by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
We Always Have a Choice: Be REAL or UNREAL
Life is a funny old business and we can often feel like things are just ‘happening’ to us – like we’re just an effect of all the causes in the world:
Circumstances seem to unfold beyond our control, emotions rise and fall unexpectedly without rhyme-or-reason, and people come in and out of our lives – often at the most inconvenient or unexpected moments. Sometimes, it can all feel like we’re being tossed around on the waves of life, with little to no choice over what happens next.
But what if I told you that we have far more power in these situations than we may realise? What if – instead of simply reacting to life’s challenges – we could actively shape our experiences and influence the outcomes we face with more influence than we first thought possible?
At the heart of this concept is the power of CHOICE…and we always have a choice:
Life may not always unfold the way we think we want it to (“the map is not the territory”, after all), but we always have the power to choose how we respond to things when they do happen.
More importantly, we always have three options at our disposal: 1) Change it, 2) Leave it, or 3) Learn to live with it (accept it). Understanding and embracing these choices is the key to creating a life that feels fulfilling and aligned with your deeper purpose so that you can stay REAL and keep moving towards wholeness.
Let’s dive a little deeper:
Active vs Passive: The Fundamental Difference
As we go through life, we tend to oscillate between two primary modes of being in the world: active and passive. In this context, being passive means letting things ‘happen’ to us – reacting to the world without taking control and letting circumstances, other people, or own emotional ‘stuff’ dictate how we show up in our own life. In contrast, being active means taking responsibility for our lives and shaping them intentionally by making a CHOICE for action or inaction and then living with the consequences.
This distinction, whilst not exactly ‘new’ (humans are gonna human, after all – we’ve been the same for literally thousands of years), is crucial:
It’s easy to get caught up in the belief that life is something we must passively accept as it unfolds, but the truth is – even though there is a lot about life that we just have to ‘accept’ because it can never be changed – we are far more powerful than needing to just sit and passively take everything on the chin.
The bottom-line is that you are not defined by the things that happen to you; you are defined by the things you make happen. Life is a creative process and you are the artist – even when circumstances seem beyond your control, your ability to choose how you respond is where your true power lies and is the ‘secret’ to maintaining peace within yourself and making the most of your life.
The Three Choices
Let’s explore the three REAL choices you always have in any situation:
1. Change It
When we are faced with a challenge, obstacle, or trial our first option is to change the situation – including at the level of who we are within it. This is often the most direct route to transformation.
If something is not working, and you have the ability to influence it, why not try to change it? This could mean anything from changing your job, your environment, or your habits to changing your mindset or perspective on a situation. It could also just mean finding a ‘solution’ to the ‘problem’ by taking whatever REAL action is going to open things up for you.
For example, if you feel stuck in a relationship that’s not serving you, you have the power to initiate change. Perhaps it’s through honest communication (bringing up all unstated assumptions to the surface), setting boundaries (which usually means saying “NO” or accepting somebody else saying the same), or making the decision to walk away (in the worst-case scenario).
The point is, you don’t have to stay in a situation that feels misaligned with your values or your goals – if you can change it, do so, and the situation is no longer something that just ‘happened’ to you but something you made happen. You’re no longer an effect of things but a CAUSE of things.
2. Leave It
Sometimes, change isn’t possible, or it may not be the right course of action – in these cases, the second option is to leave it. This doesn’t always mean physically walking away, although it could (and that’s the most common way to make use of this option)…it might also mean emotionally detaching from a situation, a person, or a belief that no longer serves you but that you can’t physically remove yourself from.
Leaving something doesn’t always equate to abandonment; sometimes it’s a conscious decision to move away from something that is draining your energy or holding you back (as I always like to say “Gimme something real or GTFO“).
This could be a toxic friendship, a job that no longer aligns with your values, or a mindset that keeps you stuck in patterns of self-doubt (which means you’re ‘leaving’ a part of yourself because you recognised something unreal in your relationship with yourself). Leaving gives you the space to refocus and create a new direction, one that’s more in line with your purpose and your REALNESS rather than old patterns and mental ‘software’ that hold you back.
3. Learn to Live With It (Accept It)
The third choice is often the hardest: learning to live with it, or accepting the situation as it is – this doesn’t mean passively resigning yourself to things that cause you harm or discomfort. Instead, it’s about recognising that there are certain circumstances in life that are beyond our control, and the best way to handle them is through acceptance (which means letting go of the unreal beliefs we carry that stop us facing the reality that sometimes it just is what it is).
