat the oranges.

Every time, the answer was immediate. A net would be ugly. The whole point of the tree is that it’s beautiful. If you cover it with a net, you ruin it.

And honestly, they were right.

So I didn’t do anything. Year after year. The birds kept coming, and they didn’t just eat some of the oranges. They ate all of them. They pecked at them, knocked them down, and left half-eaten fruit on the ground. By the end of the season, the tree looked sad, the terrace was dirty, and there wasn’t a single orange you’d actually want to pick.

This year, standing there again at the beginning of the season, watching the first oranges disappear, something finally clicked.

I realized I wasn’t choosing between a beautiful tree and an ugly net. A beautiful tree was not actually one of the options. Without the net, the tree was already ugly. Worse, it was useless. The real choice was between an ugly tree that produces nothing and an ugly tree that produces oranges.

Once I saw it that way, the decision stopped being dramatic. I put the net on the tree.

Is it pretty? Not really, but it’s not as bad as the tree with the half-eaten fruit all over.
Does it work? Completely.

The birds are gone. The oranges stay on the tree. I love sitting outside, even though one of the trees has a net on it. And for the first time in years, we actually get to eat them.

I see this pattern a lot in my work with companies, founders, and product leaders. Decisions that feel unusually hard to make often aren’t blocked by lack of data or courage, but by holding on to an option that doesn’t really exist.

Once you see that, it becomes much easier to move forward.

Don’t let complexity blur the choice

The decisions we struggle with are usually complex. If they weren’t, we wouldn’t need to debate them in the first place.

But we can’t afford to let that complexity blur how we think. When everything feels nuanced and interconnected, we often stop treating the decision as a set of alternatives at all. The default answer becomes “it’s complicated,” or “we need it all,” and movement stalls.

One of the simplest ways to regain clarity is to force ourselves to list the options. Not because they capture the full complexity of the situation, but because without explicit alternatives, there is nothing concrete to choose between.

This step alone often changes how the decision feels.

Identify fantasy options

Fantasy options don’t show up because people are avoiding reality. They show up because we want them to be true.

You can often tell an option is a fantasy by what it depends on. If it only works if people change their behavior without a clear plan for how that happens, it’s probably not real. If it assumes time will solve the problem on its own, or that things will somehow become easier later, that’s another strong signal. And if you notice you’re protecting an identity or a past version of the company more than a concrete outcome, you’re likely dealing with a fantasy option.

Until you’re willing to say out loud that an option is unrealistic, the decision stays stuck. As long as a fantasy option sits next to a real one, clarity is impossible. You’re not choosing between alternatives, you’re negotiating with a wish.

Choosing once the fantasy is gone

Removing fantasy options doesn’t always make decisions easy. It makes them possible.

Sometimes, like with my orange tree, once the imaginary option is gone, the choice becomes obvious. When considering the two bad options I was left with, one was clearly worse than the other.

In many other cases, what remains are options you genuinely don’t like. Each comes with real costs. Each forces a tradeoff you would rather avoid. That doesn’t make the decision easier, but it changes the conversation.

Once you’re choosing between reality and reality, debating the options becomes possible. The discussion shifts from wishful thinking to actual consequences. What are we willing to give up. What matters more right now. What we can commit to, even if it’s uncomfortable.

That shift is powerful. It turns endless hesitation into a decision you can stand behind. Not because it’s perfect, but because it’s real.