To make sure you make the right choice. How to make the right choice from equal opportunities

Every day a person needs to make a decision. Some are easy: choose a white or blue shirt, skirt or trousers. Simple solutions are chosen “automatically” depending on the mood and situation.

A completely different picture emerges when the question arises of how to do right choice between two men, a change of job or. A person is tormented by doubts, indecision and the possibility of making a mistake.

Close people whom you completely trust or professional recommendations will help you make the right choice.

How to choose between two men?

The most unpredictable thing in the world is the relationship between a man and a woman. Sometimes events unfold in such a way that the question arises: how to make a choice between two men? Circumstances happen, and you can’t blame your significant other for this.

Most often the choice is between love and practicality. A girl loves a guy, wants to live with him all her life and have children, but he does not propose for 2-3 years. On the way, he meets a young man who idolizes and is ready to go to the registry office even tomorrow. Whom to choose? The man you know and love or young man, who has dreams similar to your goals in life.

You meet a guy, you love him immensely, and he methodically mocks and spits on good attitude. At this moment, another appears, so caring, gentle, ready to care and cherish. Which relationship should you choose: marry someone who is loving and gallant or hope for the best?

There are many similar stories and making the right choice is often “like torture.” After all, feelings are feelings and they cannot be controlled, just as you cannot stop breathing.

If the situation is not as critical as described above, then it is better to stop all contact with both guys

Stop calling and answering messages. A week will be enough to determine what choice to make in a relationship.

If only the choice between 2 men will save the situation, then you should make an informed decision, the mistakes of which you will not regret. Evaluate all the positive and negative qualities of your partners with an eye to a serious relationship.

1. Does a man want to have a family and children, or does he have plans for a bachelor’s life?
2. What can one partner give materially and spiritually and what is missing for future happiness?
3. To what extent can disadvantages be changed so that they turn into advantages?

If a guy doesn’t have experience in bed, then it’s fixable. Such experience certainly comes with time. If a young man is too tongue-tied and does not know how to beautifully give compliments or look after him, then it is unlikely that he can be corrected. Charm comes from nature, and if this is important to you, choose a young man whom nature has generously rewarded. Pliable or, conversely, hot-tempered? It is unlikely to change over time, if only for the worse. Evaluate the qualities of each of the two applicants, and the more of them there are, the wiser the choice you will make.

The right choice in life

It is easiest to assess current circumstances and make a choice in a calm environment, in comfortable conditions. State the situation clearly and write it down on a piece of paper. This could be a question: “what job or?”, “Which man to choose?”. This could be a statement: “I want to live independently from my parents!”, “I want to find a new living space!” Add explanatory words:

• what amount do you expect;
• what deadline do you set for yourself?

Think about which of your loved ones or acquaintances can influence your choice. Divide the sheet into two halves and title each half according to the solution options. In the columns, indicate the pros and cons of each option. Write down the number of possible losses and the level of risk.

When everything is written down on paper, it seems that the choice is ready, but listen to your doubts. If there are too many of them, contact relatives, friends or older acquaintances you trust. Tell us in detail about positive aspects affairs and doubts that frighten.

An outside opinion often makes you look at a situation in a new way.

Be sure to discuss possible life changes with your parents and those affected by them. After all, these people should know what is happening and they have the right to contribute.

How to make the right decision?

Making a decision is difficult, and the situation is aggravated by the understanding that a mistake made can be costly. As a child, the dream of a magic wand seemed like a solution to all decisions. But we grow, and with this comes the realization that this is a fairy-tale object that has nothing to do with reality. But the subconscious exists, and it is it that can tell you how to make the right choice between men, in work or profession.

The best time to reflect on your choice is in the evening, before bed. The worries and worries of the day are left behind, the body relaxes, tension gradually goes away, and breathing becomes calm. Remember the problem and think about what ways to solve it. Make a choice in your thoughts and imagine how you will feel, what people will remain next to you, what will happen.

The subconscious is a resource that guides you through life. It manifests itself in the form of images and feelings. Having mentally made a choice, listen, what emotions are overwhelming? Do you feel a surge of new strength or depression and heaviness? Sometimes subconscious impulses manifest themselves in the form of real temperature or pain sensations:

• right side of the body - yes;
• the left side is not.

Listen to your friends, brother, sister, parents, listen to your intuition, and you will definitely make the right choice.

We want to tell you about an amazing and very simple technique of 7 questions that will allow you to assess the situation from different points of view, get rid of doubts and take the ability to make the right choice to a new level.

WARNING: You may not always like the answers, but in the end they will help you make the right decision.

