Our Choices Affect Our Lives

"It's choice, not chance, that determines your destiny." ~ Jean Nidetch

We sometimes forget how the choices we make carve out particular paths in our lives. Our first trip down a particular direction following a choice we male can be a brand new, innovative and exciting direction. If it's a choice of longstanding habit, it can be an old rut in the road.

What Path Do You Prefer?

Would you like to have a new direction? What would it look like and how would it feel? If you can describe it in writing, it will become so real you'll begin to live it - to walk the path of your choice.

Do All Paths Have Rocks?

There's no such thing as a perfectly smooth path. Maybe you've noticed how those rocky spots in life's path are the things that strengthen your character. You would get bored if the path didn't have a few rocks in it. But if there seems to be too many rocks, it might be wise to do an assessment.

Watch Out For Falling Rocks!

Sometimes, the hillsides do a little shimmy and rocks fall into the path unexpectedly. You just weren't prepared for the upset. The good news is that you still have a choice to make. You can give up, turn tail, and retreat into someplace safer. Or, you can move forward with a new plan: step nimbly over those unexpected rocks. The next bend might be a much better place. It's a choice you can make if you want to.

What's the Payback for Moving Forward to an Unknown Place?

Christopher Columbus did not fall of the edge. Instead, he found a whole new continent! If you courageously make a choice to go forward, you will feel so proud of your self and find something new that you'll more than likely enjoy. It's your choice to reach a new level of accomplishment or not.

What's the Basis for Good Choices?

It's wise to use both emotion coupled with reason when you make a choice. One without the other will give a slanted result and you're striving for a more level path, remember?

What do I want? When you make a choice, immerse yourself in it. How does it look, taste, feel? What color is it? How much to you love it?

What's Important to Me? Create a list of standards and values you honor and be sure to weave them into the picture of your new path.

What Else Do I Require? There are things you require that are necessary and imperative so that your morality and your principles are reflected on the path. make a list of them and start looking for them on the new path.

Benchmark. Examine where you are on the path right now. Recognizes the choices you made to get there. This is your beginning.

Emotional PushUps and PullUps. Your emotional skills - how you use, explore, or hide from those rocks sliding into the path - can be strengthened. Once you see what your habit has been, you can make better choices from your strengthened emotional skill set.

Some of us worry so much over making the 'right' choice, but in life, all that's really needed is to make any good choice, believe in it, go through with it, and see what turns up on the path. And then, it's time to make another choice.

"The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice." ~ George Eliot