Do you have any idea what the most important decision you will make today is?…Is it: chicken or beef, Survivor or American Idol, to go for a run or attend a yoga class? The more choices I am faced with, the more I seem to make the important ones on autopilot. As a Coach. I know this doesn’t contribute to the results I desire most and so I would like to take this opportunity to take a closer look.
We are faced with hundreds of decisions a day; most of which we don’t make consciously (on average only 3% of our daily choices are conscious ones). When a client approaches me and asks me to help them change some result in their lives that they are unhappy with, I always inform them at the get-go that their current experience of life is a result of every decision they have made up until this very day. Thus, if they desire a different result, they must learn how to make different decisions. This is the good news I say.
When you acknowledge that the results you are unhappy with are due to choices you have made, you are accepting responsibility for the problem, which in turn, makes you response-able. Think about that for a second. If you are unhappy with your current state of health, ask yourself, what choices have I made that result in my current state? Choices about food, exercise and even stress are probably the culprit. If you are unhappy with your current relationship, what choices about communication, quality time or even the children have contributed to the current situation?
What would shift or change if you were willing to look closely at the many daily decisions you make that are either towards or away from the result you desire? Have you even taken the important time to clarify what a desirable result would be? Getting clear on the result you actually want opens you up to a very crucial opportunity for change; it offers you “directionality of thinking”. What that means is that when faced with daily decisions that will affect your ideal outcome, you can envision the alternative that you crave.
You can imagine yourself experiencing all the benefits associated with achieving that ideal outcome. Doing so will give you the leverage or motivation to make a different decision; one that is more proactive rather than reactive. The magic behind big change lies in the small choices. The seemingly small daily decisions compound to result in big changes down the line.
I challenge all of you to take time today to contemplate which areas of your life require alterative decision-making. Make a list of all the small choices you make day in and day out that are not congruent with the results you crave. Envision that result and get to the many benefits that you will experience when you achieve that result and make a personal commitment or intention to make a different choice the next time around. Guaranteed you will thank me in a couple of weeks when the change you imagined becomes your new experience of reality.
Until next time, make every performance count!
-Coach Susan