1. What would I choose if it were not for fear?

Unfortunately, too many decisions in our lives are made for us by our own fears and stereotypes. Of course, successful businessmen take a balanced approach to all the risks they take on in their choices, but they also take a conscious approach to their fears in doing so. If you feel obstacles, write down (literally!) all your fears and doubts and carefully work through them with someone who will help you be objective. Sometimes the choice that causes us the most fear is the best one.

2. What would I choose if it were not for money?

What do you think: many brilliant ideas were never implemented due to lack of money? Or is there no money because these ideas were not implemented? Will you deny yourself development and moving forward if you feel like you don’t have enough money for it? No matter how fantastic it may sound, if you made the right choice, there will always be money. Remember crowdfunding? crowd funding, сrowd- "crowd", funding- “financing”). You can also turn to relatives, friends, acquaintances for help, or simply let those around you know that you are looking for an investor. And don’t let money, or rather the lack thereof, stop you.

3. What's the worst and best that could happen?

As a continuation of the previous two questions, draw yourself a mental map of everyone on paper. possible consequences all possible solutions. List the positive, negative, tangible, and insignificant results that your choice will entail. In most cases, the best solution will become obvious on its own.

4. What have my previous experiences taught me?

Every experience in life, whether positive or negative, teaches us valuable lessons. Defeats in our lives only happen when, when we have not learned any lesson for ourselves. The rise is as valuable a lesson as the fall. Think back to your previous ups and downs and think: is your previous experience telling you what to do in a given situation?

5. Does this match my vision?

Ask yourself a question: do you really need this or are you agreeing out of necessity, although you are turning in a completely different direction than where you are striving? After all, one of the main factors for success is consistency, so always keep in mind whether this decision aligns with your vision and whether it will derail you from your course?

6. What do my soul and body tell me?

Think about your last choice that you regret—didn’t your inner voice or body give you signals that you shouldn’t do that? If you feel physical discomfort when making a decision or your inner voice is quietly discouraging you, listen to these signals. They may not coincide with what you are leaning towards at the moment, but the subconscious mind is much more aware of how this choice will affect you in the future.

7. How will I look at myself in the mirror tomorrow?

Finally, about the future. How will you feel the next day after you make this or that decision? If you feel proud, energized and inspired, you are on the right track. If you notice shame or regret in yourself, do not ignore these feelings. If you are already experiencing them, prepare for the worst.

For the full picture, think about what you will experience as a result of your choice in a week/month/year. You can also take 5 or 10 years for big decisions that have a significant impact on your entire life.

Conclusions: How to make the right choice?

Save this image to your desktop. Post it on your Facebook / Twitter / Instagram / LinkedIn / VKontakte. Finally, print it out and hang it above your desk. And every time you feel doubt when making a choice, answer each of these 7 questions. Believe me - it works.

Today we will talk about such a problem - in research we stated it as a problem of personally significant choice - for more in simple language one might say: the problem of vital choice.

The fact is that we cannot classify all elections as vitally important. It's not about choosing, say, a purchase or the problem of where to go today. The area of ​​our attention is the so-called turning point life path when a person finds himself at a crossroads, when a lot of things in the future may depend on the decision he makes.

The simplest examples here could be decisions about marriage or divorce, about whether to stay in a relationship or leave, maybe even a decision when people are thinking about whether to take an adopted child or not, decisions about changing professions, etc.

Nowadays this is a fairly common situation, when people who have worked for many years in one field are already quite mature age They go to get a second, sometimes a third higher education, and are sometimes faced with a difficult experience when, for example, you have worked well in a bank for many years, and then suddenly you want to engage in psychotherapy. It’s completely unclear how this will all happen, it’s scary, but I kind of want it.

The problem of personally significant choice is a topic of scientific research that has been conducted for several years, including with my active participation. Since we are not having a scientific conference here, I will not talk about methods and sampling, as we did, I will try to talk directly about the results that can be useful in our everyday life.

And first of all, these will be the results of the research that we conducted with colleagues Dmitry Drozdov, Polina Merkulova and Natalia Polyakova, relying largely on the approach developed by prof. Fedor Efimovich Vasilyuk.

Today we will talk about the stages of the process - the stages that a person goes through when faced with a vital choice, as well as some of the patterns of the choice process.

The agony of choice

Some of you may be standing at such a crossroads right now and want to make an important decision, while others may have had this in the past. And we can remember how sometimes painful and difficult this process is, what its obvious manifestations are.

People behave very differently. Someone is inclined to frantically make at least some decisions, just to close this topic, at least decide something, at least do something, calm down and move on. But such quick, jerky, half-baked decisions sometimes do not provide true peace. A person decides one thing, then another - back and forth. This can take quite a long time. The main thing is that there is no reconciliation, no such understanding: “Yes, this is what is needed!”

