A few weeks ago I was speaking at a conference, and I mentioned that I’m not a very good counselor. I said, “typically, you have one of three problems, and the faster I can figure it out, the faster we’ll move forward.”

I’ve said this numerous times in other settings.

But something different happened on this day.

Someone raised their hand during the Q&A and asked what those three things were?

Ready?

1. Your family of origin.
2. Being comfortable in your own skin.
3. Resentment and bitterness about how your life has turned out.

Is it that simple? I think so, and I’ll explain in a moment.

But I believe, almost every time I sit in a counseling situation, any argument I have with my wife, co-worker, child, parent or friend, it comes back to this. Addictions go back to this, hurt feelings go back to this, and missed opportunities come back to this.

Take the first, your family of origin. We underestimate the power of this one. We think we grew up in this kind of family (frugal, wealthy, shouting, alcoholic, the list goes on) and we believe it has little to do with our lives. This family determines so much about our lives, our marriage, career, how we handle money and the way we parent.

I grew up in a family that didn’t talk about emotions a lot or processes them. So guess what I don’t like to do? Talk about feelings and emotions. I don’t even want to cry in front of people (one of the things I’m working on with a counselor).

The second one is being comfortable in your own skin. This is the comparison game we have played our whole lives. Often, we will look at someone else’s marriage, career or talents and be jealous.

Often, what gets us stuck, particularly in our career, marriage or leadership is not being comfortable with who we are. We aren’t skinny enough, strong enough, smart enough, _____ enough. And we stop.

Which leads us the last one is resentment and bitterness about how your life has turned out. All of us have hopes and dreams for our lives and the future. What we struggle with is handling when they don’t play out like we thought or it doesn’t feel how we expected it to feel. Often, it won’t be as amazing as we expected it. We planned to be further up the career ladder, we expected to have kids by now or that they would be different than they are or that our spouse would be different or that we would be married by this age.

At this point, if we aren’t careful, the reason we are stuck is everyone else’s fault. We come up with all kinds of reasons as to why we’ve been overlooked, left behind or why we can’t get past an addiction or let go of something. But, very rarely is it our fault. Now, the reality is, where your life ends up is dependent on other people and they have an impact on it. But we also have a hande in those choices (i.e., where we go to school, where we work, how we invest our money, who we marry). As well, we have a choice in how we will respond to what someone else does. That is within our power to control.

Which is why Your life becomes the total of your choices.

You might think, this sounds too simplistic. It might be, but if you look at any struggle you are having right now in your career or a relationship, my hunch is you will find one of these three things underneath it.