Knowing Why You're Broken Doesn't Fix You

Every day I watch people gain profound insight into why they do what they do.

They discover patterns that trace back to childhood. They understand their triggers. They can explain, in remarkable detail, exactly why they made the choices they made.

And then they keep making the same choices.

You have all this information. So why do you keep choosing what you say you don’t want?

Because insight without committed action is just self-awareness with style.

The Difference Between Reflection and Rumination

There are two types of self-awareness. Most people think they’re practicing the productive kind when they’re actually stuck in the destructive kind.

Self-rumination is anxiety-driven. You replay the past like a bad mixtape, analyze what went wrong, and dwell on all the ways you got it wrong. It feels productive because your brain is busy.

But it keeps you stuck chewing on the same thoughts, just with more information about why you’re stuck. It almost always leads to a spiral of low mood.

Self-reflection is curiosity-driven. You honestly examine patterns to understand what to do differently going forward. Where did you get it right? Where did you miss the mark? Where do you need to focus to get a better result?

It’s not about judgment or shame. This kind of self-reflection keeps you in a growth mindset, learning and finding the best space to grow.

But even this healthy self-reflection can become a trap if it doesn’t lead to action.

You can understand why you made the choices you made. And you can trace every negative pattern back to its origin.

But until you commit to do something different, nothing changes.

Every Moment Is a Fork in the Road

Baseball legend Yogi Berra famously said, “When you see a fork in the road, take it.”

The “right” choice isn’t always so clear. It’s confusing to try to figure out what to do, even when you only have a couple of decisions in front of you.

How do you know what to do?

In Acceptance and Commitment therapy (ACT), the Choice Point model can provide some clarity.

Picture yourself standing at an intersection. Behind you is everything that’s brought you to this moment. In front of you, the road splits in two directions.

The Choice Point Model from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).

One direction moves you “toward” what matters to you.

Toward your values, in the direction of the person you want to become.

At the end of this fork is you moving around in the world as the person you want to be. The person that acts with integrity, purpose, and intention.

This place is where you interact with what matters most to you.

The other direction moves you “away” from what matters.

On this path, you avoid what makes you uncomfortable. You move away from discomfort, fear, really anything that feels hard.

You don’t do this to avoid danger. You do it to avoid having to feel the hard feelings that come with discomfort and pain.

At the end of this fork is you moving around with broken commitments, poor habits, and abandoned dreams. Instead of trusting yourself to move through difficult feelings, you run away from them thinking they’ll have less power over you.

In reality, because you’re avoiding them, they’re even more powerful.

Trying to make your brain avoid something rarely works. Your brain is so much smarter than you.

For example, what if I told you not to think about pink elephants?

I mean, whatever you do, don’t think about pink elephants. I can see you struggling with this. Let me reinforce this: Stop, really, stop thinking about pink elephants.

What are you thinking about right now?

Of course, you’re thinking about pink elephants. It might seem easier to move away from something so it has less power over you. But shooing it away actually serves to strengthen it.

Avoidance might feel easier in the moment, but it takes you further from the life you actually want. It keeps you making choices away from what you actually want.

You’re standing at this intersection constantly, multiple times a day.

The question isn’t whether your past choices were “good” or “bad.” The better question is: Where were they taking you?

Toward or away from what you want?

When you chose to eat a donut instead of a ripe mango, where did that move you?
When you decided to leave work early to get to your kid’s baseball game on time, what did that move you closer to?
When you chose to stay in bed longer instead of going to the gym, where might that lead?
When you worked on a side hustle after a long day at work, where could that go?

Every choice takes us to a destination where we end up living what we say matters most, or in a cycle of frustration away from what we want most.

What’s Actually Hooking You

Dealing with your powerful feelings instead of avoiding them is hard. I get it.

It takes exactly two seconds for your negative thoughts to show up. The feelings then come screaming in on two wheels right behind them in the form of memories, doubts, fears, low self-confidence, the whole gang.

“You’re going to fail.”
“This is too hard.”
“You’ve never been able to do this before.”
“Who do you think you are to pull this off?”

In ACT, we call this getting “hooked.” Those thoughts quickly try to hook you like my amazing husband casually hooks and reels in a big mouth bass on his way home from work.

My husband, Joe, still in business casual attire, catching a big bass on his way home from work

Fresh out of school, this poor fish is just trying to get to his favorite eating spot. In his path is a hook dangling some kind of delicious-looking worm my husband picked up at Bass Pro.

This fish has a decision to make. There’s a crowded eating spot that’s all the rage just up ahead. But there’s this hook right here that might give him what he wants now.

And he won’t have to fight the other fish at the eating spot. He can avoid the competition and risk up ahead by letting this delicacy take him off his path.