More often there is another strategy, when a person delays for a very long time and finds many reasons not to make a choice. You know, the fear of making a mistake, the fear of what I’ll do now, it will be somehow wrong, it can be so strong that just not to experience it, just to escape from this fear, and also from the potential feeling of guilt: “If I I will do as I want, but the other person will feel bad, he will suffer. How so? I have to take care of my neighbor, which means I can’t afford to do what I want. Oh horror...” – and then it’s better not to decide at all. And more often we are dealing with a strategy of such avoidance of decision making.

Sometimes this can take on such beautiful forms in a church environment; a person can persuade himself, say: “I surrender to the will of God, let the Lord rule Himself.”

This can be a very mature position, when a person actually does something himself and at the same time gives it to God in a very authentic way. But more often we see such an infantile shifting of responsibility, in order to do nothing yourself, to put off and not make decisions, you can come up with a variety of excuses, one of them can even be religious, very seemingly noble.

What is a productive selection process?

What becomes the criterion for us that a choice has been made or not? What are the signs that I'm on the right track now as I move through this decision-making process, and what are the signs that I'm going somewhere wrong?

This question was important for us, including within the framework of the study, because we needed to highlight separately the selection processes that we called productive or, conventionally, in everyday life, these are “good” choices. And separately, we needed to identify unproductive, or “bad” ones, in order to be able to compare the patterns of those and other elections in the study.

And the results were even a little unexpected for us when we discovered some criteria - sometimes they may seem paradoxical - criteria for a still productive selection process.

At first we thought that productive choices are those that a person himself evaluates as correct. That is, you ask a person: “You once did something. Do you think you did the right thing?” - "Yes". And at first we calmed down on this, we thought that this was enough, that if the person himself says “yes” - it was the right decision for him, this means that the choice was made really well, from a psychological point of view.

But then it turned out in the process of a long research work, which turns out to be not always the case. A person amazingly knows how to “deceive” himself, without noticing it, to hide some things that torment him, to sincerely believe that everything is fine, but there is something else sitting inside...

And before we move further in understanding the differences between “good” elections and “bad” ones, it is important to say a somewhat theoretical, but fundamental thing for us, that behind the problem of vital choice there is always a problem of intrapersonal conflict. And this is a very important point on which many further reflections will be based.

A man stands at a crossroads. And he thinks - and this is a very important and theoretical point, and it will later have very important practical significance for us - a person thinks that he chooses something– one life path or another life path.

What does a person usually do when he needs to make a choice? What advice is usually given to a person in difficult situation What is usually recommended to do?

–Write down the pros and cons...

–Make lists of pros and cons...

Great, you got it right the first time. Do you practice this? Does it help?

–No.

And we came to exactly this in our research. Look, it’s no coincidence that your first answer was: write down the pros and cons. And usually this doesn't help. This helps if you are choosing a washing machine or cell phone model, then yes. But when my life is on the line, and I apply a strategy to it, it's like I'm choosing something lying beside oneself , just like some item, it doesn't work. Why?

One of the important, fundamental theoretical points: in a situation of vital choice, a person chooses not something lying outside of him, not some items or objects, he actually chooses himself - the self that ends up here (walking one path), or the self that ends up here (walking the other path). This is why the strategy of pluses and minuses does not work. But the interesting thing is that it is very popular.

Before this, we talked about the criteria for a productive, “good” choice. So, it surprisingly turned out that a good choice is not only the one that I then evaluate as correct, but the one that leads to the removal of the conflict, to the resolution of the conflict. Only when this internal contradiction within me is removed can we say that the choice was made productively and well.

We had an example in our study when a person talks about a choice he once made, many years ago, and very confidently says: “Yes, I don’t regret it.” It was a serious decision, the woman wanted to get a divorce and leave for another man, but she still remained married to her husband, and many years have passed, she says: “I don’t regret it, the choice is right.”

But during this interview, she begins to cry, quite strong emotional experiences are activated, and upon closer examination, it became clear to us that, in fact, the internal conflict has not been resolved. Although the situation is over, the person evaluates the choice as correct, the conflict is not resolved. And this tells us that the choice was made unproductively.

The paradox of a “good” choice – go into acute pain!

Looking ahead completely, I will tell you probably the most culminating thing, which is not easy for us in life and for psychotherapy too. Usually, in a difficult situation, a person wants relief, reassurance, improvement of his condition - this is good and natural. But, in this case, paradoxically, sometimes, in order to make a breakthrough in a situation of choice, in order for the conflict to be resolved, we need to go through a particularly intensified aggravation of this conflict. And what does it mean? This means going through serious pain, perhaps through very painful, acute experiences.

The pain of choice is also different. It’s one thing, I sit and suffer: “Well, what’s there? I need this, I need that... Well, okay, I’ll think about it tomorrow, I need to sleep with it...” - well, somehow all this drags on, you know, it can drag on for years. It hurts slightly and stretches. And sometimes it happens when it becomes very acute.

