Choices and payoffs
EVERYTHING I DO IS THE RESULT OF A CHOICE I MAKE
I forget where I found this. This says essentially a very basic foundation in therapy and that is to take responsibility for your feelings, thoughts and actions.
Every choice I make benefits me positively in some way, even though I may not know what the benefit is at the moment. I have inside me everything I need and all the tools I need to guide my life successfully. I can choose to gain greater self-awareness. I am responsible for 100% of my life. The degree to which others control my life is the degree to which I allow them to control it. I can voluntarily change my feelings by changing my thoughts. I can voluntarily change my behavior. Any problem I have experienced in my life is a problem I have created for myself. If I choose to continue creating a particular problem for myself, I do it because
1) I receive some pleasure of unacknowledged benefit or payoff for continuing the problem or
2) I can avoid a greater or more fearful problem by perpetuating the current problem. In other words, if I solve the current problem, I am afraid the greater problem will occur.