How To Make Healthier Choices In Life

Updated: Aug 14

Making healthy decisions is one of the most difficult things to do for people struggling with mental illness. Conditions like depression, anxiety, PTSD, or ADHD affect not only our conscious thoughts but also our emotional experiences.

Living with anxiety or depression can make you doubt your judgment, leading to cycles of poor choices and regret. I’ve been there, and I’ve discovered a powerful DBT technique that changed everything. It’s called Wise Mind decision making, and it has reshaped how I navigate nearly every part of my life.

Why Good Choices Feel Impossible When You’re Struggling

Mental illness doesn’t just make you feel bad, it distorts the lens you use to make decisions. Some days, even choosing what to eat or whether to respond to a text can feel overwhelming. You get caught between what you think is right and what you feel is right, and neither option seems to work.

When that internal tug-of-war becomes constant, it wears down your confidence. You start believing you can’t trust yourself. And when self-trust erodes, decision-making becomes less about clarity and more about survival.

The Two Voices Inside You: Reason Mind vs. Emotion Mind

Inside each of us are two competing decision-makers.

Reason Mind is analytical. It deals in facts, numbers, and logic. It’s what tells you to stay in a job because it pays well, even if it drains you. I use Reason Mind a lot in business. It helps me look at the data, plan ahead, and stay grounded when emotions run high. But it has blind spots. It doesn’t account for joy, stress, or human dynamics.

Emotion Mind is driven by how things feel. It helps you pick up on energy, connection, or discomfort. I see this most in relationships when you meet someone and something just feels off. You can’t explain it, but your gut knows. Emotion Mind is powerful, but it can’t manage your budget or plan your future.

Each has value, and each misses things the other sees clearly.

What Is Wise Mind? The Overlap That Changes Everything

The Wise Mind Method is about finding the intersection between these two voices. Reason Mind and Emotion Mind align when both your logic and your feelings point in the same direction, you’ve hit the sweet spot. That’s Wise Mind.

Wise Mind is not about being perfectly balanced every time. It’s about knowing your own bias. Do you tend to ignore your gut and overthink everything? Or do you go all-in on feelings and skip the practical questions?

Once you know your bias, you can start checking in with the part you usually overlook.

If you're heavy on logic, ask yourself: What’s my emotional reaction to this?

If you’re led by emotion, ask: Does this decision make long-term sense?

Over time, this practice builds a deeper kind of confidence. Not just in your decisions but in your ability to face hard things without falling apart.

How I’ve Used Wise Mind in Real Life

As a business owner, I use Wise Mind to ignore emotional cues when hiring. I’d look at resumes and performance, but I wouldn’t consider how someone would fit into our culture. Eventually, I realized the data alone wasn’t enough because the people I brought in affected the whole team dynamic. Learning to factor in how things felt helped me make better choices for the long term.

In relationships, it was the opposite. I used to ignore my instincts because I couldn’t logically “prove” something was off. But every time I did, I regretted it. Now, when my gut tells me something isn’t right, I listen and I ask questions to see if the data supports the feeling.

That’s Wise Mind in action.

What You Practice Gets Stronger

Wise mind decision making isn’t just a skill, it’s a way of relating to yourself with more clarity and compassion. You won’t get it perfect every time, but that’s not the point. What matters is practicing until you start building decisions you can stand by. That’s how you reclaim trust in yourself.

No matter how messy things feel right now, this method gives you something to hold on to and that changes everything.

I’ve broken it down further in the video below where I walk through how I use the Wise Mind Method to make healthier, more stable decisions.

-Scott

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