Sometimes such acuteness is provoked by some external circumstances, when they push us, force us, when it is no longer possible not to choose, and then real suffering begins, then very serious withdrawal begins, very serious experiences, the conflict escalates to the limit. And then a fundamental qualitative leap is made, when the conflict is removed and the choice is made.

This is perhaps the most important secret of how to make a productive choice - whether you need to run away from pain. Most of the strategies that we use in a situation of choice are aimed at anesthesia, at removing this tension, removing the pain, and worrying less. This is understandable from a human standpoint, but, surprisingly, we have seen that such covering up, gluing, closing the eyes, softening interferes with the productive process of choice.

Three differences between productive elections and not so

We can list three criteria that indicate that the choice is truly productive:

1) Acute emotional state immediately before making a decision. It’s interesting that, as a rule, all these choices, which people evaluate as correct, and we evaluate as productive, there was this peak of a very acute emotional state. One of our subjects describes it this way: “It was pounding in my head in capital letters that I couldn’t go on like this, that something would probably happen to me, that I, I don’t know, would go crazy, get terribly sick, because I can’t live like this anymore.” “That was really the limit,” said another person. That is, the edge when this is no longer possible.

2) The second sign of productive elections - we called it phenomenology of correct decisions- that is some signs of what happens to a person after he makes a productive choice. And if you have had this experience, you have gone through the agony of choice, then you can remember what comes next. This is an amazing state of special freedom, such lightness, a weight off your shoulders.

It’s just that even physically it manifests itself in the fact that such freedom appears in the shoulders; for some, it feels like wings almost grow. “Doubts have gone away, courage and confidence have appeared, fear has decreased, somehow everything has become calm,” I am quoting some of the statements of our subjects. “Confidence, a feeling that this is how it should be, no doubt.” The fullness of the absolute “yes” arises. This is such a calm “yes” on the exhale, when there really are no worries or any acute experiences.

3) And the third point, which usually people themselves do not specifically monitor until you ask them. But if you look closely, you will find that after making such a right choice, certain things happen. personal changes, a person changes: me before and me after - this is already a different person. I became different, due to the fact that I made this decision, I myself somehow changed. When a person overcomes a serious crisis, that same intrapersonal conflict, if he manages to get out of it, the conflict is removed, a transition is made to some new stage development.

Stages and stages of the process of personally significant choice

Depending on what stage a person is at, you can give some recommendations and understand what is best to do now. The stages in this case are of a mandatory sequence; the stages can occur in different orders. It was allocated three stages, the second of which includes four stages.

1) First stage – selection background, when there is some general dissatisfaction with the existing state of affairs. At this stage, the person does not yet think that this is a situation of choice. He just feels some kind of dissatisfaction, something is wrong. Relationships, for example, are getting worse and worse. And even if once upon a time thoughts of separation came to mind, now they may come a little more often, but the person does not seriously face a choice. Well, whoever is married doesn’t periodically think about divorce, who doesn’t, right? This is not a reason to get a divorce right away. That’s why a person shrugs it off a little, he doesn’t experience it as a challenge, as a need to solve something.

2) Then the following: if this dissatisfaction accumulates, grows, if at the first stage these dissatisfactions are not removed, then the person switches to second phase– already directly actualization of the choice situation. Or - let's say a very important thing - actualization of intrapersonal conflict. And due to certain factors, internal or external, the choice now becomes clear. The person already seriously understands that yes, something needs to be done. But there is still no such acuteness when “I can’t do otherwise!” But the choice is clearly in the minds.

And in this second stage, four stages can be distinguished; they can occur in different sequences, that is, a person can move from one stage to another and back several times.

2 A) When we already have the actualization of choice, what happens first? Here’s my favorite thing to write down about the pros and cons: consideration of alternatives . That is, first the person realized that he was already choosing between “A” and “B”, and then he considered, compared, weighed the alternatives. And at this stage, this strategy of writing out pros and cons is very often used.

And at this stage reasons for selection, as it seems to a person, lie outside the person himself. That is, these pros and cons, they do not concern me, they concern the fact that What I choose. I think: this job has the following advantages: salary, good boss, close travel; but this work has such and such disadvantages. At this moment I am not yet thinking about myself, because, as we said, the focus of attention is not directed inward, a person thinks that he is choosing something externally.

The process of experiencing here proceeds in a circle: consideration of alternatives - no way out - an attempt to reduce negative experiences (different strategies are used, often leaving, attempts to rid oneself of the conflict) - return to consideration of alternatives. It's hard. And in a good way - it would be necessary to reach the peak. But who wants this? Therefore, when a person finds himself in some kind of dead end, he further tries to reduce his experiences so that this does not torment him acutely, to switch somewhere else, etc.

