Today, I am going to show you how, by making conscious choices when faced with everyday dilemmas in life or work, you can drastically improve or even transform your life in just six months (or less).

By making conscious choices, you gain awareness and set the right intentions while ensuring that everything you do has a purpose and meaning - from the most trivial task on your to-do list to the most crucial decision.

Unfortunately, most people simply go with the flow or let emotions cloud their judgment when making decisions about their lives and work. In fact, they make decisions instead of actively making them.

It’s like crafting your own meal with the ingredients and cooking style you desire versus choosing from a preset menu.

The power of conscious choice lies in awareness and control. 

When you craft your life and work how you truly want, you gain a heightened level of awareness. You can recognise and understand what is happening both internally (within your body, mind and soul) or externally (the environment around you). You become more present, paying attention to emotions, thoughts and feelings, as well as the surroundings, without judgment and recognising their influence. You take the time to think about your values and goals and the consequences of each choice or decision.

Being more aware helps you gain control over your emotions, thoughts and behaviours, deliberately directing your actions and responses. You make decisions with a clear purpose and intention without reacting impulsively. You stay focused on your goals and avoid distractions or temptations. You take ownership of both your choices and their outcomes.

Without awareness or intention, you take automatic choices from the menu others usually place before you. Those choices are driven by habits (usually bad ones), instincts you are unaware of, or other subconscious influences which cause harm or damage to the quality of your life and work.

Automatic choices may be quicker or appear more efficient because people usually take them faster than they would conscious ones. Unfortunately, today's culture prioritises speed to the detriment of the quality of things and experiences.

Most people do that but then complain about their lives and work, saying they lack meaning, purpose, and enjoyment. No wonder.

Switching from automatic to conscious choices whenever you face a dilemma takes you on new, healthier, and more sustainable paths. It’s like facing a crossroads and choosing the best way to go based on the signs you see instead of following your instinct.

Reflecting on my life and work choices over the years, I have identified nine dilemmas we face daily. I call them “The Mirror Moments.”

What are the Mirror Moments? And how can you leverage them?

They are the moments during the day when we face smaller or bigger dilemmas about our next move. It’s about facing an issue and deciding which option to choose, A or B.

A is the good option (the one that benefits you in the long run), and B is the bad option (the one that’s more focused on short-term benefits but harms you in the longer term).

We naturally tend to option B, while we should consciously choose option A. It’s like standing in front of a mirror. You are B; what you see in the mirror is the better option A. It comes down to choosing between your present self or a better future version of yourself.

Every smaller or greater decision and choice you make today influences what you become in the future.

Taking it a step further, it’s about your identity. What you are now may not necessarily be your desired identity. And it shouldn’t be. We can constantly improve, grow and evolve, and, in fact, we must do that because entropy lurks in the dark, waiting for every little opportunity to downgrade what we are and have.

You are the creator when you make (and not take) choices - conscious ones. You create the conditions to change your life and become your desired identity.

Here are the 9 Mirror Moments you should watch out for.

9 everyday dilemmas and how to choose wisely

You can’t control or change what lies beyond your sphere of influence. However, you can change how you respond.

Choosing wisely when faced with the following dilemmas or Mirror Moments can drastically change the trajectory of your day, week, month, year and so on for the better.

Every good decision leads to an upward trajectory and helps build new habits. Every bad decision leads to a downward trajectory and creates unhealthy habits.

Let’s dive in.

1. Act VS abstain

Action is essential for reaching your goals and living and working with meaning, purpose and enjoyment. Without action, anything you desire or plan remains a thought and, therefore, has no value. Action that is not actualised equals stagnation. 

In this context by action I mean any activity that involves achieving a specific goal or addressing a situation.

If you choose to abstain, you deliberately choose not to do anything that can bring change. To abstain means you don’t take decisions, don’t do what is necessary to produce an outcome, and don’t face the issues that arise. You take life and work as they come without actively participating in what is happening.

Action is a fundamental success factor for growth and evolution. If you choose not to act, you will stagnate and gradually downgrade due to entropy.

I understand that inertia is also a powerful natural force. However, taking action helps break the cycle of inaction and procrastination. Plus, you boost your confidence (with every successful action) or learn (with every failure).

