There was a time when I believed that wanting something automatically meant I should act on it. If I wanted the food, I ate it. If I wanted to avoid something uncomfortable, I avoided it. If I wanted relief, distraction, or comfort in the moment, I followed that urge without questioning it. For a long time, that felt normal, and I honestly did not know there was another way to operate.
Then, during a conversation with a psychologist, I was asked a simple but surprisingly disruptive question. “When you decide to eat something that was not planned, what do you think right before you do it?” My answer was immediate and simple. I just wanted it. He gently pushed back and helped me see something I had never considered before: wanting something and choosing to do something are not the same thing.
That distinction changed everything for me.
Just because I want something does not mean I get to eat it. Wanting is a feeling, not a decision. Choice is the part where I get to decide, and that requires a pause long enough for my brain to weigh in. When I started saying that sentence out loud to myself, not as a punishment but as a reminder, it gave me space to step out of autopilot and into intention.
This is where the idea that my brain is in charge really comes into focus. I’m not trying to ignore my body or silence desire, and I am certainly not trying to white-knuckle my way through life. I am learning to let the decision-making part of my brain participate instead of letting every urge run the show. My brain’s job is not to eliminate wanting. Its job is to help me decide which wants I act on and which ones I acknowledge and let pass.
What surprised me most was how empowering this felt once I stopped framing it as restriction. I can notice that I want something without immediately turning that want into action, and that does not mean I am deprived or failing. It means I am choosing. That choice might be to eat the thing later, to plan it for another day, or to decide that what I actually need in that moment is rest, movement, water, or a break from decision fatigue. The key is that I am deciding, not reacting.
Once I understood this with food, I started seeing how often it applied to the rest of my life. I want to scroll instead of standing up. I want to avoid a hard task instead of taking one small step. I want comfort instead of progress when things feel heavy. None of those wants are wrong, but none of them automatically get to be in charge. When I pause and let my brain weigh in, I’m far more likely to choose something that aligns with the life I’m trying to build, not just the moment I am trying to escape.
This is a skill, and like any skill, it gets stronger with practice. The pause doesn’t have to be dramatic or long. Sometimes it’s just a quiet sentence in my head or out loud, reminding me that wanting and choosing are different things. That moment of awareness is often enough to shift me out of reflex and into intention.
For those of you on a health journey, especially if you have spent years feeling like your body runs the show or that urges control you, I want you to know this is learnable. You don’t need more willpower, and you do not need to be harsher with yourself. You need permission to slow down the moment between impulse and action so that your brain can do the job it is meant to do.
Every time I pause instead of reacting, I’m building trust with myself. I’m proving that I can notice a want without being pushed around by it, and that I can take a breath long enough to decide what actually serves me. Over time, those small pauses add up, not because I was perfect, but because I practiced choosing on purpose instead of living on autopilot.