And it is interesting that in productive elections this painful experience and actualization of the conflict are more expressed, rather than avoidance from it. Of course, the fear of the new is also expressed; it seems to the person that “I can’t handle it, I can’t.” And he can bring up some arguments in favor of the old life.

This is already a little about strategies: a very convenient strategy for not making a choice is rely on external obstacles. Here favorite hobby... Well, of course, maybe I would like to, but what about me? The conditions are such that I won’t be able to. Of course, I would dream of becoming such and such, but I won’t be able to enter a university, because now they only enroll through connections. Well, anyway, I’m already many years old, and it doesn’t make much sense anymore, who will take care of me? Well, in general, I live far away, and I don’t travel often. That is, a person, in order not to make a choice, drags in external circumstances, as if it were causes so as not to make a choice. Although, in fact, this is only reasons.

That is, a person persuades himself to leave everything as it is. Because going into something new is very scary. And here, the more anxiety we have, the more “desire” we have to leave everything as before. But what does this mean in terms of internal conflict? A person has an intention, he wants something new. And fear drives: leave everything as it was. The arguments are being dragged in: leave everything as it was. And it may turn out that this sprout of “I want something new” will be completely suppressed, amputated, extinguished, and the person will calm himself down, say: “Well, yes, that’s how it is...”

And he may also bring in some religious arguments here: “It is God’s will to leave everything as it is,” in order to completely calm down. But calm does not come, and this is the problem, because the conflict does not go away. One of the parties to the conflict is removed. But if I remove one of the parties to the conflict, this does not mean that I am removing the conflict. I remove it artificially, not for real, but then it still comes out.

This is the problem - it is very important to hold both sides of the conflict, it is very important to hold both alternatives that are tormenting. Because if, I repeat, we allow ourselves to live only one side, and push the other side according to ostrich politics, then there is no productive movement.

With a productive selection process, a person moves to the next stage.

2 B) Imagining yourself in the future , living in the imagination of different alternatives. This is a very important thing, not everyone gets it, and this is also a fundamental point. Very often, as we said, writing out the pros and cons concerns, for example, the choice of a husband: Vasya has such pros and cons, and Petya has such pros and cons. But for some reason I don't think what will happen to me when I live with one person for 20 years, and what will happen to me, - not with him, how wonderful he is, - but with me, when I have lived with someone else for 20 years. For some reason, few people ask this question, but sometimes such people exist too.

That is, it is very important to still allow yourself to imagine yourself in the future according to one and the other alternative. And this is a very important strategy - precisely imagining yourself in the future, the key word here is: yourself. Because people often imagine the future. Even a neighbor on a bench, for example, advises: “Imagine, you quit, what will happen? If you don’t have money, how will you feed your child?” – and the person seems to imagine the future. It's very close, it's better than the pros and cons.

You can, of course, imagine the future, but in its structure it differs little from the pros and cons, because it is important, when imagining the future, to imagine yourself: who will I be who made this choice, and who will I be who made a different choice. And technically, this can be done simply literally in the imagination, living a piece of life, maybe even several years in advance, but with a focus on yourself. Not on him, not on money, not on circumstances, not on children, but on myself: who will I be when I live this or that piece of life.

This stage 2 B - the stage of imagining oneself in the future - not everyone reaches it, I repeat, it was usually lived by those people who came to a productive choice at the end.

And at the peak of this idea of ​​oneself in the future, a person can get to the following stage:

2 V) which we called value insight . Maybe the term itself is not so important now, but this is a kind of peak, the very culmination. It is experienced emotionally, like an explosion, because these are the same acute experiences that I have already spoken about today, when it is simply impossible to continue, and this can be experienced hard and physically, a person can even get sick. In general, the conflict escalates to the limit.

And further, oddly enough, this was also a surprise for us in the process of our research and such an important result that if a person passes this peak, then a decision comes itself . It wasn’t me who sat and thought and decided, especially with my head. The head is not the best organ here. This is not because I really weighed everything completely and imagined myself in the future. And there is some kind of turning point, a transition, a pass, when I suffered and suffered, and then suddenly - once, I understood everything.

This was a godsend for us because we usually think that I make a choice. And in psychology we say: the subject, the individual makes a choice, how important this is in personal development... And here we are talking, of course, about the individual, but this culminating point seems to make the choice for me. Something happens on its own, with a click, a one-time act, a sudden insight. It can last from a few seconds to several hours. That is, it does not last a week, usually some very quick understanding. Sometimes called aha experience, however, in relation to the process of finding solutions to creative problems.

