One of the things that I noticed this week was how I was able to have a positive influence on my environment. Specifically, my parents weren’t feeling too well due to a cold, and I found myself naturally wanting to cheer them up. This simple act was something I never took much notice of because I’m usually not as aware of how I could make a situation better, at least at a conscious level.

With this newfound awareness, this reminded me of how I recently found a concept called Self-Determination theory from Verywellmind.com. I stumbled upon this theory because I really needed a firm grasp of how I can navigate life to a better place so that it can continually get better. I wanted to know what I needed to understand to feel like I had more control over the decisions in my life.

While life is quite complex and it isn’t always easy to navigate through it since we usually only have our perspective and the people around us, I felt so much better knowing that I had full control over my decisions and my life because I understood that I am in control of my behavior. Still, there have been times where my behavior wasn’t necessarily aligned with my goals. I believe that a lot of this is a work in progress and that while it is entirely possible to make better decisions and have better outcomes, it doesn’t automatically get better. There is a bit of trial and error, just like with most things in life. The point is to do my best to move towards achieving my goals while avoiding behavior that is contrary to the goal.

One of the harder things that I had to do in order to decide whether I believed in choice or fate was accepting responsibility. I wasn’t able to find a way to have this perspective without taking accountability and responsibility for my actions. At the same time, I noticed that it wasn’t easy to do this because it would mean that I would have to admit all of my failures in the past. However, the good thing about admitting my failures is that I could learn from them. If I never take accountability or responsibility for my actions, then I wouldn’t be able to say that I had choices up to this point.

The other problem was that I found that I wasn’t very compassionate with myself and often too critical. The past remains in the past, and while I’ve learned to take responsibility and accountability for my past, it doesn’t mean that I have to live in guilt and shame for every failure. If I did, it would simply paralyze me and stop me from achieving success for my present situation and future.

While I didn’t find that it was a key component of Self-Determination theory, it’s taught me that I should have more compassion for myself and others. I found that because I believe in having control over most of my life, I’m grateful that I have this perspective. Not everyone shares this perspective and believes that they are fated to live the life they were born with. If you’re reading this, I hope you know that you can decide to have a better life, slowly and surely like me.

Until the next post, thank you for reading! As always, wishing you love and success!