We often choose contrary to what we want! Why?

To make today’s conversation relatable and worthy of your time, let us take ‘time’, undeniably the most valuable resource that is available to us, and how we chose to spend it which in turn results in what outcomes we get in our life?

Many of you out there may not accept it, but the brutal fact is we all consciously / subconsciously know what we want & how we should spend our most valuable resource to get what we want whereas what we choose and consequently what outcomes we get is not in alignment to what we want.

Isn’t it interesting? that we are sabotaging ourselves, often! Do you wonder why do we do that to ourselves?

This awareness and underlying quest led me to study and reflect on a) my own experiences & b) also observe people whom I have worked & observed closely.

In this blog, I intend to share what I concluded so far. I trust it would help you if you too wonder and are curious to know. More than that, I would like to invite you to share what has been your observation and experience on this subject. I would love to learn.

So, in my view, the following are 3 main reasons within which various reasoning would fall under.

1. Awareness: Often we may not be fully aware that we are choosing something that is unhelpful for us at the time of choosing. We may realize after repeated experiences that it was unhelpful. This is one of the reasons because it is not in our conscious awareness of what we want and therefore when choices or options are presented, we end up choosing one amongst others. In the absence of our own clarity, definition, description, benchmark, or standard of what specifically we want, our choice appears to be correct choice to us. We just end up choosing it due to lack of awareness of another possibility. At times, awareness may come in the form of ‘what we don’t want’ however, that may not be convincing enough unless ‘what we want instead’ is clear. And generally, when you start to have a feeling something isn’t right, what we do is the 2^nd reason.
2.  Conditioned to play safe: Those who recognize that something does not feel right about their current choices, but you will find them continuing to choose the same because of multiple reasons. One common characteristic of what you want is that it is new, something which is an unfamiliar so far, something that takes effort for people to think and create.  Because of these reasons people tend to remain same. Another common reason is that people are conditioned to play safe rather than trying something new. They will find all the excuses to convince them that the other choices are risky or uncertain or something they cannot take now. Their subconscious mind will all the evidence to support their thinking. It becomes self-fulfilling prophecy, and it satisfies their need for staying safe over uncertainty of unknown. Though the imagined gain that they are safe is illusory, people associate the choice with safety and certainty and remain to choose the same. Often what blocks people is a fixed mindset or a limiting belief to choose differently. Some of the unresourceful behaviors caused by limiting belief are people-pleasing, choosing familiarity, telling yourself ‘it takes time and effort to seek clarity, or simply living behind an evergreen excuse ‘I am working on it. Though we get signals but people in this stage, constantly choose to ignore the nagging feeling, unsatisfying hunch, or vague sense of discomfort that tells them that what they are choosing is not what it ought to be. However, they remain there for a reason which takes me to the third common reason that I have observed.
3. Avoiding responsibility: Lastly, people lack courage to acknowledge and accept the costs they are paying for staying in the current reality. People continue to self-sabotage because they are not ready to take responsibility and stop paying that cost for choosing what they don’t want.

Yes, all of us are WIP, that is great. There is no denying that people are working on themselves.

We are all conditioned humans and will come up with ‘yes but….’ (excuses) but I invite you to ponder and become aware of what is stopping you to make the choices you want and living an empowered life.  

You deserve to live an empowered life!