Chapter 4: Choices and Decisions

“Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson Maybe you have heard that your life is the result of the decisions you made. How do you feel about that? Is this true for you? It's important that from now on, you are aware of the power you have over your life by making decisions! Every decision, every choice has an important influence on your life. In fact, your life is a direct result of the choices and decisions you made in the past and every choice carries a consequence! Start making better choices. Remember that you choose your thoughts and even your feelings. The most important thing is to make decisions. Whether the decision is right or wrong is secondary. You will soon receive feedback that will help you to progress. Once you have made a decision, go with it and take the consequences. If it was wrong, learn from it and forgive yourself knowing that at that point in time and with the knowledge you had, it was the best and the right decision to take. YOUR ATTITUDE + YOUR DECISIONS = YOUR LIFE Victor Frankl was a Jewish psychologist imprisoned in Germany’s concentration camps during the Second World War. He lost his entire family except his sister. Under these terrible circumstances, he became aware of what he named “the ultimate human freedom”, which not even the Nazi prison wards could take away from him: they could control his external circumstances, but in the last instance it was him who CHOSE HOW these circumstances were going to affect him! He found out that between STIMULUS and RESPONSE there was a small space in time in which he had the freedom to CHOOSE his RESPONSE! This means that even if you may not be able to control the circumstances that life presents to you, you can always choose your response in facing those circumstances, and by doing so have a huge impact on your life. In other words, what hurts us is not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us. The most important thing is how we RESPOND to what happens to us in our lives. And that is a CHOICE! Do you want to be healthier? Make better choices about food and exercise. Do you want to be more successful? Make better decisions about who you surround yourself with, what you read, and what you watch. There are no excuses! Forgive me if I make the assumption that your life situation is not worse than Victor Frankl’s when he made this discovery: for me being a Jew in a German concentration camp in WW2 is as bad as it gets. Questions to ask yourself: What decisions could you make today to start change? Will you choose to be more flexible? More positive? Healthier? Happier? Action Steps: 1) Write down at least three changes that you want do make today: 1 ________________________________________ 2________________________________________ 3________________________________________ 2) Read Viktor Frankl’s book “Man in search of meaning”.