Coach and Author, Dixie Gillaspie, challenges us to make decisions out of our vision of long-term results rather than defaulting to what is expected or what feels good right now!
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In my “former life” of business consulting, we talked a lot about the “decision making process.”
I don’t want to talk about my former life of business consulting.
But I do want to talk about the decision-making process – the way we make life-defining choices.
Don’t quote me on this, because it isn’t my research and I can’t find the original source, but I made a note in one of my journals that the average adult in the USA makes about 35,000 decisions each day.
That’s a lot of choices.
That’s a lot of power.
Some choices expand our life, some place limitations on it. Some choices serve us, some sabotage our success.
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For instance, you made a choice to log in on your digital device, before that you chose to add one or more digital devices to your life. You made a choice to read this post (at least this far) and before that you made a choice to read some site that highlighted this post (maybe my site, maybe social media.)
That’s at LEAST four choices that brought you to this point on this page.
Those are little things – and a lot of those 35,000 decisions will be about little things.
But little things can change the course of your life.
Some choices expand our life, some place limitations on it. Some choices serve us, some sabotage our success.
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Why do we make the choices we make?
Because we believe, consciously or subconsciously, that it is the best course of action to get the result we most desire.
And most of those little choices are made subconsciously. (Can you imagine the overload if your conscious mind had to carefully consider every little choice?)
So what criteria does your subconscious mind use to make all those little choices – the ones that can change the course of your life?
It uses the information you’ve fed it about the “result you most desire.”
If there is no clear vision on file for the long range result you desire, then it goes with the most desirable IMMEDIATE result.
Let’s say you’re hungry. Your body needs fuel NOW. You can reach for a salad or a donut. If you have programmed your subconscious mind to make decisions based on a desire for optimal health and fitness, you’ll reach for the salad. Without that programming, it’s going to suggest that the donut will give you immediate energy. Plus it will taste GREAT!
So about that donut … |
Let’s say you’re angry. Perhaps you have good reason to be angry, but lashing out will cause lasting damage in the long term. With no clear grasp of the person you most desire to be, your subconscious mind is going to suggest some witty, wounding retort that you will make you feel ever so intelligent and righteous now, but which you will never be able to recall. But if you’ve chosen to be the kind of person who is slow to anger, and you’ve done the inner work to imprint that vision as your highest desired result, then you’ll find yourself biting your tongue or deleting that text.
When you’re torn – between books to read, parties to go to, career paths to pursue, it’s the same process. What choice do you believe will bring about the result you most desire?
And it’s the same criteria. What is “on file” as being the result you most desire?
So about that donut …
Why did you do that?
Because it was the closest match your mind could find to what your mind believes you want most.
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Not all of our subconscious “on file” data is from our own experience.
A lot, more than we usually credit, is built out of our cultural expectations and beliefs. So you may make a different decision because you identify as male, or female, or because you’re a Baby Boomer, or a Millennial, or because you belong to one race versus another. And those beliefs become self-fulfilling prophesies. Because we act from those beliefs, and we are often rewarded with short-term acceptance or approval. But we find over the long term that we are no longer leading our own life, making our own choices, or getting what we really want.
I wrote in “How to be a Better Negotiator and Still Sleep Soundly at Night” that the assumptions proposed by the author of the Forbes article that inspired my response (crafted with help from author and expert, Bob Burg) which suggest that men are better negotiators because they lie with impunity and intimidate when they aren’t getting their way, are invalid – not because there are no men of whom that is true, but because those are not the traits that make a true master negotiator.
In “Do Men What What They Think They Want – or Only What WE Think They Want” I addressed what happens when men strive only for what they’re expected to want, rather than what their heart truly desires.
So long as they buy into their culture’s expectation of success, whether that be sexual prowess, material wealth, social and career status, or the behavior and achievements of their offspring, they aren’t being themselves. They’ve fallen into the trap of pursing the “trappings of success” and will never fulfill their deepest desires.
Making choices based on an apparent correlation between expectations and assumptions will seldom get you want you want because those correlations are based on false premises. You have to have your vision as the “on file” reference point for your subconscious to reference when making decisions.
So if your choices aren’t taking you where you want to go – maybe it’s time to examine what your mind thinks you want. What’s “on file” as your greatest desire?
What do you want IN your life? People, surroundings, stuff…
What do you want FROM your life? How will the world be different because you have lived?
What do you want FOR your life? What constants do you desire? Happiness, serenity, challenge…
Just thinking about it won’t affect your decision making process. Just making a MENTAL decision or writing it down once won’t affect many of your choices.
But internalizing it, building that vision and holding it in your heart until you believe it in your mind – THAT creates a subconscious program that is there, running in the background, and informing every decision, every choice. No matter how big. And no matter how small.
Modified for The Good Men Project from the original post on DixieDynamiteCoaching.com
Photo:Flickr/Robyn Lee
It’s a good question, Jay, and I’m not going to say that the answer is easy. So many people have put their life’s energy into achieving one thing and had that one thing denied to them. One story I tell in my book that I hold up for myself every time I grieve a door that seems to be closed, is of a man who was an NFL football player. He was set to be a star. But then he was diagnosed with bone cancer and had most of one leg amputated. He had to find meaning and fulfillment outside… Read more »
See the thing is there, with your example of the Football player, I would have simply given up on life. But that’s because I look at it life in a different way. I want things the way I want them, and anything less than exactly how I want them is a failure and will not be tolerated or settled for. His case is a more extreme version of the sort of thing that can happen to a person to ruin their life.. but it’s sadly all too common.
Thanks anyway.
You are determined to hold to your misery? Perhaps in that you will find some fulfillment? Or perhaps you will begin to see that failure only comes from a refusal to live from spirit instead of from limitation. That’s not a statement about “God” by the way – but an acknowledgement of your own soul which knows a different kind of perfection than your present world view I believe.
See, the thing is, I do know what I want. But I also know that what I *truly* want out of life, I’ll never get. So there’s no point in working towards it. Everything else, then, is settling for something I don’t really want or truly care about. Once you’ve come to the realization you aren’t ever going to get what you truly want, no matter how much you strive for it, and have also reasoned out that there’s no reason to work towards it due to its impossibility, and that everything you do get is just settling, it becomes… Read more »
Jay, you should read some books on Stoicism. The reason I say this is that when you talk about your choices, you seem to be including those things that are out of your control. There will always be things that you cannot change. If you read this article and think “what I truly want is to have a billion dollars,” then, well, yes, you are constrained, and you won’t get what you want. But by definition, a goal that you cannot bring about is a bad goal. So, you face this choice (or constraint– same thing, different word): Should you… Read more »
The problem then of course, is that the only things I truly want to change are the things that I cannot change. I don’t care what I eat for lunch today, or tomorrow, or next week. Food is food. I gain no satisfaction from being able to choose mundane and inconsiquential things, only in being able to choose important things. Where I live ( I cannot), Where I was born ( I cannot), Who my parents were ( I cannot), that my lover will continue to love me no matter what ( I cannot). These are just a small sampling… Read more »