One of the essential and basic actions that define the human experience is the power to choose. Agency. Self-determination.

Choices. We make them every day. In fact, we make thousands of them every day. We make what I call “nano-choices” – those choices so minuscule and seemingly inconsequential that we can’t even remember making them. Cross our legs. Turn a page. Change a channel. Add more salt. These are all choices. Small, minute.

There are then larger choices: micro-choices. Still small, but somewhat more noticeable. Toast instead of cereal. Blue shirt rather than black. This route to work rather than that. Day-to-day choices that represent the operation of life. Often, we only remember making these choices when something out of the ordinary happens. If we get in a car accident, for example, we revisit the route choice we made earlier. If we’d chosen to leave home five minutes earlier…or later…we would have avoided the accident. Right?

Naturally, there are milestone choices: buying a house or a car. Getting married. These choices serves as sign posts in life. You remember when they happened, where you were, who else was there.

Then…there are the macro-choices. There aren’t many. Choosing whether to accept treatment for a terminal disease is a macro choice. Choosing to remove a loved one from life support. Choosing to escape an abusive relationship. Choosing to step into harm’s way to help someone in peril. You see the pattern here. Macro-choices are life and death.

Though you may never have articulated any of this, as you read through the above paragraphs, you likely nodded. Added a few of your own examples.

But then there are choices we try to make…but do not succeed in implementing. We want to eat better, be more active, stop smoking, stop drinking, watch less TV. We choose to be better…and yet we also choose to ignore that choice. We debate. Argue. Bargain. Finagle. Trade. With ourselves. We embark on an internal dialogue to stop us from making a choice that will improve our lives.

Makes. No. Bloody. Sense.

What should we call these choices? The ones we want to make (do we? really?) and yet cannot implement? Let’s call them “wishful choices” – like wishful thinking.

We even set start dates and deadlines for our wishful choices: “Starting tomorrow, I’m going to ….” We feel sure, grounded, hopeful. Yet when the deadline appears…we fail to exercise that choice. And so it goes: want the choice, schedule the choice, fail to implement the choice, experience self-loathing, repeat.

You’ve no doubt noticed that these choices are usually connected to compulsive or addictive behaviours. You’re going to quit drinking (you don’t). You’re going to exercise more (you don’t). You’re going to eat better (Three guesses. The first two don’t count).

Here’s the truth no one will tell you or admit to: no one ACTUALLY wants to succeed at their wishful choice. In reality, we all just want to continue with the behaviour without experiencing the negative consequences. That’s what we really want. And we keeping trying to skip out on, elude, get past, sneak by the consequences. We never, ever, do. Never.

And, by we, I mean me.

I have my share of addictive peccadillos, trust me. My brain simultaneously coaxes me act on an addictive behaviour and then berates me for doing so. It’s a hellish existence inside my head.

And, when I hear other women talk about their issues — and women have at least one behaviour they ‘just can’t control’ — I hear the same phenomenon.

My beloved former-psychologist, Rosa, doesn’t like the use of battle metaphors when it comes to “wishful choices.” She believes the use of the language creates the reality. Maybe she’s right. She’s a believer of awareness, mindfulness and non-judgment. It’s amazing how hard those things are when I make a decision and then do the exact opposite. No one judges me more harshly than I judge myself. Full stop. You’re nodding again. You too?

I hope you’re not expecting an answer here. I ain’t Oprah “I’ve figured out everything” Winfrey. I’m just a fellow traveller.

What does seem clear in all this is that brain science is at work. The neural wiring for addictive behaviour must be powerful mojo. Think about it: if you’ve always used food, for example, to calm your nerves and comfort yourself, then your brain has hard wired that connection in. Eating = no anxiety. Powerful association!

We also know from brain science that the more an activity is repeated, the more space in the brain the wiring for that activity takes up. So, trying to do something different isn’t just about choice…it’s a neurological David and Goliath battle between the little desire to change and the huge, hardwired neural network that is the established behaviour. (Read Norman Doidge’s fabulous book The Brain that Changes Itself to learn more about this.You’re welcome.) It’s not a fair fight in many respects.

AND YET…we know that some people are able to create significant, sustained change in their lives. How? It’s not just willpower, I can tell you that for sure. Willpower is like a match: it burns brightly and is spent easily. Willpower is not enduring. So…what is the enduring ingredient that makes sustained – even permanent – change possible for some? Don’t look at me…I have no fucking idea.

Nope, I have no answer to this question 0f wishful choice…a question that has vexed me my entire adult life. Is the answer in self-discipline (another elusive word. Don’t get me started), in prayer, meditation or pharmaceuticals? All of the above? Or are we more fixed than we realize. Is there a point at which we are what we are and no amount of effort or wishful thinking can change that? Every day, I edge more toward that conclusion. If it’s true…it creates a whole other set of questions. Perhaps the most compelling of these is: if our behavioural development is largely fixed at some point, what purpose will self-loathing have in our lives? Would it become obsolete?

This thought exposes a huge cosmic irony: if there were no ‘ideal’ way of being to aspire to or wish for, would our only recourse be to love and accept ourselves as we are?

Could abandoning “wishful choices” be one of the keys to happiness? Stick THAT thought up your jumper and see if it itches.

Discuss.