If You Want to Feel More Empowered Stop Doing This

Do you feel trapped in a situation? Helpless? Like there is nothing you can do?

There is.

Make a decision and own it.

Stop bitching about it. Stop saying you have no choice. Stop using your situation or the people around you as an excuse. Stop saying, "It is what it is" and letting the cards fall where they may.

You know what kind of people don't have decision making power? Victims.  If you want to be a victim, keep saying things like "but what can I do?" after a major bitch session while shrugging your shoulders.

When you pretend like you have no choice, you are abdicating responsibility for your life, and turning it over to someone or something else. That is the opposite of empowerment (and adulthood), and it will slowly erode your self-respect and confidence in yourself.

I'm not saying that people and circumstances don't impact or influence your choices.  If you have children, that will impact your options.  Maybe you can't go live in a yurt somewhere off the grid. That doesn't mean you have no choices. Look at your options, and make a decision.

What can you do where you are with what you have? What is appealing to you about living in a yurt off the grid, and then decide to bring as much of that into your current life as possible.  You know what another option is?

Do nothing.  That's a decision. If you make it, own it.  Say this with me, "I choose to stay home with my kids and not move to a yurt."

See the difference? You decided not to go to that yurt.  Not your kids.  Not your current situation. You did you badass.

Maybe you have a really shitty relationship with your ex. Don't say, "I have no choice, but to try to get along with him for my children's sake."

You have a choice. You can choose not to get along with him/her. If course, you will cause all kinds of drama maybe for your children (or maybe save them from future drama, I don't know), but if you are going to keep trying.... DECIDE. Again, say it with me, "I choose to continue to try to get along with my ex (even though he is an ass), for my children's sake."  I choose. Not him. Not them. Not society. Me.

What about people with medical conditions. They certainly didn't choose their circumstances.  I have a chronic illness that puts me out of commission at times.  I used to push through saying, I don't have a choice, but I did have a choice. I chose to push through because it was easier than disappointing the people who were counting on me until I couldn't push through anymore and my disease made a decision for me.

I chose it but didn't own it.  A bff finally called me out on it.  She said, "I love you, but I don't want to hear you bitch about this anymore, and not choose do anything about it. It's a waste of your energy and mine."  Ouch.

"But I don't have a choice." I whined.

"Yes, you do. You can choose to say no."

"No I can't. So and so is counting on me."

"No, you can say no, you just choose not to, and that is fine. You are the one who has to live with the no or yes, but know you chose it. There are other options, you just choose not to exercise them."

"But all my options suck." I say.

"Yup, that happens sometimes, but living is making the most of what you have been given. Not choosing, isn't really living."

Once I acknowledge that my options were not as ideal as I would like (aka accepting reality), it gave me freedom to make decisions.

I didn't want to be a victim in my own life story.  I wanted to own my decisions, even the crappy ones.  I didn't want to give this disease, or circumstances any more power over me than it already had.

So if you want to truly feel empowered, own your decisions, even the bad ones.  If you want to truly live, make a decision to live by choosing to make the most out of what you have been given, not what you wish you had.

Weigh your options, make the best decision you have available to you today, put your hands on your hips, stick your chest out (channel Wonder Woman) and day, "I decide to....."