Starting Point - Starting anew and at the right place
Choices
by, Dan Beatty
In our ever changing world, the choices that we make shape the present and our future. Our past has happened. We choose to either learn from it (positive) or abandon it in hopes of some non-correlated reasoning (negative). Yet, where we go from this point forward will make all the difference in what we will become.
Choices, in and of themselves, are not difficult. Knowing how to make the right choice requires having a skill-set that will lead you to the best plausible outcome. Understanding why we make choices and their expected outcomes has a relevant purpose. Faced with no choices and the inability to decide, a person lacks the capacity to function within their environment. Realizing that choices are required in order to function, we must be equipped with the ability to make complete and relevant choices.
Each of us are prepared by the time we reach our adulthood to possess basic decision making capabilities. If you are tired, do you fall asleep in a bed, a chair or on the couch? If you are thirsty, do you drink water, tea or a soft drink? These are simple choices that we inherently make everyday along with hundreds of other basic functioning ones that require little thought. Our goal is to go beyond the hundreds of daily basic choices and target the other “not-so-simple” choices each of us will face throughout our lives.
So why do so many of us fear making tougher choices? To get a better understanding of this we need to take a moment and review the basics of physics from high school. We were taught that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, cause and effect, decision and outcome. So by having to make a choice we have to be prepared whether we like it or not, to deal with the outcome of that choice. Fear, anxiety, depression or a host of other emotional reactions can and will hinder your ability to make choices. Therefore, in many cases, we choose not to make a choice because the possible outcome is not worth the risk of making a poor choice.
Ok, if you were paying attention to the last statement you will realize something not so profound. That is, when we choose not to make a choice we are making a choice. Therefore, avoidance of a choice is in fact, making a choice. This is where the weak minded and weak willed individuals will continue to spend most of their time, caught in the never ending black-hole of wasted thought processing. So what can you do to avoid this? Quit letting the thought of bad decisions that you may make (or avoid making for that matter) run and ruin your life. The “what ifs” or “fear of failure” mentality needs to stop!
To better understand this thought processing we need to review the three main rationales why individuals do not choose to embrace their choice-making capabilities. These are excuses, responsibility and education or the lack thereof.
Excuses
I grew up with one simple statement that I created for myself, “If you have to make an excuse, there is no excuse.” While you are sitting there trying to make sense out of what you just read let me make it easy for you. It is simply a statement that reminds me that there is no excuse, reasoning or logic that can be used to justify an excuse. Please do not confuse a reason with an excuse. A reason has a justifiable explanation founded on fact such as having to miss work because you are in the hospital having surgery. An excuse is rooted in a reasoning of avoidance or procrastination of having to decide or choose. Excuses are for the weak minded, lazy individuals that want to skate through life without having to be accountable to anyone or anything. Excuses are nothing more than lies to yourself and others. Quit lying to yourself and using ill fated reasoning to perpetuate your inability to come to grips with your life and everything around you. In the time you took to make an excuse and justify it, you could have made a positive choice and done something with it.
Responsibility
Excuses are most likely made in order to reason your way out of having to choose or make a decision. Why? Because once we make a choice, we have committed to creating an outcome, an outcome that we will ultimately be responsible for. What will happen if I made the wrong choice? How will this make me look to others? Choosing to take responsibility for your actions is one of the first steps that will make your decision processing easier.
Choices are nothing more than decisions; but where so many of us come up short is realizing the responsibility, and acknowledging this before a choice is made is critical to the decision making process. How many of us were told growing up that our actions speak louder than words? Since most of us in society are better visual learners than auditory learners, this statement presents a pretty visual result. “My peers will see what I have done and I will be judged by that,” is a common thought process that comes to mind. Responsibility can breed fear and this is why so many of us are insecure about making the right decisions and therefore shy away from tough choices.
Responsibility means taking ownership of your choices, decisions and actions. The statement I made in the preceding paragraph about being judged is justifiable reasoning in making a choice or decision. What you need to realize is that many of the choices you will make are not easy ones and require time, thought and even outside help from friends, family or co-workers. The greater the responsibility, the more time, thought and energy needs to be given to making the best choice. Notice that I did not say the right choice. You will only know if it is the right choice once you have seen the results from that choice. Remember, cause and effect.
