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Choice point

5/4/2022

20 Comments

 
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‘Your choice point is the space you're in right before you make a decision.’ (Martha Tesema)

You are choosing to read this blog – you could have chosen to do something else instead. You are choosing to read it now – you could have chosen to read it at a different time. In fact, according to psychological choice theory, everything you do is a choice. You’re not always aware of it and it won’t always feel like it. The implications and consequences of choosing one course of action over another can sometimes be so different and so stark that it can feel to, to all intents and purposes, as if there is no choice. Yet you are still likely to choose the action that, for instance, aligns most closely with your values; or has the greatest perceived benefits; or has the least risks or detrimental effects.

The implications of this theory are radical and extreme. If every action you take represents a choice, and if you can grow in awareness of the choices you are making at each moment, a vast array of possibilities opens up to you. As you approach any decision, it will be like reaching a road junction, with always at least 2 options available to you. You will no longer be trapped or driven entirely by circumstances. You can exercise greater freedom and personal agency. You can learn to navigate adaptively through choices, like tacking into the wind on a sailboat. You can become more creative and innovative. You can visit places, reach destinations, that you never dreamed imaginable.

There is a flip side. If you really are free to choose, you’re also responsible for your every action. It could feel easier to tell yourself that you have no choice – especially since you can’t anticipate every potential ripple effect. It would relieve you of the burden of accountability. You could also feel quite overwhelmed by the dread of having to make choices at every moment in time, in every situation. It could feel like existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre’s nightmare, ‘condemned to be free’. You may try to alleviate the anxiety by telling yourself that you’re a product of your background, upbringing, culture or circumstances. Then you could stop over-thinking, over-analysing, and get on with your life.

So, how to handle this paradox? How to create the liberating freedom of expanding one’s sense and reality of choice whilst also to acknowledge the ethical and practical responsibilities it carries with it? First: awareness. Here’s a simple exercise. Write down a paragraph of no more than 100 words that describes the last meeting you had with a colleague. Now, underline every word that represents a choice point in what happened. If you do this rigorously enough, you will be amazed at how much of the text is highlighted. Now the stretch, a thought experiment: jot down at least 2 different choices you could have made at each choice point. Try to be creative and courageous as you do this.

Second: responsibility. To build on this exercise, jot down a list of key criteria that will help you to ensure focus, priorities and boundaries to your decisions and actions. Here are some examples: ‘make best use of my time; achieve my career goals; develop the team’s potential; improve quality of relationships; create best value for stakeholders’. These criteria reflect and represent your values. Finally, test the actual choices you made, and the hypothetical choices you could have made, against these criteria to take note of what you could have done differently, what you could do next time and what lines you will not cross. Now – it’s your choice: given what you know now, what will you do with it?

(See also: Choose; Choice; Agents of Change)
20 Comments
Christine
5/4/2022 07:09:27 pm

A very good and challenging article, something, which inspires us to think and go deeper. So sadly absent from most churches and religious broadcasts these days. It is good to have you back, Nick.

Reply
Nick Wright
5/4/2022 08:14:11 pm

Thank you, Christine. I appreciate you choosing to offer encouraging feedback(!). I once posted here that, 'I abandoned religion years ago and decided to follow Jesus instead.' That provoked some interesting responses... :)

I can honestly said that my relationship with God has been the greatest influence on my own thinking and going deeper, along with the gift of support and challenge from the diverse people I've had the privilege to know and work with.

My own sense is that many institutions and social-political movements - and not only religious institutions - choose conformity over critical agency. It enables them, perhaps, e.g. to feel coherent, united, in control and safe.

Reply
Sandra Williams
6/4/2022 12:56:18 am

Hi Nick. Interesting blog. I don’t agree with choice theory’s theory that everything a person does is a choice. Some of our actions are instinctive and instantaneous, like a habitual or knee-jerk reaction to a situation. Is that really a choice? I don’t think so.

Reply
Nick Wright
6/4/2022 10:36:28 am

Thank you, Sandra. Yes, two common critiques of choice theory are whether: (a) every action can genuinely be regarded as a choice and (b) we are genuinely able to exercise as much control over our choices as this theory would appear to propose.

William Glasser, one of the leading lights in the choice theory arena, proposes that everything we ‘do’ (i.e. thoughts; actions; feelings; physiology) is a dimension of chosen behaviour. He argues strongly that we have a high degree of direct control over our actions and thoughts and a fair degree of indirect control over our feelings and physiology.

(In case of interest, here's a short explanation of this idea, published by the University of South Australia: https://lo.unisa.edu.au/mod/book/view.php?id=454028&chapterid=74015)

It’s a radical idea, offering a vision of far greater personal agency and responsibility than many of us would imagine possible. On the 'instinctive' question, Eugene T. Gendlin published some fascinating research (e.g. Focusing, 2003) that suggests the body has its own way of 'knowing' and acting, without any direct relationship to conscious thought or decision-making.

