Everything we are and ever will be in life is because of the choices we make. The path to success lies in the critical concept of personal choice and responsibility. There eventually comes a time in everyone’s life when they must exercise control over how they behave and this is when the issue of choice become critical.

Our life is an ongoing sequence of experiences or a series of choices. While one single choice doesn’t create success or failure it does set you in a direction towards success or away from it. This is true no matter what circumstances a person has in life.

For example, if you are in sales and have a day where you don’t make any sales, you have a choice to be bitter and hostile to others for your lack of success or you can greet other people with a smile. You have a choice.

You have to take total responsibility for what happens to you. You can’t blame age, gender, physical condition, parents, or financial circumstances for the quality of your life. Freedom of choice means that you must face yourself and say without qualification, “I am what I have chosen to be.”

Each of us is born with an internal guidance system or an internal voice that leads us directly to making the best choice at a particular moment. People, who have high levels of self-esteem and are successful, tune in and listen to this inner voice. On the other hand, people who have low levels of self-esteem and practice self-defeating behavior have learned how to short-circuit their internal guidance system or tune out their internal voice.

Winning choices require less effort than do complex or bad choices. For example, think about how easy and natural it is to jump out of the way of a speeding car. When you are responding to real fear, you don’t pause to analyze whether the car will stop before it hits you, what type of injuries you might sustain, or why the car is missing a hubcap. You simply react. That is the natural and sensible think to do.

Every time you are faced with a choice, your healthy inner voice is directing you to make the winning choice but when you have low levels of self-esteem or practice self-defeating behavior, you are constantly expending energy to make choices that go against your healthy inner voice. Going against your healthy inner voice creates tension and it also takes a lot of effort on your part.

Blocking out your healthy inner voice takes place in your subconscious mind. Because you often have to make choice instantly you are able to fool your conscious mind into believing what you’re doing is natural. This is an exhausting and stressful process. It’s one of the main reasons why people who make bad choices are often depressed and tired all the time.

By comparison, the person who makes winning choices leaves his or her mind and spirit to move forward and deal effectively with whatever challenge or choice the next moment presents. A successful person who has high levels of self-esteem does not get caught up in a cycle of recollection, fear anxiety, and rationalization. He or she is alive and healthy in the present moment.

I realize that it may be hard for you to see the winning choices that are available to you. My clients often tell me that when they make a bad choice, they are only doing what they believe comes naturally. These people feel that they essentially have not choice about how they behave.

For example, when I ask a client why he or she is not successful, usually the first thing he or she will say is “I don’t know. I guess that’s just the way I am.” Later when I have managed to convince the person that he or she in fact chooses to be successful or unsuccessful, the next response is often, “OK, but if I don’t have a college degree or I don’t have executive job resume, then how can I ever be successful.

People often feel that their self-defeating attitude is part of who they are. Or sometimes they simply lack the information about alternatives. Choices often have to be made so rapidly and so often, and are influenced by so many factors, that is hard to freeze them in time and examine them. We can’t observe the inner processes that lead to individual choices, but we can however, implement techniques to listen to our healthy inner voice which will lead to winning choices.

We you find yourself caught up in a cycle of self-doubt, you must try to slow down the speed at which you make your choices, and use that time to obtain as much valid information about reality as possible. This means that you must unlearn the powerful cycle of retrieving misinformation and taking actions based on your fears, which leads to misery, anxiety, and doubt.

It is only when you are able to recognize and acknowledge your ability to make choices that you’ll find it possible to break free from the cycle of self-defeat. When you acknowledge your ability to choose is when you will be able to declare yourself free to travel the road that leads to success, happiness, and fulfillment.

Copyright©2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, http://www.jlmandassociates.com