We treat choices that hurt people as though they’re mistakes. As if the right answer—the truly good choice—wouldn’t leave anyone with less than they need. But some choices don’t have a version where no one loses.
Steph’s parents are both declining in two different states. Her mother is in Arizona, her father in Florida. They’ve been divorced for thirty years and won’t live in the same state, let alone the same house. Steph is 51, lives in Ohio, and got a text from her brother a few weeks ago that her mother had taken a fall. Nothing was broken, but she was shaken. Her father, managing his own decline with Parkinson’s, was alone.
“I keep thinking there’s an answer I’m missing,” Steph told me in our first session. “Like if I just plan it right, or get the timing perfect, I can be there for both of them. But every time I book a flight to see one, I’m choosing not to be with the other.”
She’d already tried the obvious solutions—finding them each care, hiring help, coordinating with her siblings. All of that was in place, but the choosing remained. What she was really looking for was a way to make the choice without the loss, and that version doesn’t exist.
We spent most of that first session not solving anything. We named what was true: Her mother needed her. Her father needed her. She couldn’t be in two places. Every choice toward one parent was a choice away from the other, and underneath all of it was a quiet, relentless grief that had nowhere to land because there was always another decision to make.
Steph had been carrying the belief that good daughters don’t have to choose between their parents, that if she was doing it right she’d find a way to be enough for everyone. What she learned instead was harder and more honest: the sacrifice wasn’t a sign of failure, it was the choice itself.
I remember the moment she said it out loud: “There’s no version of this where I don’t lose something.”
She was right. There isn’t. There is no version of this where everyone gets what they need.
Stating that truth didn’t make the choosing easier, but she stopped trying to remove the loss. She started asking different questions—not “How do I avoid hurting someone?” but “Which hurt can I live with this week?”
She began tracking her choices differently, not as mistakes to be corrected, but as honest decisions made with incomplete information and real constraints. She’d fly to Arizona, knowing her father was alone in Florida. She’d stay home for a work deadline, knowing both parents were managing without her. She’d call her mother twice in one day and let her father’s call go to voicemail because she had nothing left.
What changed wasn’t the situation but her relationship to the choosing. Her parents are still in different states and she still can’t be in both places, but she’s no longer measuring each choice against some imagined version where everyone gets what they need.
The last time we spoke, she told me: “I used to think being a good daughter meant finding a way to be there for everyone. Turns out, it means being there for someone, knowing what I’m not doing, and choosing anyway.”
She still carries her phone everywhere, books last-minute flights, and feels the pull in two directions. But she’s not trying to make the tension go away anymore. She’s choosing while it still hurts.
Your job isn’t to eliminate the hurt. It’s to choose which hurt you can carry.
Sometimes the hardest choices are the ones where loss is unavoidable. Where in your life are you trying to eliminate a sacrifice that might actually be built into the situation itself? What would shift if you stopped asking “How do I avoid the loss?” and considered asking “Which loss can I choose with intention?”
Not every choice has a version where no one loses. Some choices just ask you to be honest about which loss you can live with.
P.S. If this message found you facing a choice where every option includes loss, here are ways I can support you:
- Schedule a Momentum Experience – When you’re caught between competing commitments and need clarity on what your next choice actually is, this session helps you see what’s true and move forward without second-guessing. [Book your session]
- Read The Book of Choice – Learn how to make decisions that honor what matters most, even when every option includes loss. [Get the book]
- Take The Choice Quiz – Discover your natural approach to difficult decisions and get personalized strategies for moving forward when there’s no perfect answer. [Start the quiz]
- Work with me privately – If you’re navigating impossible choices between people you love, competing responsibilities, or decisions where every option feels like a betrayal… [Let’s connect]
- Explore Choice Mapping Mastery – Develop the inner clarity to make hard choices without losing yourself in the process—especially when the sacrifice is real and unavoidable. [Learn more]
