From Chosen to Choosing: Reclaiming Your Power

How many times have you waited for someone else to decide if you were worth a second date, a text back, a life together?

How many nights have you stared at your phone like it held the verdict on your worth, waiting for that one message, that single ding, hoping it meant you crossed their mind?

Here’s the plot twist no fairy tale ever told you: the real power move isn’t being chosen, it’s choosing.

But you can’t truly choose while you’re running on fear, fear of being alone, fear of never being picked, fear that maybe you’re not lovable. Fear keeps your heart on pause, tempts you to settle for crumbs, and convinces you that silence is safer than naming what you really want. The moment you drag those fears into the light, you stop waiting for a crown someone else might bestow and start living a life that’s created on your terms.

Fear loves the shadows. It whispers lies like “You’ll end up alone,” “You’re not enough,” “You’re unlovable.” Write every single one down, even the ones that make you flinch. Seeing them in black and white robs them of their secret power. And remind yourself: being alone is a chapter, not the whole book. 

Your worth isn’t a raffle prize waiting for someone to pull your number. You are the prize. No one else gets to validate that. Before you toss out a quick yes, to a date, a late-night text, even a second drink, slam the brakes for a heartbeat and ask yourself if this choice truly honors you. Is that yes coming from excitement or from fear? Do you even like this person, or are you just flattered they noticed? If fear is holding the microphone, let your answer be a clean, unapologetic no. And when it is a yes? Make it a hell-yes. Say it with both feet planted and your whole heart behind it. A deliberate yes is magnetic. It draws in people who can meet you exactly where you stand, no masks, no auditions, just the real you, tall in your own power.

Your standards should work like a lighthouse, bright enough to guide the right people toward you, steady enough to warn off the ones who can’t meet you where you stand. But don’t let them harden into a fortress. A wall of “never again” bricks might feel safe, but it keeps everyone out, including the kind of love that would actually honor you. Your job isn’t to be a doormat or a dragon guarding the gate. It’s to build boundaries that protect your heart without locking it away. Let your boundaries be a door with a strong lock, not a moat no one can cross. The people who are meant to meet you there will recognize the light and walk toward it.

When you start choosing, your time, your body, your joy, love stops being a lottery you’re desperate to win and becomes something you create on purpose: a deliberate, beautiful layer on the life you already own. Your next bold move doesn’t have to be dramatic. Say a firm 'NO' to a second date that feels off. Silence the notifications and walk away from the screen, let the night have your attention instead. End the evening by speaking your worth out loud so the room itself carries your truth while you sleep. Tiny moves, but every single one is a quiet revolution. These small, intentional choices build the life you’ve been waiting for, not by being chosen, but by choosing.

Choose yourself first. Build relationships that feel like home, whether that means a partnership, a slow-burning love, or a season of glorious solitude. Learn to speak your needs, own your yes and no, and create lives, and love, that are deliberate and real.

Craft a love life that’s chosen on purpose, fierce, tender, and entirely yours.

Stop waiting to be picked. Start choosing. That’s where real love meets you, right in the center of the life you’ve dared to claim.