But when we now say that the decision comes by itself, and it is not we who make the choice, this, of course, does not mean that we do nothing. We've done a lot before. We experienced everything previous, imagining ourselves in the future, we experienced this sharp peak, torment, so that later it all happened. And after the peak and value insight - stage 2 B - a person quite quickly and calmly moves to the stage

2 G) when you're just going through this phenomenology the right decision , which we talked about: this is lightness, freedom, joy, there is no doubt, all the wonderful fruits of a well-made choice do not take long to arrive, a person is visited quite quickly, because such a “yes” really comes, an understanding that now it is so right, and there is simply no need to do it any other way.

These four stages of the second stage may not necessarily occur in exactly this sequence, but when the decision is made, the person moves to the last - the third stage.

3) The third stage is the implementation of the decision. It's very important close circle plays. Often both external circumstances and people around, especially close ones, are an obstacle to a person’s movement towards his true choice. And if a person gets stuck in the previous stages, then he often relies heavily on other people. He says: “Well, mom doesn’t want to, I won’t go. All my girlfriends say it’s undignified - okay, I won’t.” Relies on the opinions of significant others.

And when this second phase is lived with insight, then the person miraculously goes against the flow. Without any doubt. And this is not experienced as some kind of rudeness, or impudence, or something bad, it is experienced as something very appropriate to me. Sometimes there is not even a conflict with loved ones. This, of course, depends on the relatives; the topic of codependency comes up here, but that’s a separate conversation.

A little more about the patterns of the productive selection process

1) The situation of choice, when it develops gradually, and the conflict gradually matures, and with a productive process of choice external circumstances become not reasons for conflict, but reasons only for its actualization. Often, with an unproductive choice strategy, a person thinks a lot about external circumstances. He thinks: “the whole point is that he...”, “it’s all because I don’t live there” - the country, the school, the parents are to blame, the circumstances are such. And there is a lot of talk about the circumstances. With a productive strategy, circumstances fade into the background. They may be reasons of some kind, but they are not reasons for the choice made.

Often, when clients come with problems of choice, it is not he who comes, but the polyphony of those around him. Here’s a man sitting down: “Mom said this is it. And my husband thinks so. But I read this in the article. And my friends said this. But my neighbor’s is like that.” - “Well, okay, okay, and You“What do you want?” - “Well, I don’t know how, what...” That is, the lack of hearing myself, understanding what is important to me is one of the serious strategies, but at the same time the patterns of unproductive choice. Accordingly, it is important to focus on yourself, and not on external circumstances. It is very important to ask this question: who will I be doing this action, and who will I be making another decision.

2) It is the productive processes of choice that are accompanied by severe torment, surprisingly. This heaviness, hopelessness, fear, anxiety, sometimes some kind of rage, very strong mental pain. A person may even experience alienation from himself for some time. existing life. And so depressive state, quite painful: this life does not suit me, it is impossible to stay in it. Although it does have some objective advantages.

This is especially noticeable when changing jobs. Since I know many psychologists, I have observed when people from other professions come to psychology. A man was sitting in a bank, in a business environment, receiving good salary, everything was going very well for him, and this stability holds him - his salary holds him, the well-worn path, when everything is already known, also holds him. But the soul can no longer, cannot withstand this internal conflict, I really want to do something else.

I even know people who, from a very successful social environment, give up everything and go, for example, to the sisters of mercy, to a monastery, or to social service. And when we talk about the patterns of the productive process of choice, this experience – “I can’t, I’m just rock bottom, it’s so unbearable”, it happens very often.

3) Completeness this relief after as a sign of movement towards good choice.

4) And this amazing phenomenon - involuntary moment of the turning point of choice. And even my colleagues and I laughed many years ago that, in fact, there is no choice, it’s just that a person is either moving towards what should have happened to me then, or he is not moving towards it. When I voice this, my colleagues usually start arguing strongly. We stood on free will, freedom of choice, freedom of the subject, and I do not argue with this, but I simply say from practice that in an amazing way the choice seems to be made by itself, as if I, as an active subject, were not participating in it.

There are other patterns of the productive selection process, I’ve just listed some of the main ones that may be especially important for our practice.

You can say a few words about the patterns of the unproductive selection process. Because we often encounter this too. Elections that were once imperfect can be a burden that we drag along with us, like this respondent about whom I said: “The choice has been made, everything is wonderful, I don’t regret it,” but there is still something sitting there, to this day the conflict has not been resolved. And it is important, even if many years have passed, to return to that situation, to internally live it again, so as not to walk around with this conflict as if it were an extra burden inside oneself.

1) If we talk about the patterns of the unproductive selection process, we can say that, accordingly, no personality changes occur. That is, a person seems to have made a choice, but he does not change within himself. This is due, among other things, to the fact that he chose not himself, but something lying outside himself, due to the fact that the crisis with this peak was not passed.