Creating an action-focused mindset is vital for living a Good Life. To do that, you need positivity, intention, and a plan. Without the latter, your mind will avoid action because it does not know exactly what to do.

2. Learn VS become ignorant

As the iconic American blues artist B.B. King said, “The beautiful thing about learning is that nobody can take it away from you.” Learning is a lifelong process that is not confined to formal education (school, college, university).

Whether knowledge or skills, you should always learn new things that expand your mental capacity and current worldviews.

We can learn through trial and error, so action is integral to the learning process. We can also learn by studying and applying, which is essential for solidifying knowledge. Without practice, anything new you learn soon fades away.

Choosing to keep learning helps you master new skills that boost your confidence and solve problems you previously thought were too difficult to handle.

If you stop learning, you become ignorant. This leads to stagnation and decline in all your systems: cognitive decline, social isolation, poor problem-solving, lower confidence in life and work, and lack of adaptability.

Ignorance has the same effects as the lack of action. Entropy takes over and creates disorder.

Here are a few ways to integrate learning into your life:

• read books

• listen to podcasts

• watch videos

• get hands-on experience (such as workshops)

• take online courses

• participate in group discussions (which expand your horizons drastically),

• teach

• engage in creative exploration (such as writing, drawing, or building something)

3. Nourish VS consume

Health is one of the key elements of a Good Life. What you eat plays a crucial role in your health, which in turn determines how focused and energised you can be when navigating life and work.

Everyone eats food. However, there’s a distinction between nourishing yourself and simply consuming. Your intention should be to nourish your body by providing all the essential nutrients to support growth, health and your overall well-being.

Unfortunately, most people today consume food and drinks. They devour things without considering their nutritional value. For example, you may consume junk food from McDonalds, but this is definitely not nourishing despite being tasteful (and addictive) food.

It’s about quality versus quantity. Most people today engage in the emotional part of eating. That means they focus on satisfying their emotions with food designed to do precisely that (and create addiction with fat, salt, and sugar).

If you adopt a holistic perspective on food, you can level up without sacrificing anything. Consumption is mainly transactional, while healthy eating highlights all the aspects of the activity, such as the health benefits to your body and mind, satisfying your mental craving, and the social dimension (like eating with other people).

When faced with food options, choose the ones that can provide you with the most and best (like vegetables, fruit, whole grains, lean proteins, and healthy fats like nuts and dairy). 

To create new healthy eating habits, also make sure you

• stay hydrated (water is precious to our bodies)

• limit processed foods

• practice mindful eating (be present when you eat)

• plan your meals (to avoid spontaneous low-quality indulgences)

• pair nutrition with physical exercise

4. Expand VS narrow

This is a more mental and spiritual choice, but opting for expansion is crucial for one’s personal growth. It’s about enhancing one's understanding, broadening one's perspective, and increasing one's awareness of new ideas, experiences, or knowledge. The latter can be achieved through learning, as I described above. The rest requires more intentional action.

When you are narrow-minded, your perspective is limited, and you are unwilling to consider new ideas or experiences. The thing is that change is a constant in life and work. Without an expanded mindset, you cannot keep up with the pace of change, adapt, survive and thrive.

You exhibit intolerance and prejudice, hold rigid views, and resist change. That can’t get you far. You are not open to what life and work has in store. The more you remain closed, the more your mental and spiritual capacity shrinks, in the same way that an apple gradually loses its freshness and crispy flesh and turns into a soft, rotting and shrinking kind of ball.

Expanding yourself helps you avoid the risk of becoming sluggish, a natural tendency for humans (to preserve energy and stay safe).

The best approach is to explore new ideas and seek novel experiences constantly. Here are a few ways to do this:

• explore new interests or hobbies

• engage in physical activities, travel

• explore the arts

• practice meditation and mindfulness (to keep you grounded and open to what the world has to offer)

• practice empathy

• volunteer

• journal

5. Grow VS shrink

This is about work and business. We face daily dilemmas about managing our careers or companies. Once we finish the initial setup, we tend to stop actively pursuing growth. Some experts suggest, “Don’t change it if it works.” The thing is, it will stop working if you don’t change it.

Employees often wonder, “Should I take on the opportunity or not because that will mean more work and energy?” Solopreneurs frequently face scaling-up issues: “Should I expand my business and invest more? Or does that mean more work and resources I don’t currently have?”

