You always have a choice

You always have a choice.

Quite a bold statement, isn’t it? But I really think so. Really. And believing this has helped me a lot over the past years.

Often, when you feel stressed, you feel like you’re a victim. And this is exactly how you enter the vicious circle: when you feel you are a victim, you feel even more stressed… But if you believe that you always have a choice, you step out of that circle. You no longer react, but you respond (another one of my favourites, I’ll definitely come back to it….). You consciously choose how to behave, you choose not to ‘undergo’… And that’s a big difference…

This can be applied to many situations but let’s start with an easy one.
When you hear yourself complain about something, again and again, ask yourself: what are my options?
When you do that, and you come up with one, the first ‘BUT’ will probably pop up in your head. Examine it, check if it’s not just an excuse…
Make a list of all the options and explore the pros and the cons of every option. Mind you: it is possible that none of the options has only positive consequences. But that’s ok. You can still decide to go for that option, accepting the consequences.
And when you do, you can be proud of yourself. You took some action, you were not a victim.

And don’t forget two things.
First of all: sometimes choosing not to do anything yet, can be an option. There might be too much on your plate already.
And secondly: should the choice turn out to be very different from what you hoped, you always have a choice to make another one…

So what about you? Where are you stuck and what are your options?

 

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