The Choice Point: A Map for a Meaningful Life
All day long, humans do things. Even if it's just sleeping, now some things we do, move us towards the sort of life we want, when we're behaving like the sort of person we want to be doing things that make life richer, fuller, more meaningful. We can call these towards moves, now other things we do, move us away from the life we want to live when we're acting ineffectively, behaving unlike the sort of person we want to be, doing things that tend to make life worse in the long-term, we can call these away moves. Now, when things are going well when life is giving us what we want, it's pretty easy for us to choose towards moves, to act effectively, doing stuff that makes life richer and more meaningful. But, unfortunately life just isn't that easy most of the time.
And it doesn't give us what we want for very long. So, as we go about our day, all sorts of difficult situations and difficult thoughts and feelings will arise. We may experience emotions such as worry, we may catastrophize, predict the worst, we may have thoughts popping up that, I'm not good enough, I'm a loser, I'm a failure, life sucks, it's all too hard. Now, unfortunately, we easily get hooked by those difficult thoughts and feelings and almost every psychological problem, from stress and anxiety to depression and addiction boils down to this basic process, we get hooked by difficult thoughts and feelings and we do away moves. However, there are times, when most of us are able to unhook from these difficult thoughts and feelings and choose towards moves instead.
And the better we get at doing this, the better life gets. So, that's what this approach is all about. We're going to bring in some helpers to help you get a lot better at choosing towards moves. As a first step, we're going to help you identify your values, who you care about, what matters to you,what sort of person you want to be and use those values to guide and inspire and motivate you to do more towards moves. And we're also going to develop unhooking skills, so you can get a lot better, and a lot faster at unhooking yourself from all those difficult thoughts, feelings, emotions, and memories.
The more we develop our ability to unhook and choose those towards moves that really matter, deep in our heart, the greater our quality of life, the greater our health, happiness and well-being.