Those are all normal reactions because our brains are hardwired to keep us safe—but in a specifically limited bubble. Anything outside that bubble sounds unsafe or risky, so fear kicks in, and we get stuck.

Having a growth mindset means discarding any beliefs that growth is risky (it can be, but it’s not the case 99% of the time) and that you lack the resources to expand.

Focusing on growth allows you to reframe your thinking and acknowledge that you can develop or acquire any skills, knowledge or intelligence you lack to grow your career or business.

Taking on the opportunities that come your way includes less regret about things you should have done. Plus, it allows you to create opportunities rather than wait for them to come to your doorstep.

Here are a few ways to develop a growth-oriented mindset: embrace challenges (without being afraid of failure), believe in the power of slight but consistent improvement, dream as big as you want and plan it, focus on effort rather than outcome (to avoid getting fixated on the result and losing motivation).

6. Create VS consume

I can’t stress enough the importance of creativity in life. It can boost your personal well-being, help you solve problems faster, and drive professional success.

Creativity is about generating new and original ideas by combining knowledge, skills, and imagination. In other words, it’s about connecting the dots between seemingly unrelated ideas, concepts, notions, and areas of expertise or experience.

To their detriment, most people claim “they are not creative.” They mean they don’t like the arts, have hobbies, or feel the urge to build something themselves. “I am not a hands-on type of person!”

That’s a significant blockage because humans are simply creative beings by nature. We have advanced science and technology to extraordinary lengths and created incredible, everlasting works of art.

Our time’s “comfort culture” unfortunately conditions people to consume: watch TV and Netflix, scroll screens, consume content and judge on social media, and consume junk food. Everything becomes accessible at the touch of a button.

All that removes your inherent creativity, stripping you of the ability to develop and sustain imagination, skills, and passion.

Here are a few ways to stay creative:

• explore new interests

• express your creativity in various forms (like painting, dancing, writing or playing music)

• build side projects that excite you (regardless of whether you will monetise them or not)

• reflect and journal (to come up with new ideas and create “aha” moments),

• daydream

• socialise with like-minded people

• cultivate curiosity (ask questions and seek new experiences)

7. Feel VS desensitise

Feelings and emotions are integral to human experience. They influence our instincts, decision-making, socialising, and personal growth. But what exactly are they? 

Feelings are physical sensations, how our bodies respond to external stimuli (e.g., “I feel warmth when I am with you”). Emotions are the internal process of those responses and indicate complex psychological states (e.g., “I am happy when I am around you”).

External (physical) and internal (mental and psychological) experiences are vital for our development and growth. However, today, people are becoming increasingly desensitised. Modern-day culture makes people less sensitive to stimuli because of repeated exposure.

For example, wars break out more frequently than ever, and people become less sensitive to their consequences (many don’t even bother). The same goes for violence—the more violence people watch unfold, the less reactive they become.

People stop feeling and having emotions about things. That extends to relationships and socialising, too.

Let’s put a conscious end to that. In fact, let’s reverse the situation. The more human we become again (healthy, active, creative, social), the more we will be able to feel again. When faced with the dilemma “Should I let myself feel and develop emotions or should I stay indifferent?”, opt for the former. 

Not only is it healthy and intuitive, but it also helps you live a more psychologically rich life. This is precious and drastically improves the quality of your whole life.

Here’s how to practice it:

• Expose yourself to stimuli (try new things, meet new people, travel)

• Journal and reflect (let what you have inside turn to words and assess them)

• Socialise (staying isolated desensitises you strongly)

• Practice mindfulness and meditation (to keep you grounded and present in the moment)

• Be creative (see point 6 above)

• Create support networks (family, friends, people you admire)

8. Collaborate VS isolate

Isolation is a real-life problem for most modern humans. We stay at home more and more, isolating ourselves from the environments we are supposed to live in and the people we are supposed to interact with and collaborate with. As an introvert and solopreneur (working from home mainly), I have experienced this myself.

The more isolated (and desensitised) you become, the less you feel the need to collaborate with others, whether for personal or professional reasons.

The popular “hustle culture” encourages people to work hard and achieve everything alone, as not doing so is a sign of weakness and a lack of excellence or mastery.

It’s the opposite. The winners are those who collaborate and seek help, feedback, or support or simply want to join forces for a common goal. The rest rely on their ego, become limited by it, and often become egotistical.