2) Emotions, feelings, experiences at all stages of the selection process, which we evaluate as unproductive, they not so strong and deep, They more superficial. Irritation and dissatisfaction dominate. But the peak does not occur.

During productive elections, people, when they already enter this region, say that “this is not my life, I can’t live like this any longer. I am different, this life does not suit me, life needs to be changed.” With unproductive elections, there is not even such an experience: well, mine, not mine - this question is not even raised. There is no such peak with impossibility.

3) In unproductive elections external circumstances become the reason for the choice(not a reason). Since this conflict does not fully mature inside, a person may artificially find himself in the need to choose. He is simply pressed by something: quit or stay, leave or something like that. And he is pushed to a decision by external circumstances. He makes a choice not because he has already matured inside, but because simply external circumstances are already so pressing and they force you to make this choice. And perhaps the person doesn’t even regret it later, he says: yes, good, great. But he was not active there, he did not make this decision.

4) AND no obvious resistance to significant others. We said that a person goes ahead, he goes against the flow when a “good” choice is made. In unproductive elections, the weight of the importance of authority and other people is high, and you want to be in some kind of compromise all the time, so that both ours and yours will all feel good. Very often people describe it this way: just so that there is no conflict, just to maintain peace. There is such an illusion of this world, because it comes at the cost of stepping on one’s own throat and extinguishing the internal conflict.

5) AND No this vivid phenomenology of decision making in unproductive elections. Relief, as I already said, some comes, but the fullness of this relief - this lightness, joy - does not happen.

Questions:

– Imagining yourself in the future in these situations - how to do it correctly? And isn’t this a fantasy that we imagine for ourselves, it doesn’t always turn out to be true, right? How is it so right, to objectively do as much as possible so that it will help, there will be no spiritual delights later in fantasy: I will make a choice - and so it will be.

– It’s difficult for me to talk about spiritual delights - I’m on a psychological plane here. Of course, I say it easily: you need to imagine yourself in the future. But in fact, I’m talking mainly about psychotherapeutic practice, when in working together The client and the psychologist use special ways and special methods to live the future. You can probably do it yourself. I even think it is possible. What dangers could there be?

You said this word - objectivity. Of course, I don’t know anything about objectivity. What are we doing? Are we guessing about the future? We don’t know how it will be, but the point is not to live the future as it will actually be, that’s not the point. The point is that when I imagine myself in a few years, what I will be like if I make this choice, then due to this amplification, some kind of truth is highlighted, which is now hidden implicitly in this alternative.

They marry an alcoholic and think: now he will stop drinking, because he loves me, he promised me that when he gets married, he will stop drinking. And if there was psychotherapy, then, living this future, we would say: what if it doesn’t stop? And so day after day, and a year passes, and a few more years pass, you live with this person, and then 2020 comes, maybe you will have children, and maybe not. And the year 2025 comes, and you live with this person. Maybe he drinks as much as he does now, maybe he doesn't. Or maybe more, maybe less. AND who are you Then? What are you at the exit?

There are special techniques. It’s probably difficult for me to translate them into self-help techniques now. But consistent experience is important. It is very difficult to immediately imagine yourself in 2025. And it is important to live this path gradually. First, it is recommended to live through the first days, first in great detail, then, perhaps, to strengthen this temporary step. First - every day, then - every month, then imagine, click off the years. And at the end you definitely need to come to a representation of your “I”. Who am I, a person living this life? Who am I, the one who realizes this plan, the one who follows this life path? This is an important point.

– I am a foundling, and they took me to an orphanage, and then I was taken in by foster parents. Mom is bossy, well, you understand. Dad is soft, beloved. She inspired me that I, poor thing, if I get married, my husband will hit me on the head with a ladle on the first day... And, you know, I’m still not married, I don’t have children. I have two higher education, but I’m still terrified because I’m an absolutely insecure person. Now I almost lost my job at the monastery. I refused, I said that I wouldn’t do it, because that’s it, I’m mediocrity, I’m nobody...

– Thank you for your sincerity, I can hear a lot of pain in your personal history, which seems to be breaking through now... It’s interesting that this is not the first time this has happened - no matter what topic you give a lecture on, the question always arises regarding the deficit parental love, about childhood traumas, about how I was once treated before, in childhood, by my parents, how now it affects me, my life. The man, apparently, has been in the Church for a long time, and you are already many years old, but still...

This is absolutely not the topic of today’s report, but I never cease to be amazed at how relevant it is, and for me now your words sound, perhaps, as another argument in favor of my still very personal thoughts... I have ideas about how we can It would be possible to create prayer and psychotherapeutic groups dedicated specifically to working with childhood trauma, primarily from one’s own parents. This is me sharing my plans with you; they have not yet been worked out at all. It’s just that every time you come to talk somewhere, it comes out, and I see it with almost every first client in psychotherapy.

