Life Is Full Of Choices, So Choose Wisely

Where are you today in life? Are you where you want to be? Are you happy, sad or indifferent? Where you are is a direct result of the choices you have made up to this point in your life. At the time, some choices might have seemed inconsequential, while others were major life choices. But in the end, all of these choices form together to create the person you are today and the life you live. If you start being more aware of your choices, you can change your life.

Do The Same Thing Or Try Something New?

There I was, standing in fairway on the fifth hole at a local golf course. I was about 125 yards away from the green. In front of the green was a pond that stretched along the left side and around the back. I had two choices:

I could “lay up”, meaning I could intentionally hit it short so that I would have an easier shot (and greater chance of landing on the green).
I could go for it and aim for the middle of the green and risk losing my ball in the water.

A little background about my golf game: I’m not that good. I have my moments, but for the most part, when I am standing up there ready to hit the ball, I have no idea what is going to happen. I have an idea in my mind what I want to happen, but for some reason with golf, that rarely happens.

When I was younger, I would always “lay up” because the odds were 99.9% that I was going to lose my ball in the pond. But, I’ve become more confident in my game and decided to go for it. I hit the ball solidly and the flight of the ball looked good. As it came down I realized that I made the right choice. My ball landed in the middle of the green and I was able to put in to save par.

While this choice doesn’t measure high on the scale of big life decisions, it is a decision nonetheless and life is full of choices. In fact, I bet you would be surprised if you took a step back and thought about how many choices you make in a day.

Life Is Full Of Choices

Everything that happens to us in life is a result of our choices. We choose to go to the gym or not, to have a date night with our significant other or not, to hit the snooze button or get up. So the next time you complain about gaining 10 pounds, know that you made that choice. You chose to eat the foods you did and you chose not to go to the gym or go for a walk after dinner.

The choices you make today will impact your life tomorrow. The job you hate? You chose to accept it. The big mortgage payment each month you hate paying? You chose to buy the house. It’s tough to admit that we made a mistake and bought too much of a house, but mistakes are part of life.

The great thing about life though is that since life is full of choices, we can choose to change things. You can look for a new job or start eating healthier or look into moving and selling your house. You can choose to change things. But many times, we choose not to and just complain, because the choice to complain is the one of least resistance or involves the least amount of the unknown.

Too many people choose to live their lives as-is
because they fear the unknown . Some may even fear failing . In their minds, the new job might be horrible, or the new house just won’t be as good as the current one. We allow our fear to control us and in turn, we choose to live a life that isn’t all it could be. Don’t fall victim to this fear. Choose to accept the fear. For all you know, the best job you ever had could be waiting for you.

Final Thoughts

I want to leave you with a quote by Lou Holtz, former Notre Dame football coach, and his thoughts on this topic.

“Wherever we are today—good, bad, or indifferent—is due to the choices we make. Life is a matter of choices. The most important choice we can make is the attitude we’re going to have.”

What is your attitude when you have adversity? When you’re down, you’ve got two choices: either you stay down or you pick yourself up . You can’t count on anybody else. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I had to give myself a pep talk about believing that there was a solution to a problem before I went into a meeting at work.

The next time you are about to complain about something in your life, pause for a moment and reflect on how you got here – what choices you made along the way – and start to make new choices, so you can get to where you want to be and be the best you possible.

Written by Don Dulin