Everyone has to make choices all the time, for everything.
But how do we know that our choices are the right ones?
What “making a decision” is based on:
our past
our believes
our emotions
our mindset
our goals
Why?
Things that have happened in our past create our vision for good and bad, for right and wrong, for normal and not. What we have been taught, what we have witnessed and learned by our own experiences or other peoples stories affect our approach to life. All these bring emotions, feelings and start controlling our life and manifest in our reactions. If you choose to.
Let's get to the process with an example.
When I quit competitive sports, I gained weight. I was still in good shape, felt good but I started hearing
"OMG you have to lose weight? Boys like skinny sexy girls? "
Being a teenager at that time, those words hit me strongly - that created a belief that I looked bad, that everyone will laugh at me, that I would never have a boyfriend, that i have to loose weight if I want people to like me, etc.
The words I was hearing all the time created low self-esteem, uncertainty, diets, clothes to hide my chubby body, I was ashamed of how I looked. That even made me not willing to go out and have fun.
How I got out of this situation
Without knowing back then my mom was my role model - always positive with a smile, always ready to help, always listening to her own beliefs, never letting her bad emotions take over her actions not listening to what people think, going after her goals and important things, always finding solutions, never giving up.
I guess subconsciously following that model saved me from major depression.
I went out, played sports, tried to prove to myself that I was good. Until I met my future husband. We were in love, dating, but one day one of his friends shared with me that all my boyfriend’s friends were making fun of him because of me, of my size and looks. To be honest that hit me for a moment but I realized that if he chose to be with me, I am good even at size 10.
Again, this thinking saved me from depression.
Wow, just writing all of this makes me feel so thankful to my mom who raised me up to make choices which make me happy. To this day!
Key points to make better choices I have found very important:
1. Believe in yourself - you are good enough to do anything and everything
2. Find a role model and follow - their habits, their success, everything that attracts you
3. Change your words - use language that make you feel great
4. Change habits which create bad emotions
5. Emotions is the first thing that controls us - focus on "feel good"
6. Fear - come out of fear and do it
7. Feed your mind with positivity
8. Control the inner bad thoughts - we all have them in us all the time but we need to learn to push them away and concentrate on the good ones
9. Work on your physical body - charge with energy
10. Follow your goals!
Learn from the best and keep shifting to make choices which will bring you to a higher level!
Hope you find this helpful or at least to give you something to think of.
P.S. My suggestion for you: Do not fall into this catch:
When you hear 10000 times from 10000 people that this is red and you start to believe that this is red - the ash effect theory.
If you hear 100000 times that you are not good at something - you will start believing in it.
if you have to perform what you "are not good at" - fear of a failure comes and you will never be able to do it just because they said so and you chose to believe it.