Why the power to choose is everything
Did you realise that your decisions determine your destiny?
You may not get to choose what happens to you, but you sure as heck can choose how you respond.
And that’s why your ability to choose is your superpower.
So why do we pay so little attention to our choices?
Why aren’t we ever taught how to properly wield this immense power?
Here’s eight things you need to wrap your head around so that you can finally unlock this essential human superpower.
1. Start by making a different choice
Firstly, do you want a different life?
Is there something about your life you don’t like?
Albert Einstein is credited with saying, ‘Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
You can’t keep making the same choices and expect things to be different.
The only way to change it is to make a different choice.
It seems kind of obvious, but you have to start here.
2. Poor choices are the easiest
Secondly, what do all of your bad choices have in common?
Are they the cheapest? Are they what everyone else is doing? Are they harmful?
Not necessarily.
Let’s use making dinner as an example.
The thought of having to:
- find a recipe,
- get out of all of those ingredients,
- spend time slaving over a hot stove,
- and then clean it all up afterwards,
could seem overwhelming.
It’s just easier to order take out or crack open some instant noodles.
Our poor choices usually happen because they’re the simplest, most fun, and most instantly gratifying option.
3. We’re afraid of choosing wrong
Thirdly, what stops you from making different choices?
Is it a lack of information? Are you lazy? Do you just not care?
I don’t think so.
I think it’s fear.
We’re so constantly terrified of making the wrong choice and having to deal with the consequences that we refuse to choose at all.
But not making a choice is also a choice.
4. Focus on changing you first
Fourth, what do we normally focus on when we want to change something?
We clean up our house, we create a new schedule, we book into a new class, and so on.
We spend most, if not all of our energy trying to change our outer world.
But this is all backwards.
Instead, we have to choose to be a different person first.
We make a firm choice, make a commitment to ourselves to be someone new, and then everything else will follow.
5. Making new choices feels awkward
Fifth, what happens when we make a new choice?
It feels like our life goes off the rails.
Suddenly, we’re a beginner again.
We don’t know what we’re doing.
We feel stupid and awkward, and everything is harder.
When my son was three, I found my parents’ words coming out of my mouth, and I did not like what I was hearing.
So we did a parenting course and learned something called ‘non-violent communication’.
Terrible name, but absolutely amazing technique.
But changing the way we communicated was so awkward and embarrassing.
But we stuck at it and it totally transformed the way we communicated, not only with our kids, but also with each other.
Accept that making different choices is going to feel weird and awkward and uncomfortable and slow and frustrating at first.
6. You already have everything you need
Sixth, what does it take to make a new choice?
Do we need a new house, a better job, more friends? No.
Do we need to turn off the WiFi or delete our social media? Not necessarily.
Staying distracted or making excuses instead of making a new choice is also a choice.
Nothing is forcing you to scroll on your phone, play video games, or eat mindlessly.
You already have everything you need to choose differently.
7. The only three choices you can make
Seventh, what can we actually control?
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the millions of choices we have to make every single day.
But what if there were actually only three things we ever get to choose?
Three things that would allow us to take control of our life.
1. Your focus
One, what you focus on.
You get to choose whether you focus on the 20 things that went wrong today or the one thing that went right.
You get to choose whether to listen to the news or to your favourite music.
You get to choose whether to celebrate your wins or use your failures to beat yourself up.
It’s a choice, pure and simple.
2. Your interpretation
Two, what things mean.
You get to decide whether your missed promotion means you’re not good enough, or maybe instead it means there are skills you can develop, or even that you’re in the wrong career.
You get to decide that your lack of energy is because of your age, your genes, your relationship, your diet, your finances, your whatever.
Or instead, that it’s something that you can actively do something about.
You get to choose.
3. Your actions
And three, what you do.
You can choose to sit on the couch and order take out, or you can decide to get up and make yourself a sandwich.
You can choose to spend money like there’s no tomorrow and wonder why you’re broke, or you can decide to face your finances head on.
Everything you do or don’t do is a choice.
And every choice comes down to these three things.
8. View choice as liberating
Eight, how do we view our power of choice?
Along with feeling overwhelmed, it would be easy to feel like having to constantly choose is a burden.
Something to be endured and avoided as much as possible because of the risks and the effort involved.
But what if instead we viewed our ability to choose as freedom, as utterly incredibly liberating?
No matter what happens to us, we’re always in control because we get to choose our focus, what it means, and our actions.
No matter how bad or good our situation is, we’re 100% free to choose how we experience it.
We get to choose all of it, and that’s pretty awesome.
To make things even easier for you, I’ve shared a link to my decision-making spreadsheet that I find invaluable when it comes to making complex decisions.
No email required.
A quick recap
To master your superpower, you have to:
- Make different choices,
- Don’t just do what’s easiest,
- Don’t let the fear control you,
- Start on the inside first,
- Expect it to be awkward,
- Realise you already have what you need,
- Focus on the only three choices you have, and
- Embrace the freedom to choose.
What next?
- Start observing your choices, and become more conscious of where you’re making choices
- Be more deliberate and intentional with what you choose
- Explore how you could see yourself differently, and try it on for size
- Give yourself permission to make new choices
- Embrace the discomfort and the learning curve
- Bring everything back to your focus, your interpretations and your actions
- Enjoy your new-found freedom
As you start making new choices, your mind is going to throw up a bunch of rubbish for you to deal with.
Trust me.
So to counter those unhelpful thoughts, you’ll want to read my article next about how to stop negative thoughts in their tracks.
And I’ll see you in the next one.