Believing in yourself and your abilities is one thing. Believing you are superior to others, boasting, vanity, and disregarding others are totally different.

The ancient Greek and Roman philosophers emphasised the importance of modesty and humbleness. 

When you face the dilemma, “Should I do it myself or collaborate with others?” Always opt for the latter. I know it may feel challenging or awkward to do it all the time, but don’t overanalyse it. Approach it for what it is (not what it sounds or seems in your mind). Here are a few examples.

Solopreneurs learn to work independently and may be reluctant to collaborate. Independently does not mean isolated.

Introverts spend their mental energy quickly by interacting with others. However, collaboration does not necessarily mean making friends and socialising with everyone you may collaborate with).  

Here are a few ways to cultivate a collaborative mindset as an individual:

• Seek feedback and constructive criticism (from friends or clients)

• Embrace collaborative agendas, and don’t focus on your personal agenda (what you want to achieve). Everyone can win.

• Join community activities and volunteer (that’s a less formal type of collaboration and feels good)

• Practice mindfulness to gain self-awareness (so you know when you can do something on your own or need to collaborate)

• Seek diverse perspectives and be creative (the more opportunities you see, the more collaborative you become)

9. Invest VS spend

This applies not only to business but also to personal life and growth. You have two options:

You can approach everything you do as a cost centre (spending resources) or from an investment perspective. The first approach is limiting, while the second is more abundant.

Most people grow with the spending mindset because they were raised with it. Anything you do consumes your resources (mainly money) and is a cost that has to be minimised. No wonder most employees try to do less while asking for more. They try to bridge the gap they believe exists between what they provide and what they receive in return.

Investing is not only about financial gains in the literal sense that the term is used in economics. Investing is generally about allocating resources to something that has the potential to generate returns over time.

When you have an investment-first mindset, you approach everything you do in life or work as something from which you can expect something back. This can significantly improve your decision-making. You opt for what makes more sense from an investment perspective — more long-term returns plus the ability to accumulate them.

When your mindset is cost-oriented, all you do is spend less to gain more, which is inherently much more difficult to achieve, if not fruitless. Spending is only about consuming resources and catering for short-term needs. But it’s safer and includes less risk (that’s why this mindset is so popular).

Every decision in your life or work is essentially an investment opportunity. Should you take it on and generate future gains or pass it because it costs? Guess which option is more sustainable.

Let me share a few proven ways to cultivate an abundant mindset:

• Stay positive (negativity pushes you to see everything as a cost)

• Practice gratitude (for what you already have) and set abundant intentions (so that you can invest from what you have now to receive future gains)

• Be generous (not everything is measured in monetary terms)

• Invest in yourself (skills, knowledge, intel)

• Think long-term (short-term is always focused on spending)

Wrapping up

The power of choice is immense. When facing daily dilemmas about the most trivial or the most significant issue, you have to remind yourself this: the choices and decisions you make today influence and shape your future self.

People often wonder why their current state sucks. They fail to understand that it’s the result of your past choices. If they had made better or wiser choices and decisions in the past 6 months, they would have been much better off today.

Choose wisely. Think about what’s good for you in the long term and stop focusing on what’s the easiest and most comfortable thing to do. If you consistently do that for 6 months, a new, better version of yourself is guaranteed. One with more self-awareness, confidence and conviction to do what’s needed to unlock your potential and realise your vision and mission in work and life.

That’s particularly valid for solopreneurs, who face problems and crossroads daily (and usually have no one to back them up), and introverted people who struggle to embrace who they are as they are (and typically choose a more limiting mindset so they can stay low but remain unappreciated).

What’s next?

It’s all about the mindset. As the ancient Greek and Roman philosophers taught, we can only control our minds, thoughts and actions. Focusing on that can help you avoid unnecessary struggle, get unstuck, and move forward faster.

If you need support getting unstuck in your life or work, let me step in. I can be of help if

• you want to quit your 9-5 job and create your one-person business but are too afraid to venture

• you are a currently struggling solopreneur

• you are an introverted person struggling to leverage your introversion and unique superpowers

DM me on LinkedIn, and let’s explore how Mindset Coaching can help you move forward and claim what you desire and deserve for a life with purpose, meaning and enjoyment.