Do You Know What You Want? Are you good at making choices? Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.” – John C. Maxwell. When I was sixteen years old a friend of mine and I went shopping for shoes. We didn’t come from rich families so deciding what to purchase was very important because I wanted something practical yet pretty. The shoe salesperson brought out several pairs in my size and I made a decision rather quickly. My girlfriend said, “gee you picked them out rather quickly.” And I replied, “that’s because I know what I want.” When it comes to relationships I wasn’t that quick to making good decisions.
Do You Know What You Want?
Do you know what you want? Often when I ask my clients what they want, they say they don’t know. I’m not surprised to hear this. I’ve been in their shoes, thinking the same way. Concentrating on yourself develops your sense of “me.” Without a good sense of “me” you may not ab able to find the “we” that best suits you. The world is full of all kinds of people we can love, but not all align well with your “me.”
Do You Know What You Want?
I am working with Sally in affair recovery. She wants her relationship to become as stable as needed to get what she wants long term, which is a reconciliation and remarriage. This requires Sally to concentrate on herself as her personal issues affected her relationship hence making for some bad choices. She continues to focus and obsess over what she wants and isn’t showing her husband the empathy needed for him to regain trust in her for moving forward. It’s good Sally knows what she wants but needs to stop focusing on the end result. Focusing on the end result shows self centeredness, typical in affairs, rather than showing that her husband has his own process and choices to make. When you concentrate on what you need to do and not so much on what you want others to do you may or may not get your end result. When individuals within the relationship do their own work in counseling sometimes the end result can be in choosing to not reunite. Putting the carriage before the horse isn’t the appropriate route to take.
Buying a pair of shoes is much different from choosing the right person to spend the rest of your life with. Choices are empowering, both in your general life and within your relationships. That’s why it’s so important to know how to choose as well as what to choose, so that the choices you make create better outcomes for you. In my book, Happy Me Happy We: Six Steps To Know Yourself So You Know What You Want In A Relationship
For more information please contact me at (858) 735-1139 or visit my website CouplesCounselorSanDiego.com
