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They say, when you’re faced with an either-or choice, you should toss a coin, for when it is in the air you will discover which result you are hoping for, and that is the direction you should choose.
A choice is an act of selecting or making a decision when face with two or more possibilities. Whatever you choose will dictate the path you take, so hopefully you’re allowed adequate time to think through all the options before making a big choice.
But that’s an important distinction. Big versus little choices. We make choices from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep, choices between snoozing the alarm or getting up, having coffee or eating breakfast, showering or otherwise taking care of hygiene, what we wear for the day (often according to the predicted weather of the day)… will we leave the house or stay home? Will we work or won’t we. Sometimes we feel like those choices are made for us, like work for example. The likelihood of being someone reading this blog right now means you probably have bills to pay and need an income to pay them, so work is a no-brainer, but really, it’s a choice — what will you go to school or train to do, which jobs will you interview for, where will you put your effort to stay?
The interesting thing about the choice you make, it instantly means the other options are no longer possibilities — if you chose to do one field of work, you cannot go backwards in time and choose differently. If you don’t like the way things are going, you often think if-only. If only I’d chosen that other option, things would have been so much better for me. But you don’t know this to be true, things may have gone much worse and you staved that off by making the choice you did. With very few exceptions, we can usually make another choice around the same decision and change our paths again — change your schooling, your career, where you live, who you’ve chosen to date or marry, how you express yourself in the world — these are all choices to be made.
Our brains are choice-making machines. They like to make similar choices if the situation appears similar to a previous one and the choice ended with favourable results. This is how we get into habits, and sometimes we dig ruts with those habits that have steep walls, which make it difficult to get out of one habit and create a new, better one. But really, in the end, it’s just a choice. Do you want to make a change? If so, it might be difficult, but it is almost nearly always possible.
When it comes right down to the nitty gritty, even whether to act in a positive or negative way is a choice. Negativity has some very serious health costs attached to it, some you may not have considered before:
– it can create stress, which elevates stress hormone levels
– it can lead to mood disorders, like depression or anxiety
– it can impair your decision-making and problem-solving abilities
– it can have detrimental health outcomes, like heart disease or even a shortened lifespan
– it can create problems within your work or home relationships, leading to possible isolation
– it can cause you to lose focus and have poor efficiency at work, possibly denying you a promotion
– it can create an all around toxic environment for you and others
On the other hand, adopting a positive attitude can have the opposite effect, increased mood, increased job performance, strengthening relationships, lowering stress, and encouraging the ability to make better decisions.
Making choices can be difficult, especially if you’re like me and don’t want to close the door on other possibilities. One thing I’ve found to help me make big decisions is to use a Pro’s and Con’s list. I like lists to begin with, but laying them out in columns of good and bad for me is tough going. If I do X, will it result in A or B? I also like to ask myself what I think my friend’s advice might be around specific decisions, and then actually ask the friend, where possible, and compare my results. Often if I lean in the way of my choice, and my friend doesn’t, I know its something I really want.
If you find yourself in choice-paralysis and simply cannot move forward, reach out for a free 30 minute discovery call, and let’s do some role-playing or list building or coin tossing together!