With the word responsibility comes a heavy burden that we all may need to realize. Too many times we can come to the conclusion that we are Atlas, the Greek god of ancient mythology that has to bear the weight of the world on our shoulders for these heavy decisions that need to be made. What we fail to realize is that responsibility can be a great thing. Too many times we picture all the wrong that can happen when having to accept the responsibility of a decision when in fact the outcome might just be what we wanted or even better.
Let’s go back to the statement, “actions speak louder than words” for just a moment. Take the time to think about what the positive outcomes could be, or will be and visualize what can go right with this decision. Golfing legend Jack Nicklaus wrote a book titled, “Golf My Way” many years ago. One of the key elements of this book was shot visualization. He stated that before he would swing, he would visualize where the ball was going to go. He had a positive goal or target that he was seeing in his mind before he ever took a swing. Did the ball always go where he visualized it? No, however, his success rate was significantly improved because of this technique that he developed and implemented into every shot of his game.
Education (Seek advice from others)
Responsibility also means taking the time to properly educate yourself regarding all aspects of the choice you have to make. You certainly would not make the choice to go scuba or sky diving without being properly trained or certified or having the right equipment. So why would you make a choice without taking the time to learn about all aspects of that choice you are trying to make? Fear of a decision (or fear of making the right decision) will usually stem from a lack of understanding or education regarding that choice. In order to make the best choice, you will need to take adequate time to educate yourself as to the best alternatives or potential outcomes.
Please be careful not to fall into the trap of over analyzing a choice to the point in which you believe that you can not have enough information and therefore procrastinate in the making of the choice. A simple solution to this is for major decisions, choose a time or date in which you will make this decision. Write it down, circle it on the calendar and tell someone you trust in order to help your accountability. You will be surprised at how the choice will be easier to make. Additionally, the success of your choice will usually be based on the time, effort and energy you invested in the decision making process of that choice. Education can be looked at as the preparation that you need to exert into making the best choice.
Getting Results
In order to get results you have to quit making excuses, take responsibility (ownership) and make the time to educate yourself properly. You may be asking yourself, “So what if I do all of this and don’t succeed or get the right outcome, now what?” First of all, you need to quit playing the victim and expecting failure and then using the results to further justify your failed reasoning. Let’s take a moment and use a simple example to illustrate this.
I am going to shoot an arrow at a target and aim at the center of that target. Now, I have to have the proper items to do this, a bow an arrow and a target. Next, I have to point myself in the direction of the target. I then put the arrow on the bow and draw it back aiming at the center of the target and then releasing the arrow. My results? Well, I could have missed the target, hit the target or hit the center of the target where I was aiming. Just because we choose to see the center of the target does not mean we hit it. Jack Nicklaus will be the first to tell you that he missed many a green when he aimed for the pin. Did Jack quit playing golf because he didn’t hit the green every time he visualized it? Of course not. Too many times we see our choices as 100% success or 100% failure. We choose to see the 30% negative results and overlook the 70% success rate that was achieved. It is important to realize that important choices rarely have 100% successful outcomes the first time around. Finding positive results, even if they are small, and building on them are exactly what successful people do. They do not focus on the negative regardless of its size but rather on the positive from which they can build.
I heard a recent interview from a well known college coach whose team was heavily favored to win a game they had just lost a couple of days before. He recounted that his quarterback called him at 11:00 pm the night after the game and apologized for fumbling the ball on the one yard line costing the team the game. The coach reminded him that he had thrown for nearly 400 yards and his performance was the reason that they were in the game and had the opportunity to win.
Once you make a choice, results WILL happen whether you are ready for them or not. By removing excuses, taking responsibility and educating yourself, you will not only be ready for the results, you will be embracing them and looking for a way to improve those results for an even better outcome on your next choice.
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Starting Point
By: Dan Beatty
You are here! Ok, that’s great but where is here? You know the dot on the map that currently validates your existence (technically it does not but stay with me people). For a fleeting moment you have the reference that you need in order to determine your next step. Sounds simple enough but, what if you do not have that big red pin staring you in the face telling you where you are in correlation to everything else, what then? Well all is not lost and neither are you.
I am reminded of the Disney movie, “A Bug’s Life.” At the beginning of the movie the worker ants are all in a perfect line marching across the ground carrying food to their hill. All of the sudden a leaf falls between two ants in the line. The worker ant now immediately behind the leaf panics, stops, and causes a chain reaction to all of the other ants behind him as he looses track of where the line is. Comically, one of the older ants that is overseeing the whole project approaches the panic stricken worker ant and gently coaxes him and the rest of the line to go around the leaf in order to catch up with the rest of the marching line.