Reply
Anna Wilkinson
6/4/2022 11:00:19 am

Hello Nick. Thanks for sharing these ideas. I think I get the point, but the thought of having to analyse everything I do before I do it freaks me out. It sounds too introspective. I'd rather just get on and do things and learn as I go along.

Reply
Nick Wright
6/4/2022 11:21:41 am

Thank you, Anna. Yes, if we were to attempt to analyse every decision and at all times, it would very quickly become paralysing - a 'paralysis of analysis', so to speak. In coaching or training, I would only use the exercise that I described in the blog for awareness-raising purposes. I have found that some people who feel stuck, or driven, or overwhelmed by pressures and demands, can find it very liberating. If I discover I have more choices than I had imagined, I'm also able to exercise greater agency, influence and control. This can create a powerful shift in resourcefulness, resilience and results.

In practice, we need to learn to make choices about which choice points to focus our attention on. This is where interventions such as coaching, supervision and action learning (facilitated small group peer-coaching) can be immensely useful. They can enable us to: step back from the detail; sift the proverbial wheat from the chaff; learn from (and in the midst of) action; create new solutions that reflect (in Choice Point language - move us towards) our goals and values; and make more effective and life-giving choices for the future...and 'get on and do things' that make a positive difference. How does that sound?

Reply
David Watkins
6/4/2022 02:49:25 pm

Hi Nick. This blog sums me up perfectly! To be honest, I make all kinds of excuses to myself to justify my behavior, or my actions, or my inaction. I work hard to let myself off the hook. I use my addiction as an excuse. I sometimes wonder if, as an addict, I have any real choice at all. I feel overpowered.

Reply
Nick Wright
6/4/2022 02:59:35 pm

Hi David. I really appreciate you writing such an honest and personal response. I think you raise an important issue in relation to addiction. I'm not an expert in this area, by lived experience or training. However, I do know something of the power of what can feel like an irresistible pull from within. It makes me wonder what kinds of factors make it far harder to choose, even if the reality of the ability to choose is true.

I found this interesting short piece on the website of a recovery clinic in Switzerland that explains a fundamental relationship between choice, addiction and recovery: https://cliniclesalpes.com/matters-of-choice-in-addiction-and-recovery/ Given the profound challenges that this must entail, I can see the immense value of support from peers to enable a hope-ful and sustainable shift in choices.

Reply
Elaine Anderson
6/4/2022 03:01:44 pm

Hello Nick. I know the feeling of an irresistible pull. Is falling in love a choice?

Nick Wright
6/4/2022 03:11:41 pm

Hi Elaine. What a great question. I would have to be honest and say, I don't know. It partly depends on our understanding of what it means to 'fall in love'. I imagine choice theorists like William Glasser may say that placing ourselves in relation to another entails a choice, as does thinking about and behaving in relation to the other in such a way that a feeling of love grows.

If we think of love differently as, say, a behaviour that flows from our values (rather than necessarily, an emotional feeling), then insofar as we are enacting 'love', we are exercising and expressing a choice. One way of checking this would be to ask, for instance, 'Could I choose to act differently, even if I wouldn't want to?' If the answer to that question is yes, then we making a choice.

Andreas Krause
6/4/2022 03:18:29 pm

Hallo Nick. I like your blog. I agree we can choose. We can choose more than we think we can choose. That's important for our life and our work. The question of responsibility is different. Our responsibility is grounded not only in choosing, but also in mental capacity, education, if relevant material is there for us to make informed choice, if we can think in critical ways usw.

Reply
Nick Wright
6/4/2022 05:05:47 pm

Hi Andreas. Thank you for posing such a helpful and constructive challenge. I think choice theorists would distinguish between the act of choosing itself, and the actual content of those choices - that is, the stances, decisions and actions we take in practice. Existentialists sometimes attach and imply moral-ethical value to the act of choosing per se; as if choosing (rather than not-choosing; which is, paradoxically, also a choice) is the right thing to do.

I agree that notions of responsibility are far more complex than simple choice. Interestingly, we see some of the same questions and criteria that you posed discussed in arenas such as democracy (e.g. where enfranchisement, voting, election etc. necessarily imply choice) and justice (e.g. where questions of age, duress, diminished responsibility etc. are considerations in determining personal accountability).

I think your comment about access to relevant material that would enable a person to make an informed choice is particularly pertinent at the moment, especially in an era where 'fake news' is such a prevalent issue. I worked with a mentor and friend in Germany some years ago who shared some fascinating psychological insights in this area. If this would be of interest, have a glance at: https://www.nick-wright.com/blog/whose-thoughts-am-i-thinking

Reply
Peter Young
7/4/2022 08:53:42 am

Hi Nick. I am completely with the notion that we have far more choice than we realise.