Acceptance doesn’t mean ‘liking’ or ‘disliking’ the situation but releasing resistance to the REALITY of the situation
It’s about CHOOSING peace despite external circumstances:
For example, you might not be able to change the fact that you’re dealing with a health condition, a challenging family dynamic, or a difficult work environment but you can change how you respond to these things. You can CHOOSE to accept the situation as part of your journey, while still striving for growth, balance, and inner peace, because you know that whatever life is throwing at you is helping you to become more REAL in the long run.
The Influence of Choice on Your Life
Having these three choices at your disposal allows you to regain agency in your life:
You don’t have to be a passive observer of the events that unfold – an effect instead of a cause of life because you can actively shape your life by making conscious decisions about how you respond to reality as it unfolds around you.
The key here is recognising that, while you can’t control everything that happens to you, you do have the power to influence your experience when things do happen. It’s about recognising that even when life throws challenges your way, you can CHOOSE to influence how you engage with those challenges and the direction that you’ll keep moving.
Consider this: You can’t control the weather but you can choose how you dress. In the same way, you can’t control all the circumstances of your life, but you can choose how to respond to them. That’s where your power lies – in responding appropriately (based on who you are in your realness) instead of reacting to inappropriately (because of FEAR or ego etc.).
Realising Your Full Potential
The process of shaping your reality actually goes beyond simply making choices:
It’s about realising that you are the co-creator of your life in a relationship with life itself. You aren’t a passive participant waiting for life to ‘happen’ to you; you are an active creator, working with the raw materials of reality to build something meaningful and authentic.
This doesn’t mean that life is always easy or predictable – nor does it mean that you can control everything. There’s a difference between FATE (the cards you’ve been dealt and didn’t choose) and your DESTINY (what you CHOOSE to do with these cards as you play the game). See this article for more on that: Fate vs Destiny: Playing the Cards We’re Dealt
As we said a few minutes ago, there will be moments when things feel out of control, when emotions flood in, or when unexpected challenges arise, but these are opportunities to exercise your power of choice not to have things chosen for you.
You can choose to respond with intention, to steer your ship in the direction of your VISION for your life and your goals, rather than letting the currents dictate your path and taking you where you don’t want to be.
Creating Your REAL Life
To live a life that feels REAL, you need to understand that the life you want is not something that will just magically appear outside of you without you doing anything to facilitate its co-creation (a collaboration between you and life itself):
It is something you must create from the inside-out: your vision, your goals, your intentions- they all begin in your mind but that’s exactly where they’ll stay unless you take REAL ACTION.
Cultivate the relationship you need between yourself and life in order to achieve the life you want:
If you want a fulfilling career, become the kind of person who can thrive in that role (by developing the skills and qualities that person would have); if you want a loving and supportive relationship, become the kind of person who can offer those qualities (by learning to accept yourself unconditionally first and foremoest) Your life is shaped by who you are and by the choices you make every single day – and, as we have seen, there is always a CHOICE.
Check out my free 7-Day Course to go deeper into all this stuff: The 7-Day Personality Transplant
Conclusion: The Path Forward is Always ‘There’
Life always offers you three choices: change it, leave it, or accept it.
By consciously choosing how to respond to life’s challenges, you create a life that is meaningful, fulfilling, and an expression of your own REALNESS.
Embrace your power to shape your own life, and remember: life isn’t happening to you – it’s happening with you, and through you.
Stay real out there,
*Based on ‘Revolution’ number twenty four in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness
Trust: A Manual for Becoming the Void, Building Flow, and Finding Peace is a book about learning to return to your realness by cultivating trust in yourself and trust in life.
It contains practical exercises and dedicated meditations (Transformational Bridges) to take you DEEP in knowing yourself and life.
This book will answer many of the questions you have growing REAL and flowing towards wholeness. It covers everything from shame to addiction to the unconscious mind and synchronicity (and way more).
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
The Flow Builder Journal has everything you need to make the next 21-weeks of your life a turning point.
It has monthly, weekly, and daily (morning and evening) check-ins, tools and reflections to keep you in the zone and keep you flowing with zest and momentum.
If you want to get unstuck and grow REAL then check it out.
Download EGO/SHADOW/TRUST - a free guide to transformation that will walk you through the vital stages of Awareness, Acceptance, and Action with practical strategies to implement right away.
Join the 7-Day Bare Ass Minimum (BAM) Challenge and start to implement foundational health habits and a powerful life vision only a week from now.
