The Power of Choices: Giving Yourself the Best Opportunity for Success

Written by Caitlyn Wong, Counselling Psychologist

When we walk through our daily lives, we often are striving towards something whether it’s a career goal or something you hope to achieve or even working with a goal to feel better or to experience a healthier mental state.

But let’s now sit with the experience we all often face; struggling to achieve our goals, feeling like there’s no point in trying anymore, or sitting with past failed attempts that make this attempt less worth it.

These difficulties and experienced hurdles are real and difficult things to juggle. But what happens if we also take it a step further to investigate our own personal narratives and if we are truly making choices to support us for success?

This isn’t about making choices only on the level of deciding to wake up earlier because you have decided you want to wake up earlier, but also on the mental level. It is the way we speak to ourselves and the way we frame experiences. Connecting us back to why we are making decisions.  

For example, you have decided to wake up earlier for a better and healthier lifestyle, but you feel bad anytime you miss your alarm. Or you want to quit a substance you have been hooked on for years but have numerous failed attempts.

Consider if you are internally framing this as “I’ve tried before but am waiting to see how long this will last this time” or “I can’t believe I keep missing my alarm!”, “I know I’ll end up using again”.

This creates an experience of expecting failure or the pattern repeating itself. Just like how “I really am not an early bird”, “I hate waking up at 5am”, “I feel like my boss has it out for me” or “I know work is going to be draining today” also creates an expectation of dislike, discomfort or strain. 

But what does giving ourselves opportunities for success look like?

Controlling our narrative and living with intentional choices.

In truth, we are making a decision and choice when we tell ourselves that work is going to be hard or that trying again will result in what we know. But what happens if we allow forgiveness and curiosity to enter our space and truly allow a new chapter for ourselves to be written. 

It isn’t about disregarding your concerns from the past but making a choice to change things and to allow things to be different this time round, or to break uncomfortable patterns we are facing. 

“This time I only snoozed my alarm by 10 minutes and I’m feeling proud”, “today is day 1 of quitting smoking and I know I can make it”, “I just had a meeting and I’m choosing to focus on what the next steps are to get my promotion” or “I got complimented at work and I’m feeling seen”. 

We make choices about where we are directing our energy towards, just like we choose how open we are in therapy, what topics we are bringing into our sessions, and how we want to make meaning of our experiences. If we are expecting failure, discomfort, strain or other things that make us feel down, we will find it. 

I encourage you to go out later and look at how many red cars are on the road, or how many Suzuki Swifts are on the road. How many more times will you notice a specific car colour, model and brand after you start looking for it? 

We often find what we look for because it comes to the front of our consciousness and level of awareness. So, if we are looking at life in a way that feels unforgiving, you will find unforgiveness. 

If you want to quit something that is harming you, take a new opportunity at work, have difficult discussions with someone or make a hard decision, then I encourage you to think about what the narrative and inner voice looks like and sounds like. 

Make choices and intentional actions to allow for support, encouragement, motivation and an opportunity for success. Work with yourself, and not against. If you try and fail, forgive.

But let the rest of today or tomorrow be the start of your new chapter where you are the author of your story who gets to decide what happens to the main character. 

If you want to read more about Caitlyn and the services she offers, click here.