How to Make Choices
Many people do not know how to make choices, or they use tools that are ineffective or don’t get them what they want. It is powerful to be able to know how to make choices in life.
We are often taught to make choices by different means, such as what is “best for us.” If we are to use this measure, then we have to decide what is best for us, best in whose eyes, and best for what result.
Sometimes we are taught that it has to be hard to be good, so we go around picking the hardest choice.
Often times we make choices based on what others will think about us, then we have to decide who we want to impress and what they will want us to do. This can be a bit tricky. The more people we include in the choices, the more exponentially challenging it can get.
The key to making choices is in knowing what you want, meaning how you want to feel in your life. Many people make choices on what they want materially, and that is ok, too, if getting what you want materially is really what you want. Most of us only want the material things because we think they will make us happy, and what we really want is to be happy in some form.Unfortunately, choices will not make us happy. Happiness comes from inside, not from the choices we make. Being happy is a choice right now, but it is not a basis for deciding. We can never know the implications of any choice, so we cannot know if it will make us happy, which is an impossibility anyway.
Once we divorce the happiness consideration from our choosing, it gets much easier; the pressure is off. However, we still need a basis for choosing just for ease of life, unless you want to go with “don’t care” a possibility but not very artistic.If we want to be artists with our lives, we can do it simply by having a basis for the choosing. This is very individual, but I want to give you some examples, and then help you choose your basis for choosing. If you use one for a while and don’t like it, you can always change it and change your choices.
Your basis for choosing creates the quality of your life. By quality I don’t mean the quality that is a judgment; I mean it in terms of the essence or flavor of your life.
So, if we imagine every choice big and small as a fork in the road, two different paths leading to different lives, then we realize that every choice will lead us somewhere different with potentially huge differences way down the road. Even choosing a restaurant or the path to walk home might affect you meeting a life partner or getting hit by a car. You might think, Wow Kyle, that is a lot of pressure. Well, yes and no.
Let’s start choosing.Lets say you come to a choice point, and you have decided that the basis for choosing in your life is that “it has to be hard to be good,” and you make every choice based on that basis, what will be the predominant quality of your life? “Hard!” Right, well done.Lets say that your basis for making choices is “what will make other people like me.” If every choice I make is based on that, what will life be like? “Always trying to please others and figure out what they want me to do.” Right!
Lets say my basis is “more and better possessions.” If every choice is based on this, what will I get?“ Lots of stuff.” Excellent! Do you know anyone with lots of stuff and who is still unhappy? Does your stuff make you happy?
Try on some other bases for making choices. Try “making money, power, doing what I should do, not being embarrassed, not bothering anybody else,” or try on your favorites.
Lets say that I change my basis every time I choose, that could be kind of chaotic.
Now, lets try something else: Lets say every time I choose, I use the feeling of “lightness” as my basis. If I always choose the path that feels the lightest to me in my heart what does my life start to look like?
“Light!” Yes, well done.
At different times in coaching I have suggested to people that they start making “the growth choice.” In fact I even have given out bracelets that say that. What if every choice you made for the next year was the “growth choice”?
Your basis for making choices may be one of the most important choices you make. Take a good hard look at it.