Choosing The Best – Part 4
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Table of contents for Choosing The Best
- Choosing The Best – Part 1
- Choosing The Best – Part 2
- Choosing The Best – Part 3
- Choosing The Best – Part 4
One of the most important considerations when making a choice is to look at how long that choice will continue to influence your life. With some choices, it is clear that the impact will be lifelong. For example, choosing a spouse will have an impact that can easily last for the rest of your life. Choosing a college or a career can have the same long-term impact. Usually, we take such choices seriously and put a lot of thought and consideration into them.
What many people fail to appreciate is that a lot of the choices which are seemingly smaller can also have far-reaching consequences. For example, if you choose to have a high calorie, high fat breakfast, that would seem to be a relatively minor, short-term choice. But if you make that choice every day, it soon becomes a habit. And if you get in the habit of eating high fat, high calorie meals, it can have a negative long-term effect on your health.
A habit is nothing more than a choice which has been “hard-wired” into your life. It is a choice that you consciously make at first, yet soon it becomes a choice that you continue to make without even thinking about it. When a choice becomes a habit, the power of that choice, whether it is positive or negative, is enormously magnified. Eating one doughnut in your lifetime is not going to have much effect on your health. But eating 5,000 doughnuts could have a tremendous negative effect. That is the power of habit. Going for a brisk 45-minute walk just once is a pleasant experience and not much more. When it becomes a daily habit, though, it can add up to walking more than 700 miles a year and can have a significant positive impact on your level of physical fitness.
Small choices, repeated over and over again, become programmed as habits, at which point they take on a life of their own. So in that regard the small choices, whether positive or negative, can be extremely important, and can affect your life far into the future.
When making a choice, look as far ahead as you possibly can. How will this choice affect your life a month from now, a year from now, or five years from now? What would happen if this choice were to become a habit? The more broadly you consider your choices, the more positive and empowering those choices will be.
Another thing to keep in mind when making a choice is that there are usually more choices available to you than are immediately evident. The best choice may not be obvious at first. It can often require some creativity and imagination. To arrive at the best choice for any given situation, it helps immensely when you decide to look at the situation as an opportunity. Even though it may be filled with disappointment and despair, somewhere there is opportunity. When you make the effort to find it, you’re well on your way to crafting the most positive, productive, creative choice for how to proceed.
Even when others tell you that you have no choice, you have a choice. Even when the circumstances seem hopelessly desperate and intractable, you have a choice. From wherever you are, you can always choose to move yourself and your world positively forward. You can always take what is available to you and mold it into an opportunity.
If you depend on chance, you will likely be disappointed. Instead of leaving your life to chance, live your life by choice and make use of every opportunity to choose the very best.
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Choosing The Best – Part 3
By · CommentsTable of contents for Choosing The Best
- Choosing The Best – Part 1
- Choosing The Best – Part 2
- Choosing The Best – Part 3
- Choosing The Best – Part 4
The approval of others does not, in itself, make you any more valuable as a person and does not really add any true value to your life. And the disapproval of others does not take anything away from you unless you let it get to you. Imagine what would happen to your relationships if, instead of seeking to get approval you used your energy to give love and caring and understanding. Imagine how much it would improve your life if you did not have to be concerned about the approval of others. The fact is, you don’t have to be concerned about it. When you move past the need for approval, you can save yourself a lot of time, money and frustration, while at the same time winning the enthusiastic, sincere approval of others in the process.
Stop and think of how much time and energy you spend each day just because you need the approval of others. Now consider all the things you could do, all the value you could create, if you could get beyond that need.
The way to get beyond the need is to look at it as a choice. Seeing it as a choice makes it much more objective and much less imposing. Step back and thoughtfully consider what’s involved in seeking the approval of others. Consider all the costs and consider all the benefits. Are the benefits to be gained worth the price you will pay? That is for you to decide. That is your choice. It is not a need that is imposed upon you. It is a choice that you have decided to make. You can choose whatever you want, but the point is that you can choose. You are not obligated. You are not forced to seek the approval of others. It is not something that has to tie you down or hold you back. It is something you can choose to do or choose not to do, based on the costs you will pay and the value you will receive.
Making a truly valuable and empowering choice is more than just following a whim. Every choice carries with it a set of consequences. So making a choice is not only a matter of choosing what to do at the moment, but also of considering and choosing the consequences that will surely and reliably follow.
Everyone makes choices all the time. Even refusing to make a choice is itself a choice, a choice not to decide. There are choices which lead to a life of success and fulfillment, and there are choices which lead to a life of despair. There are choices that don’t really make much difference one way or the other. There are choices that look foolish in the short term, and turn out to be very smart in the long run. And there are choices that seem to be right for the moment, but end up being wrong in the long term.
Choices are indeed very powerful, and the best way to treat them is with the respect they deserve. The more carefully and intentionally you make your choices, the more positively those choices will serve your best interests.
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Choosing The Best – Part 2
By · CommentsTable of contents for Choosing The Best
- Choosing The Best – Part 1
- Choosing The Best – Part 2
- Choosing The Best – Part 3
- Choosing The Best – Part 4
Often, life is viewed in terms of needs rather than choices. Unfortunately, seeing something as a need takes the focus away from the power of choice. Seeing something as a need often leads to resentment and a feeling of being trapped, while seeing it as a choice leads to a sense of empowerment and control. The fact is, most of the things you see as needs can be transformed into choices by a change in thinking.