I use this story to illustrate the fact that we as humans find ourselves simply holding to a pattern of events that define where we are. Think about this, as creatures of habit you more than likely get up about the same time everyday, follow the same routine to get off to work or school, drive the same roads, listen to the same music, sit at the same desk, talk to the same people, eat at the same time with the same lunch choices, finish work about the same time, drive home the same way, do the same things when you get home at night, eat about the same time, watch the same television shows, go to bed and guess what, you get up the next day and do it all over again! So where is your starting point? Are you caught in a circular reference which defines you and holds you hostage? What would happen if the preverbal leaf fell from the sky and landed in front of you? Are you going to be able to walk around it in order to catch up? I have a better question, do you want to walk around the leaf and follow the same path that you have been on day after day, week after week and month after month?
Finding Your Starting Point
It sounds easy enough; after all you are standing right there aren’t you? All you have to do is say let go, right? Well before you take that simple step and start down the road, let’s take just a moment and figure out if you are at the right place from which to start.
A starting point is simply a point of reference defining where you are. You have obviously gotten to where you are by some means whether you determined it or it was determined for you. It is important to look back and determine if the point you are currently at is the right place from which to go forward. Think of it like a global positioning system (GPS). A GPS basically allows you to track different waypoints (think of them like breadcrumbs you would drop along the way, ok maybe not you but Hansel and Gretel). You need to track yourself back a ways and see if you have been on the right path. Maybe you need to pick up a few breadcrumbs or a lot of them. I realize that starting from a point from which you have been seems like wasted time but it really isn’t. All too often we blaze ahead and do the next thing we are use to and not necessarily the thing that will be right for us (remember the day after day, week after week…). Here is a few thing that will help you to best determine your starting point,
1. Write down where you are in your work life, personal life and spiritual life. This will take a few minutes even if you generalize. Note, taking the time to do this is important and you will be glad you did more than just brush over this later on. (You may choose to be more specific with an area such as a personal or business relationship within a broader area. Make sure to start in a broader context and narrow it down once you have determined your overall starting point for this area.)
2. Now try and recall where you were in these same areas of your life, on month ago, three months ago, six months ago and twelve months ago.
3. See if you can figure out if there has been a change and if it is better or worse than where you were. If it is the same then you are becoming complacent which is not good. You need to be moving forward.
Use the key factors above to align yourself and determine your starting point. But what if you say, “I like were I am, I finally feel good about what I am doing and I like my daily routine.” Ok, you have your reference point but maybe it is time now for you to jump off the track for a moment (NASCAR fans, that would be something other than another left turn) and start going down a different and better road. It’s most likely time to break the familiar bonds of your comfort zone and be more than you ever thought you could be. It is now time to define your direction.
Choosing a Direction
1. Today, I want each of you reading this to look for a new starting point. You are more than likely looking for something to change-up what you do (notice that I did not say change who you are). Through the steps discussed in the previous section, you should have a good indication where this is. Direction on the other hand means you actually have to take action and move. Don’t panic and do not fear, this is something that you can and must do. You may be thinking, “But what if the direction I choose is the wrong direction, then what?” First, do not relate the fact that the direction you choose to go is the wrong direction or that it could even be a wrong direction. You have taken the time to evaluate a good starting point and plan an initial course of action, don’t allow yourself to consider this to be misguided. You are choosing a direction based on the best information that you currently have available at that moment, your direction may change so don’t sweat it. Start with the following,
Choose a direction
2. Look ahead one day, one week and one month, what do you see (visualization) happening? This is called mapping out your direction. Would you take a trip without a destination in mind and a planned way in which to get there?
3. Start moving in that direction and evaluate daily your planned results verses your actual results. Keep a written journal even if it is just an outline of words and phrases. Do they match? Is one better than the other and why?
4. Make adjustments along the way. You may be surprised that your planned route is being altered slightly or significantly and it might just be what you need and want.
5. Give it time. Like potentially bad business choices of micro-management, you can over analyze things within the direction that you have chosen such that you may never take a step without questioning it first and plotting it out to the “nth” degree.
6. Realize that after giving your initial direction time and evaluation you may have to back up from time to time and adjust your course. Businesses do this all the time in order to better their models, plans and results.
What you have to remember is that you and your life is a work in progress. Finding a starting point and then planning the best direction form the choices that you have evaluated will give you the strength and confidence to step out into the world without necessarily being stepped on in the process.
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