The key to living life from an empowered position, instead of a victim position Is finding and taking ownership of your choice points. In each moment we have hundreds of choices but we so often are unconscious about realizing this is the truth. For instance, the choice you are making at this moment is to read these words. What other choices could you be making? You could, choose to read something else, or take a walk, prepare something to eat, talk or text on the phone, jump up and down on the couch, find scissors and cut your hair off, sing, do 20 jumping jacks… you get my point. While this can sound a bit ridiculous it is true that the choice to read this blog at this moment seemed like the only choice at the time you could make, as it was the choice you made. We so conveniently forget that every moment of life with every choice we make is OUR choice, the one we chose. So, if it is true we are making choices every second isn’t it also true we should take accountability for the outcome?
The little test you can try is to say to yourself. “Did someone have a gun pointed at my head?” Because if they did your choices got very narrow. And, of course, the choices we make every given second are most likely not with a gun to our heads. We freely and willingly make our choices. When we feel like we are victims in our situations we can say, instead of, “poor me”, “How did I do this to me?” You might say, “I hate this stupid Seattle traffic!!” Blame puts you immediately in the victim position (something or someone is persecuting you, you feel disempowered). Moving out of victim you say “How did I do this to me? I chose to live in Seattle, drive a car and the reality is, there is almost always traffic.” I mean you could choose to move to Wyoming and live on the prairie. The point is when we look at life through the lens of ownership of all our choices and all the possible outcomes, we live an empowered non-victim lifestyle and more rewarding lifestyle. More on this….