All too often, much of the focus of day-to-day life is on striving for more in order to satisfy what you perceive as your needs. It can be draining, it can be stressful and it can be frustrating to always keep your efforts directed toward getting more and more, always driven by those needs which never go away. Usually when you get more, it’s never enough. You find that you need even more. Is there any way out of this vicious cycle?
Yes — the way to get more from life is not by needing more. The way to get more from life is by needing less and choosing more.
Certainly there are some basic, fundamental needs which cannot be denied or ignored. To stay alive, you must have air to breathe, water to drink, and nutritious food to eat. You need clothing and shelter to protect you from the elements. Beyond those basic requirements, however, things become much more flexible. Beyond those basic needs, almost all of your needs become more a matter of choice. Indeed, the majority of your more complex and burdensome needs are very likely things which are imposed upon you by your own choices or by the choices you’ve allowed others to make for you.
Actually, most of what you perceive as needs are not really needs at all. Rather, they are strong indications of your desires and your driving purposes. When you start to see them as such, and relate to them as such, it can make a tremendous positive difference. When you see them as choices you are able to make, then they no longer have the power to burden you.
Interestingly, the more you see yourself as needing something, the less your likelihood of having it. When you can let go of the need, you also let go of the negative sense of lack and limitation associated with it. When you no longer focus on the need for it, you can begin to focus on creating the reality of it. When you need it less, you begin, in a very real sense, to have it more. You go from being desperate about it to being confident about it.
Consider, for example, the need for approval from others. Think of how much time, money, thought and energy you put into objects and activities which are solely for the purpose of impressing other people. Think of all the time you spend in worry and frustration when you discover that someone may have a negative impression of you. Not only is the need for approval a burdensome need in its own right, it can also lead you to create a whole range of supporting needs, such as the need to drive a particular kind of car, or to live in a particular part of town, or to acquire a certain job title, or even to take a certain kind of vacation.
Certainly in your relationships you want to give your best and be your best, but what others think of you is primarily their concern, not yours. The most positive impressions are made by those who are not overly concerned about what kind of impression they’re making. The most truly impressive people are those who have no need to be impressive. Those who let go of the need to impress others are the ones who end up being the most genuinely impressive.
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Challenges
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I am having some computer issues. Should be resolved later today. Sorry for the inconvenience.
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Choosing The Best – Part 1
By · CommentsTable of contents for Choosing The Best
- Choosing The Best – Part 1
- Choosing The Best – Part 2
- Choosing The Best – Part 3
- Choosing The Best – Part 4
It’s easy enough to see that life is a series of choices, and that living successfully is largely a result of making the choices that will take you where you intend to go. Yet you can often become so overwhelmed with the consequences of your choices that you lose sight of the very process that brought about those consequences. As a result, you can fail to appreciate the very real power that you always have, no matter what the situation may be, to control and direct your life by the choices you make.
It can often seem that life is dictated by events over which you have no control and therefore that you have no choice in the matter. But even when something is beyond your control, still you always have the choice of how you respond to it, and that can make all the difference in the world.
To see life in terms of choices is to become empowered in a very real way. The alternative is to see yourself as a victim of circumstance, dependent on blind luck or on the pity of others, burdened by your needs and the unfairness of your situation, with no choices available to you. But the reality is that you always have a choice, and those who make good and positive and valuable things happen are those who understand the value of making choices. Those who achieve are those who frame their world in terms of choices.
Choices are powerful and valuable, yet they do have a price, and the price is responsibility. That’s one reason people are so often reluctant to acknowledge that they have a choice — because they know that by accepting that choice they are also accepting responsibility. Sometimes it seems easier just to ignore the choices, avoid the responsibility, and let yourself be tossed around by the circumstances of the moment. But choosing not to make a choice is itself a choice, and usually one which you will eventually regret. You cannot really run away from responsibility, as daunting as it may be. You can only choose to ignore it, and by so doing you practically guarantee that your choice will work against you.
Look around you, and you will see quite clearly the life you have chosen. That statement may sound cruel and unfair, particularly if life has dealt you some difficult blows. After all, no one, for example, chooses to be born to an abusive parent. Usually no one chooses to be laid off from a good job. No one chooses to contract a debilitating illness. Few people ever willingly choose to bring any kind of difficulty on themselves. Yet everyone experiences difficulties and challenges. The power of choice comes in the way you respond to those difficulties, in the way you meet those challenges. By stepping up and making intentional choices, you can determine whether the difficult circumstances bring you down or whether they give you a reason to push positively forward.
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Sunday Quotes 01.31.10
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There are some things one can only achieve by a deliberate leap in the opposite direction. — Franz Kafka
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. — Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) American civil rights leader”The one essential condition of human existence is that man should always be able to bow down before something infinitely great. If men are deprived of the infinitely great, they will not go on living and will die of despair. The Infinite and the Eternal are as essential for man as the little planet on which he dwells.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
“If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you will be fired with enthusiasm.” — Vince Lombardi
Whitewashing the pump will not purify the water. — Unknown
Circumstances! I make circumstances! — Napoleon Bonaparte
“Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.” — Stephen Covey, Author and Speaker
“To carry a grudge is like being stung to death by one bee.” — William H. Walton
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