A simple exercise I sometimes invite my clients to do is to catch them when they are saying something like this: "you can't talk to the boss, because he always dismisses you, and you feel dreadful afterwards". I then ask them to repeat whatever they've just said except using the word "I" instead of "you", After this I ask them to reflect on what was different second time round. It's almost always a recognition that they have greater agency and choice than they realised.

Keep blogging. Loving it! Warm wishes, Peter

Reply
Nick Wright
11/4/2022 11:25:18 am

Hi Peter. Thank you for such encouraging feedback - and for choosing to offer it! :) Yes, there's something about shifting to 'I' language that can shift the sense of agency and responsibility. I sometimes invite clients to shift their language from, say, 'I have to do X' or 'I must do X' to 'I'm choosing to do X'. I may also invite a client to start sentences with 'I will...' A simple reframing of language can open up all kinds of fresh possibilities, and create fresh energy to take a stance and act.

(This short related piece may be of interest? https://www.nick-wright.com/blog/choose)

Reply
Richard Edwin Simpson
7/4/2022 10:20:20 am

Great post, Nick. Since quite a young age I have been intrigued by choice, why we do one thing as opposed to another, and why someone would choose to do the opposite of what I would choose. In particular, I remember a story in a newspaper where a single mother had a choice of paying her rent and keeping a roof over her and her children's heads, or buying them Christmas presents. Her decision? To buy them Christmas presents because she didn't want them to lose out. She and her children were subsequently made homeless. But she didn't appear to regret her decision. It made me wonder. Then I discovered that poverty is a significant and perverse influence on decision-making. This, from Google:
The evidence indicates that poverty causes stress and negative affective states which in turn may lead to short-sighted and risk-averse decision-making, possibly by limiting attention and favoring habitual behaviors at the expense of goal-directed ones.
Johannes Haushofer, Ernst Fehr - the Psychology of Poverty

I guess one could replace 'poverty' with other forms of social detriment or disadvantage.

Reply
Nick Wright
11/4/2022 11:47:41 am

Hi Richard - and thank you for posting such stimulating and challenging reflections. I think the notion that 'poverty is a significant and perverse influence on decision-making' raises so many interesting and important questions. Whilst undoubtedly anxiety and stress do influence human decision-making (which is on the of the fundamental tenets of, say, cognitive behavioural therapy), I have learned over the years that there are so many other cultural and contextual influences too - many of which can feel difficult for me to grasp fully as someone who has been steeped since birth in Western culture and wealth.

What may appear 'perverse' in terms of decision-making for me may make perfect sense in a different context; owing to e.g. different perspectives, expectations and values. I asked my Filipina partner why people living in grinding poverty "waste" (note - my values) money on Fiestas. She explained that if offers a moment of life-giving relief in the midst of relentless poverty. I asked why people "waste" so much on elaborate church buildings. She explained it offers a vision, a glimpse, of transcendence that lifts up their eyes to God, to a hope that lays beyond the relative hopelessness of their every day existence.

I asked why the poor tend to have so many children, which drives them further into poverty because they have so little money to feed, clothe and send them to school. She explained that child mortality rates are so high and, in the absence of access to, say, health systems, pension systems and other such forms of support, people rely on their children literally to survive in the future. Against such a backdrop, people are making what we and they - in that context, and in those circumstances - may regard as rational decisions. It is a constant and humbling challenge to me, to test my own assumptions and to be willing to be challenged and learn.

Reply
Rebecca Longman
7/4/2022 03:22:17 pm

Interesting!

Reply
Nick Wright
7/4/2022 10:52:17 pm

Thanks Rebecca. :)

Reply
Ian Henderson
11/4/2022 04:24:05 pm

I totally agree Nick. Our choices might sometimes seem to be quite small, but they all go to make our lives what they are. To eat an apple or a chocolate bar........the consequences seem small, but are they. If we repeat that choice many times over the consequences become much larger. As Jim Rohn said, "Failure is repeating errors of judgement, day in day out". Thanks for the article mate.

Reply
Nick Wright
11/4/2022 04:28:24 pm

Thank you, Ian. That's a sobering reminder of the implications, over time, of small yet cumulative choices. It reminded me of an idea in social psychology that we don't really know who we are until we place ourselves, or find ourselves, placed, in new situations: then see how we respond. In case of related interest, here's a simple yet, in my view, amazing account of how my youngest daughter has chosen to approach that principle in life: https://www.nick-wright.com/blog/existential-coaching

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    ​Nick Wright

    ​I'm a psychological coach, trainer and OD consultant. Curious to discover how can I help you? ​Get in touch!

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