Feeling · · 4 min read

Are Your Decisions Based on Self-Assurance or Obligations?

Wouldn't it be fun if I shared the details of my therapy sessions online to potentially millions of people? Said no one ever. Well, today I'm changing that!

Are Your Decisions Based on Self-Assurance or Obligations?
Photo by Birmingham Museums Trust / Unsplash

This is the start of a new blog series I'm starting called "What I Learned In Therapy". As the name describes, I'll be sharing all of the learnings I've gained through therapy over the last 3 years (and counting!) and how I've applied them to my life. Sometimes it'll be hyper personal, other times it may be more general. But the goal remains the same: make therapy more accessible and less scary for everyone!

Today's topic was from a therapy session back in 2021. I wrote down this question in my notes: "Are your decisions based on self-assurance or obligations?" Although it's been 2 years since I talked about this in therapy, it's still a complicated question to answer.

Decisions Based On Obligations

Naturally, there will be decisions you make that are based on obligations and out of selflessness. Often times these are related to work, family, culture, religion, and other society or group-based organizations. Our desire to belong and to be loved over powers wanting to be selfish or autonomous. Let me make this clear: it's not a bad thing to feel responsibility in relation to others.

Commitment Bias

There's also the case of commitment bias. Commitment bias is a fancy way of saying we have a tendency to remain committed to our past behaviors, particularly those exhibited publicly, even if they lead to undesirable outcomes.

Most times our choices should align with what we have said or done in the past in order to maintain a feeling of alignment with ourselves. Especially when those choices directly relate to our values. Cognitive dissonance happens when our actions don't align with who we believe we are and commitment bias helps to ensure that this doesn't happen.

"Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs when your beliefs don't line up with your actions. It's an uncomfortable statement of mind when someone has contradictory values, attitudes, or perspectives about the same thing."Psycom.net

On the flip side, taking actions based on the past can also act as a barrier to growth. If you are constantly moving towards proving one version of you is true, you can overlook new opportunities for change and growth. Sometimes the best thing to do is to go against our natural attraction for consistency. Recognizing that consistency isn't the end-all and be-all, you'll find it easier to realize when certain past decisions no longer align with your new goals and values.

When Do I Get To Make Self-Assured Decisions?

There's definitely no right or wrong answer to this question. If a decision supports a version of you that still stands true, lean into the commitment bias. If a decision positively benefits groups that you care about, make decisions based on obligation. However, it's when your decisions start to hold you back or cause you to put too much priority on how others feel or what others think of you (over how you feel about yourself), that's when this question comes into play.

This is something I've been trying to unlearn for many years. My personal issue is that I often prioritize others over myself, and the cognitive dissonance has caused the feeling of spite and sadness to surround various events and scenarios in my life. It has gotten so bad that I started questioning why I feel this way and how I can change it. That's how it got brought up in therapy.

For example, there's a lot of sadness that surrounds birthdays for me. Never others' birthdays, those are always joyful times and I am always happy to celebrate these dates. However, when it gets close to my own birthday, I feel a deep desire to isolate myself. But instead of doing so, I plan dinners and events to celebrate with others. How could I turn down my friends asking to celebrate with me? If I value connection and friendship so deeply, then why would I choose to be alone?

2021 was the first year I decided to celebrate my birthday the way I wanted. So I bought a ticket to mexico to take a week long solo-trip. I leaned into my desire to be alone to test whether I actually wanted to be alone or whether it was something else entirely. And what did I learn? That I genuinely just wanted to be alone. This shifted my entire outlook on the commitment bias of celebrating birthdays with big groups of friends. We've been taught since a young age that birthdays are meant for celebrating with family and friends and I've never questioned that that's how I would want to celebrate all birthdays moving forward.

By choosing to unlearn this tradition and do something that may not be by society's standards, but rather, fulfill my own "selfish" desires I broke that cognitive conflict between who I thought I had to be versus who I really wanted to be.

Applying This To Your Life

I can't give you exact examples of where this may apply to you in your life. But I do highly recommend listening to yourself a little more. Yes, this is such woo woo advice, but often times you know exactly where you may be experiencing cognitive dissonance. Look for instances in your life that you feel unnatural discomfort or anxiety about. And then ask yourself, "why do I choose to do this? Is this a self-assured decision or an obligatory one?"

Since we're giving woo woo advice here anyways, here's another one: Maybe it's time to start living by the mantra of "if it's not a HELL YES, then it's a HELL NO!"

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