How to use the choice point model at a crossroads

When a friend says something that hurts you, what do you do?

Your instinct might be to argue, dismiss the friend’s point, or blow the remark out of proportion. But you don’t have to act on your initial reaction. You could take a deep breath and continue the conversation with an open mind — which could ultimately lead to a more productive interaction and a deeper friendship.

Every situation, no matter how small, requires you to make a choice. Some mental health professionals refer to this as your choice point: the moment at which you could act on bad habits or take a step out of your comfort zone and toward the person you want to become. This method is an effective way to reflect on your behavior and learn how to take actions that match your values.

What’s the choice point model?

The choice point model is a tool mental health professionals use to help clients assess behaviors. Usually in the form of a worksheet or written exercise, it asks a patient to think about their actions and reactions as they relate to the person they want to become. The goal of the choice point exercise is to learn which actions contribute to better habits and behavioral change.

Psychologist Ann Bailey, scientist Joe Ciarrochi, and author Russ Harris created this matrix for their 2013 book The Weight Escape. Its original purpose was to help people build healthier eating habits, but it’s since become a tool for analyzing any kind of personal choices someone makes, whether deciding between jobs or trying to be more productive.

How does the choice point diagram work?

A choice matrix has three main facets: one choice point and two arrows, which together look like a “V,” with the choice at the bottom. One arrow is “away,” and the other is “toward.” The visual looks like a fork in the road, and that’s the intention. You're at a crossroads when you decide how to behave in any situation. You can act in a way that aligns with your personal values and “toward” the person you want to become (toward moves). Or, you can behave contrary to your values and “away” from the ideal vision of yourself (away moves). The latter is sometimes known as experiential avoidance, meaning you avoid difficult experiences that might help you grow. 

The choice point exercise aims to help you make decisions that align with your values. When you use a choice point map, you’re not necessarily choosing a route someone else would guide you toward. You’re assessing your own perspective and deciding which action you think serves you best.

For example, you may want to become an executive at your company and think that to achieve this goal, you must spend long nights at the office and cut down on quality time with family. A loved one, a coach, or your therapist may not agree with this decision. Working too much could cause stress, and others want to make sure you have time for self-care. But you perceive this decision as one that helps your career, bringing you closer to the person you want to be. So, wrong or right, helpful or harmful, the action follows the “toward” direction on your choice-point matrix. 

With this in mind, the choice point model isn’t there to help you make the “right” decision. It’s about analyzing your instincts and behavior to become more self-aware. In a year or two, you might realize that your dedication to your career actually burnt you out, and at future choice points, you’d know to decide to prioritize your work-life balance. 

Hooking and unhooking

Most choice point diagrams label the left arrow “hooked” and the right “unhooked” to indicate your emotional state. 

When you’re hooked, the decision at hand triggers an emotional, and maybe irrational, reaction. Your negative thoughts or bad habits guide you toward an undesirable choice. Unhooking yourself means reflecting on those thoughts and letting them pass by, deciding instead to control your choices and move toward who you want to become. Professionals might also refer to this process as cognitive defusion.

3 benefits of the choice point model

If you’re at a crossroads or trying to remedy bad habits, you might download a choice point worksheet or receive one from your therapist or coach. With this tool in front of you, you can think about an upcoming decision and how you can move toward or away from the person you hope to become. 

While being more decisive is a benefit in and of itself, using a choice point diagram opens your mind and improves your cognitive flexibility by pushing you to imagine multiple ideas at once. Here are three more ways investing in this exercise benefits you:

1. Allows you to determine values 

In choice points, values are the basis for your actions. To use this decision-making model, you must first determine what you feel is most important in your life. If you haven’t yet reflected on what your personal values are, this exercise fosters vital self-awareness that can teach you more about yourself. Compassion, achievement, and honesty are all examples of values. 

2. Pushes you to envision a better self

To use the choice point model, you must also understand who you hope to become. Only then can you make decisions that support that vision of yourself. And when you imagine the future, you can set both long-term and short-term goals that improve your life and help you achieve what you want.

But knowing who you want to be often takes time. Before diving into the choice point model, try learning more about yourself through self-assessments, coaching, or therapy. Use your values to consider who your ideal self is and how you might get there. You could plan to get a promotion, buy a home, or become a better leader, giving yourself something to work toward.

3. Helps you think before you act

Once you understand this framework, you can use it to make more informed, goal-driven decisions later. And over time, considering your choice points can become automatic and help you grow as a person over time.

What choice points can teach you about your reactions

Choice point examples can’t model all of life’s decisions. For some situations, you may want to analyze more than just two options, write a pros and cons list, or get advice from an outside party like a friend or life coach. Other times, you’ll make a gut decision based on your deep-seated morals or ethics, like dropping everything to help a struggling friend. 

There’s nothing wrong with analyzing situations through different lenses. But if self-reflection is important to you and you have the time to think things over, the choice point can be an excellent tool.

When you use the choice point model and track your tendency to work toward or away from a better version of yourself, you might notice patterns. Maybe you make rational, grounded decisions when the outcomes involve other people, but if they only affect you, your emotions overtake your vision. These kinds of insights give you the self-knowledge you need to make better decisions and reach your goals.

The choice point versus ACT matrix

The ACT matrix is a similar decision-making exercise that professionals often associate with the choice point. ACT stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and while it shares similarities with the choice point, it focuses on separating external and internal experiences. 

Instead of two arrows, the ACT process has four quadrants. The bottom two consider your automatic thoughts and personal values, and the top two aim to outline what behaviors match those thoughts and values. Like the choice point, it uses the hooked and unhooked framework to explain how your feelings affect your actions. 

The matrix invites greater psychological flexibility because it has more sections and opportunities for reflection than the choice point. You describe how you think and react, assess whether these thoughts and emotions work toward or away from who you wish to become, and offer alternative behaviors. 

Here’s an ACT matrix example. Spending time with family is one of your top values. But when you’re having a stressful week, you avoid social interactions and isolate yourself, spending the weekend alone. To bring yourself closer to your values, you could invite your family over to get you out of your slump.

If you write this thought process down in the ACT matrix, it might look like this:

The ACT matrix and the choice point model combined

You can overlay the choice point model over an ACT matrix, combining both tools into one that explores your feelings and reactions in more depth. 

When you integrate these two diagrams in an ACT choice point worksheet, the “V” from the choice point model opens up so that the “hooked” or “away” branch runs up the left side of the ACT matrix, and the “unhooked” or “toward'' branch runs up the right. At the bottom of the matrix would be your choice point.

Looking at the models on top of one another encourages you to brainstorm values-consistent ways of unhooking that promote positive behaviors. It can also help you understand what thoughts drive you toward hooked behaviors and recognize them in the future. Although it’s slightly more complex than the choice point, it offers deeper analysis, which can be helpful for situations you’re unsure of.

Understand your behavior with the choice point model

The choice point model can help you understand the “Why” behind your decisions. You’ll learn how to recognize whether you regularly make decisions toward or against what’s important to you and interrogate why you sometimes don’t make the most sound choices. 

When you identify the types of decisions that don’t support your personal growth, you gain an opportunity to change and practice self-compassion. Going forward, you’ll be more aware of which decisions align with your values and why, and you’ll take pride in the behavior that results from those good choices.