Written by Nimra Khattak (PSYCHOLOGIST, THERAPIST) | October, 2022
Life is all about making decisions. Sometimes we are stuck and we don’t know what is right for us and what is wrong. There are multiple options and we can get confused, but we can clear our confusion and we can make the right decisions. This article will help you make the right decision, or at least to clear your confusion. To do so, we have to see the reality.
Reality of Us
William Glasser explains that we are not born blank slates that are waiting for the outside world to motivate us. But we are born with five basic needs which drive our lives. Although all individuals have these needs, the strength of each of these needs depends on the individual.
Five basic needs
- Survival
- Love and belongingness
- Power and self-esteem
- Freedom
- Fun
Our brain always monitors our feelings and whenever we feel upset or sad, it means one of our needs is not satisfied. Sometimes people are not aware about their needs but they want to feel better. So how can we satisfy our needs? That is through our feelings, thoughts, physiology, and acting on them.
However, sometimes we don’t know which needs to satisfy first.
Is it fun, freedom, survival, or love? It is because we don’t know about our needs that we make the wrong choices. When one of our choices is not correct, then our whole life is disturbed and we get sad, feel disappointed, and our whole life goes sideways.
To understand this, take this car into consideration.
Useful question sequence
- What do you want?
- What are you doing to get what you want?
- What other things could you do to get what you want?
When we find the answer to these questions, our goals and needs become clear to us. We will know exactly which needs we have to satisfy and what is the one goal to achieve. We have very big goals; some are long term goals like buying a house for oneself and some are short term goals like going out for a walk after a busy day to enjoy oneself. When you are making a plan for achieving your goal, your plan should be simple, attainable, manageable, immediate, controllable and consistent. In simple words, you know how you will achieve this goal in what amount of time, what will be the resources required and how much effort you need to put in.
We cannot control the world around us, we can’t control the people living in it and last but not least, we can’t control time. But we can control ourselves; whether we are good or bad, happy or sad, a failure or successful. It’s us and our own choices, instead of waiting for a good time to come and change our condition. Why don’t we take our lives into our own hands? We can choose happiness by making the right decisions. Even if we make a wrong decision we should get something positive out of it . It is us who control our lives, not the world and its people. So let’s take hold of ourselves again by making the right choice for ourselves because it’s never too late. Life is not about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself.
“It is almost impossible for anyone, even the most ineffective among us, to continue to choose misery after becoming aware that it is a choice.“ —William Glasser
“We always have choices and the better the choice, the more we will be in control of our lives.” —William Glasser
About Therapist Nimra Khattak
I am Nimra and I am a clinical psychologist or you can say therapist. As a therapist and as a clinical psychologist, I have come across a lot of people who suffered because of their wrong choices. We are so confused about our needs and desires that we have no idea what is a right choice for ourselves. I do believe that social pressure is one of the causes of wrong decisions too. When you are already confused and society pressurizes you more, one may make a wrong decision in such a situation. I wanted to write this article to make us realize we have the decision in our own hands. The consequences just follow it. We should be able to make the right decision once we know about our needs. This article will help you in understanding what you need and how you can make the right decisions to help you to live a happy life.