Little does he know that it’s going to yank him off his path, right out of the water. His choice sets a hook he can’t easily get undone.

Your thoughts and feelings function like this, too. Even when you know what you want, it’s easy to let them grab hold of you and pull you away from what matters, so you can soothe yourself with what’s familiar.

So you can feel safe not engaging the hard thing up ahead, even when safety keeps you stuck or pulls you off your path entirely.

The Choice Point teaches you to notice when you’re hooked, or about to be. To observe these thoughts and feelings without feeling bad about having them, or trying to push them away.

When you’re able to do this, you can learn to let go of these thoughts and feelings and maybe you can avoid the hook getting set.

This frees you up to take committed action toward what you actually want, instead of staying on the treadmill of running away from your uncomfortable thoughts and feelings.

Three Steps to Stop Analyzing and Start Changing

Step 1: Look at where your patterns have been taking you.

Map the ways you’ve reacted to painful experiences in the past.

Do you run to excessive spending to feel validated after a breakup?
Do you shutdown emotionally when relationships are just about to get really honest?
Do you make uncharacteristic mistakes at work right before you’re about to be considered for a promotion or a visible new project?

When you look at your history, you’ll see consistency in how you reacted to events that share similar dynamics. You made some choices from that place of reaction, and it may have taken you away from what you wanted, even as you were desperate to do something different.

Where have these choices been taking you?

Step 2: Get clear on what matters to you.

This is where many people get stuck. They skip this step and jump straight to goal-setting. But goals aren’t the same as values.

Goals are destinations. Values are directions.

You can achieve a goal or you can fail at it. They are time limited and metrics driven.

But you can’t complete a value. You can only live it or not live it.

What do you want for your life? What matters most to you?

You may have never thought about that before. But it’s the main driver behind all your decisions, and the best place to focus on in making toward moves.

What kind of person do you want to be? Not what you think you should be or what other people want you to be. What do YOU want to stand for?

Do you want to be someone who shows up for people?
Someone who takes risks?
Someone who speaks the truth even when it’s hard?
Someone who creates useful things and who serves others?

Get specific. You can’t move toward something if you don’t know what that something is.

Step 3: Make one choice TODAY that moves you toward that.

We like to make grand gestures for ourselves to demonstrate our commitment to change. But one choice today can start momentum toward what you want.

Have that quick conversation with your teenager about the dirty dishes in the sink.
Go to the gym and take a short walk around the indoor track.
Fill out the application for the job and send it off.

This essay is an example of me doing exactly that. One of my values is to bridge people to information that will help them improve their life.

So getting my knowledge and experience out of my head and into a tangible piece of knowledge is critical in moving toward that value. I’ll be honest, it’s late and I really want to go to bed.

But completing this will help me move toward that value of being a bridge, so I’m working hard to complete this tonight.

Stand at your next Choice Point and commit to choose one toward move before this day is over. Big or small, makes no difference.

Then make that choice — or another one — again tomorrow. And the next day. And so on.

The thoughts and feelings will show up right on cue tomorrow, and the following days.

But now you know they’re designed to keep you from where you’re going. You have more information to help you make a committed choice.

You Don’t Have to Change Your Thoughts

The nice thing about the Choice Point is that you don’t have to change your thoughts or feelings to commit to these choices, even the hard ones.

And you also don’t have to identify with them. In the same way the fish didn’t take on the identity of the worm trying to distract him — the fish knows he’s not a worm — you don’t have to identify with your feelings and thoughts.

You can have thoughts and feelings without becoming fused with them.

Instead of saying you’re an anxious person, you can say you’re a person who sometimes deals with anxious feelings.

Instead of saying you’re an angry person, you can say you sometimes feel angry when things are blocked from you.

This is cognitive defusion — the ability to notice your thoughts and feelings without being controlled by them.

You can feel afraid AND still move forward.
You can feel doubt AND still take action.
You can be uncomfortable AND still choose differently.

Your feelings don’t have to be in charge. You’re a human having an experience that will probably soon become another experience.

The Choice Point Model doesn’t ask you to change your thoughts or fix your feelings.

It asks you one question: In this moment, which direction are you going to choose?

Insight is Worthless Without Committed Action

Self-rumination results in rigid thinking that keeps you stuck chewing on the same choices over and over.

Self-reflection increases your psychological flexibility. When life throws its best weight your way, the Choice Point gives you a resilient framework to notice your thoughts and feelings without them breaking you.

When you’re not controlled by your thoughts and feelings, you’re free to consistently make choices aligned with your values, and keep moving toward what matters most.

You can choose your direction even when you struggle.

Do the work to understand your patterns. Reflect on what brought you here and get clear on why you made the choices you made.