Thursday, February 12, 2009

The Choices We Make Are More Important Than We May Have Ever Thought

For the last week or so, I've been having some very interesting conversations around the idea of "Choice."

We are all intelligent people so it shouldn't be a foreign concept when I say that we all have the capacity to choose everything in our life. Almost like a short order cook, our choices can immediately influence our surroundings and our current situation.

This sounds like it could be horrible, right?

Well, yes and no.

Being able to consciously make our own choices and decide for ourselves who and what we spend our time, money and energy on will, in effect, put all the responsibility of how and why our life plays out the way it does on us, YOU specifically.

We, therefore, cannot blame anyone else for how our life is going- not considering events and natural disasters outside of our normal control.

So what does that mean?

That means that I cannot blame you for me having a bad day. That also means that you cannot take credit for when something good happens in my life.

See how that works?

We create our lives with our choices so now the time has arrived for you to finally claim your life as your own.

You can say that your life is not your own- you have a family, you have a job or career (there is a difference), you have responsibilites, you have things that you HAVE to do.

I don't agree.

I believe that all of the above "limitations" are merely the residual effects of choices that we have made in the past.

Yes, you have a family. You chose, either consciously or not, to have that family and all that goes along with it.

Yes, you have a job or career, once again, you made that choice to have one because you wanted something or you were told it was what you HAD to do.

It all goes back to what you want to do, what you want to be and what you want to have.

You make the choice.

It is your decision.

It is your life.

It is time to reclaim the power of creating your life with the decisions that will take you from where you are now to where you'd like to be.

There's a problem though.

You have already put yourself onto a specific track. You have set course in a particular direction and are steadily plodding along towards that end point.

How do you get off?

Bad news- you don't.

Good news- it's never too late to make different decisions.

This makes me think of the movie "Groundhog Day." Bill Murray keeps making the same choices, the same decisions day after day, week after week and all he gets is the same exact thing he got the day before.

Does this sound familar to any of you?

You do the same thing, you get the same result.

BORING!

Is that the life you want for yourself?

Yes, perfect! Keep going!

No? Good, make the change now. You already know how.

Once Bill Murray was willing to change his usual routine, deviate from his everyday choices, then he was able to change the outcome.

What you need to do is to become more aware of your choices.

If you live your life without looking around, you will never see all the options open to you.

Likewise if you go through life with blinders on. You might miss the next greatest thing just because it was off the beaten path or just out of your line of vision.

So make your choices, but once you make them, own them.

Use your choices and decisions to create the life you really want. Or use them to create the life that someone else believes you should have.

This is your life. Live it the way you want, after all, it's all up to you.

It's in your hands. Choose wisely.

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