– Or maybe a series when you go with the flow, you understand: I don’t care - I’m just going with the flow, and then a series of such choices: one ended, the second began, in different areas? One - with my husband, with relatives - the second, socially, with friends - and everywhere it’s like this: one ended, the other began. Or is it still one unresolved one?

– If I understood you correctly, it may be both. It may be that this is a sequential series of different choices... But it may be that there is only one conflict, it may be such a trick, there is only one intrapersonal conflict. For example, the conflict between allowing yourself to be yourself or following the opinions of others is a very common story. And this conflict may gradually escalate.

A person wants to be himself, and then begins to realize it, act out it on the material different situations. First I’ll go against, I don’t know, my mother-in-law, because I want to realize myself. Then: I’ll make a choice - I’ll move out and live separately. Then: I'll go new profession receive. Then I'll go do something else. It seems that there are different choices, but in fact the person is implementing the same strategy of internal conflict, which is still alive, this is the problem of dependence or freedom, for example.

We all need to make choices in life all the time, sometimes we are forced to make them in just a couple of minutes. For example, buy a dress or blouse with trousers, go to the gym or on a date, write a report or check your balance? There are also more complex choices that predetermine future life—the choice of a husband, a vacation spot. Everything in life is ambiguous, and often we get lost, hesitate, not knowing how to make the right choice.

Many of us use rather strange methods in the selection process - they try to discern “signs of fate”, turn to cards for help, but still do not know how to make the right choice. Fortunately, there are specific techniques in psychology that help you make the right decisions.

How to make the right choice?

1. Try to imagine how your future life will change with each possible choice, look ahead several years or even decades. Determine the main priorities of your future, and choose what will lead you to them. Will your choice move you away from your cherished dream, from what is most important to you in life?
2. Use the old, tried-and-true method: take a piece of paper and write down the pros and cons of each choice, then rate each factor according to how important it is to you, on a scale of ten. Calculate the results and choose.
3. Sometimes you just have to ask yourself – is it possible to avoid choosing between two things at the moment? If you're hesitant and worried, it may be a sign that none of the options are right for you.
4. Girls sometimes like to consult with friends and family to make the right choice. Choose five people from your circle. These should be wise people whom you respect and trust. Of course, they should in no way be involved in this story. Describe the situation to them, ask for advice.

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“When you have to make a choice,
and you don’t do it, that’s also a choice.”

William James

Every day a person has to make decisions make elections from several possible options. And this is not an easy task.

A person is constantly faced with choices - what to wear, what to eat, how to spend the day, and so on. Such choices are easy to make.

But what about more global solutions:

• When and where to go on vacation?
• Where to live? Buy a house or apartment?
• In which educational institution enroll?
• Should I stay at my current job or accept a tempting offer?
• With whom to cast your destiny?

There are many such questions, everyone has their own. And as soon as one issue is resolved, a new one arises.

And almost every time this is accompanied by doubts, worries and postponing decisions until later.

Which solution to the problem should you choose and which should you refuse? Who should you ask for advice and what advice should you listen to? The more complex the issue, the more difficult it is to make a choice.

In this article you will learn how to learn to make the right choice and what will help you not to hesitate and accept with confidence wise decisions.

Your life is a reflection of your choices

A person's life is shaped by his values, actions, decisions and actions.

Look where you are now, at what point in your life journey. What you have and what is missing in your life. This is all the results of your elections.

This is the law of effect through which your reality changes and is built.

Everything that is in your life, everything that happens in it, is all you once created through your actions and choices.

A person is afraid of the future because he does not know what awaits him ahead. The unknown scares him.

As a result, a person refuses opportunities because of fears and uncertainty, because some troubles await.

And only being in the “Here and Now” state is a person able to calmly make a choice.

Advice to those who do not know how to listen to intuition, use this practice as often as possible, practice on simple situations.

Remember a time when you were faced with choosing something important, listened to your intuition, and it did not let you down. As time passed, you realized that you made the right choice.

Remember this feeling when you made a decision. Let it be the standard.

It’s better if you remember several such cases and practice first.

Are the sensations the same or different?

The sensations may be different, but you will notice that they have one thing in common. Record this moment, this feeling and remember.

When you are faced with another choice, immerse yourself in your feelings. How do you feel when you think about each option.

Compare the sensations with the reference. Are there any similarities with one of the options?

If there is one, choose the option whose sensations are similar to the reference ones. If neither sensation is similar, then both options are not suitable.

These exercises will allow you to delve deeper into the situation, expand your consciousness and help you make an informed decision.

P.S. You can find the film yourself on the Internet (the film was released in 2016). We do not post links to third party resources.