Do you know what your biggest power is?
The power to make choices!
What we choose today shapes our tomorrow.
For any choice that we have in front of us, there are only two options: We either say yes to it or say no to it. Although many factors may impact the choices that we make every day, the ultimate choice maker is the person who makes the choice and decides to go with it.
That person is you!
If you take note of the choices you make on a single day, you’d be amazed by their number. We have the choice of what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, what to say, how to behave, who to talk to, how to interact, what to buy, where to go, and even what to think.
Even if you let someone make a choice for you, you are the one responsible as you made the choice to put that person in charge.
If you reverse engineer any result you have got in your life, you can see that it is the outcome of the choices you have made. If you had chosen differently, your results could have been different. And that is the beauty of life.
Let me give you an example. Nine years ago, I chose to listen to someone who claimed to have the secret to day trading and making lots of money through that. He had a software that would create signals for when to buy and when to sell. I chose to spend $10,000 for the training and the license for using the software. I then chose to set aside $4000 for day trading once I got the training and learned how the software works. I chose to ignore the advice from my financial advisor that day trading is not for everyone and it requires discipline and guts.
The result? I lost all $4000 in a short period of time and blamed it all on that guy. When I reflect on that scenario, I see that the outcome was the summation of all the choices I made from the time I chose to listen to the guy to the time I did my last trade and lost it all. The result I got was the outcome of the bad and unwise choices I made. I felt down and upset for weeks because of that.
Let me give you another example. In 2006, I chose to join Toastmasters because I wanted to become a better speaker and leader. After some time, I chose to develop an educational session about my leadership philosophy. I chose to title that session, Leadership Soup. Those who attended the session encouraged me to write about what I spoke about. Their encouragement helped me choose to start writing about the formula I shared with those who attended my educational session.
Although I had a day job, I chose to wake up earlier every morning and write before going to work. I chose not to stop writing for an hour or so every morning until I finished the book in one year. I chose to name the book, Leadership Soup. Rather than waiting for traditional publishing, I chose to self-publish. At the same time, I was attending a workshop in which I heard a great young singer singing. I chose to talk to the singer and ask her whether she would write a song for each chapter of the book and sing it with her own voice. She agreed.
Once the book was published, I chose to send the book to some book award contests. The book won an award and also became an Amazon best-seller in the category it was listed. The great results I got were the outcome of the great choices I made no matter how hard, scary, uncomfortable, risky, or uplifting those choices were.
The point I want to make here is that we have lots of opportunities to build our future based on the choices we make every day. Most often, however, we make our choices emotionally rather than intelligently. We let fear, anger, lack of knowledge, insecurity, risk, lack of confidence, rage, etc. take over and drive us to make choices that we would regret later. As such, many times the results we get are not favorable. And because of that we start blaming others for our results (which is in fact yet another choice we make).
This creates a feeling that life happens to us and not for us.
And gradually, it takes away our power.
When we recognize how many choices we make in one day, we get to realize the power we have in our lives. It is actually the biggest power we can have. To take your power back and under your control, you need to choose to become a master choice maker.
First Step
To become a master choice maker, the first step is to watch the choices you make every day and become aware of your feelings when you are faced with making a choice.
Are the choices you make easy or hard? Are they simple or complex, comfortable or uncomfortable, safe or risky, sad or happy? I bet the choices you make everyday are a combination of these.
Second Step
The second step for becoming a master choice maker is to ask yourself whether the choices you are making serve you/others or hurt you/others? Does it help you improve your life and grow? Are you escaping from choosing the “right” choice for any specific reason? Could you make a better and more valuable choice even if it is uncomfortable or hard at the moment?
Third Step
Finally, the third step for becoming a master choice maker is to choose in favor of your passion. Whatever choice you make, make it in a way that gives you inner satisfaction and fills you with positive power. Make the choices that are aligned with the life you want to lead.
And if you need assistance, I am here to help. You can count on me as your coach. As a coach, I help you make the right choices and take ownership for the choices you make. I take you through the above process, so you become a master choice maker. You have all the answers within. You just need to make the right choices to create the magic life you deserve.
Remember that what we choose today shapes our tomorrow. Power of making choices is your biggest power.
