#1589 The Power Of Decisions - Harps

Because we talk about situations, circumstance, environment, we talk about mindset, we talk about behaviors, we talk about actions, we talk about outcomes, but we don't and we talk a bit about decisions, but I don't think we talk enough about the big and small, the incidental, the life changing, the high conscious, the low conscious, like some things we do with a very low level of awareness and consciousness, like when I ride my motorbike into the city and changing

gears and I'm using the front brake and the rear brake, the front break with my right hand, the rear brake with my right foot, the clutch with my left hand, the gear changer with my left foot, the indicator with my left thumb and all of that I'm doing. That's low level awareness and consciousness. It's kind of programmed in. But I'm not accidentally pulling in the clutch or turning the accelerator with my right hand or the throttle more

accurately known as in motorcycling world. You know, I'm doing all of those things. I'm making those decisions, operationalizing that decision, and then creating an outcome which is hopefully a safe passage into my gig in the city. And they're all choices, and they happen on a low consciousness level. But also on the way into the city, I'm thinking about stuff and I'm making decisions. Maybe I'm making Oh geez, if I get in there fifteen minutes earlier, I'll go and

get a coffee. That's a decision. I probably need to have a WII before I get out underway, bit of a nervous weed. That's a decision. I might tell this story. I might not tell that story. Now I remember this group is that certain demographic. So I think I'll go with this style or this approach or this kind of information or content. I think I'll make it more interactive. I'll make it interactive because I've spoken to this group before and they are pretty cash. Last time, we'll see

how we go. I've got to be in and out in ninety minutes, so I better make sure that I'm aware. I might put my phone down in front of me on silent where no one can see it except me. I can just keep an eye on the time. That's a decision, right. And then also I need to get under way. I need to finish on time. That's a decision if possible, because I have to be back because I have that other thing at that time. Blah blah blah. All these decisions and we all do that. We're all

making decisions constantly. Cornell University out of the States suggests that we make somewhere over thirty thousand decisions a day. And obviously most of those decisions are not big, contemplative,

life changing decisions, but you know, decisions. And I've spoken to a lot of people who over their journey, and if I'm being transparent and a bit self aware, I've done the same thing, spoken with people who have made certain decisions, and those decisions that they have made or even not made, they've avoided making, like they knew they should do a certain thing and they chose not to

do it. Well, that's still a choice. But people who have made certain decisions and a year or two or five years later, they wake up one day metaphorically in inverted commas and they go, fuck, how did I get here? And how they got here was largely about their choices. So we think something. This is the cycle. We think something. We have an idea, a thought, a perspective, a story about something. That's the genesis is the cognition, the metacognition.

We think about it, we think about our thinking. But the real starting point really from an operational point of view, is we make a decision. We make a decision, We then take some action. We then take some action, and then that produces an outcome, and the outcome affects our

reality good, bad, big, small, significant, insignificant, noticeable, unnoticeable. But every choice that we make generally is accompanied by behavior generally or action is then accompanied by some kind of result or outcome which has an effect big or small, tiny, ripple,

massive wave in the life of us. And I think we need to get our head around the power of these decisions that we make and the role that they can play in shaping not only the outcomes in our world, but the quality of our life and also the way

that we can transform ourselves. Like when I make hard decisions, decisions that I kind of don't want to make, but I know that I need to make based on my self awareness and my understanding of what needs to change for me, my operating system, my thinking, my behavior, is

my habits something practical in my world. When I make a hard decision even though I kind of don't want to, and even though I'd rather take, you know, the easy option in the moment, But when I can delay gratification and I can push that impulse for ease and comfort and familiarity, if I can push that aside and go, ah, fuck God, I want to do it, but I need to do it, So I'm going to do it. So

I make the hard decision. So I make that phone call, I go for that run, I sell that thing, I apologize for that behavior, I whatever I own up to

that bullshit. Then not only am I changing what happens in my world and my behavior and my outcomes and my reality, but then I'm changing me because now I am the dude or the dude who can make decisions which are not comfortable, quick, easy, painless, but necessary to live in alignment with my values, necessary to create the outcomes I want to live, the life I want to live in, the body I want, the relationship I want to have, the career I want, or to build the

career that I want, or to get the academic qualification that I want, or to write the book that I want to write, or to overcome the destructive habit that I want to overcome. There's virtually no cases of people becoming wildly successful that I'm aware of anyway, who haven't as part of their journey, constantly, if not very regularly,

made hard decisions that most people would not make. You and I are decision making machines, and I believe that there's an absolute correlation between the quality of our decisions, the quality of our behavior, the quality of our outcomes, and the quality of how we're going to live and do life. So you made a decision to listen to this show. You made a decision to listen to the You Project today. You didn't have to. You chose. Some of you chose to subscribe. You didn't have to subscribe.

You chose to. Some of you might make a choice to turn it off, and if you do, that's see next time or never. But some of you will choose to keep listening, and some of you will listen, some of you will have a light bulb or two. Some of you will go, well, that actually makes sense. Some of you might see yourself in my words. Some of you might resonated with resonate with the ideas, and some of you will make a decision to do so. Statistically, most of you will not. That's not an insult, that's

not a provocation. That's how it works. So I might say something that for you, if you would turn that idea or that intention or that thought or that strategy into some kind of behavior, that might help, That might move you forward in some capacity, That might solve a problem, that might lead to a breakthrough, that might lead to some kind of growth, some kind of improved resilience or awareness or understanding, some kind of improvement on planet you

or you can do nothing, also a choice. By the way, I don't know if you need to do anything or not. So there's no I'm not trying to emotionally or psychologically arm twist here. I'm just thinking out loud, like think about all like, think of from the moment that we wake up to the moment that we go to bed, we are constantly making decisions, but also we are constantly

running stories underneath those decisions. And so yes, we need to check our decision making, but we need to also check our storytelling, which is really the platform to the decision making. Like, if I choose to put something unhealthy or toxic in my body, that's a choice, and I might say, my story might be oh yeah, but you

don't understand my situation. I'd worked all day, I did an all day gig, and I was starving, and I went straight from my gig to Sydney Airport and I got to the airport and there was nothing healthy in inverted commas. So I just date that, well, firstly, probably a fib probably could find something that kind of almost filled. Maybe you could get a fruit salad or a yogurt or something right, but also, worst case scenario, you could

not eat. That's a decision, And I'm guessing you probably won't die before you get back to Melbourne or wherever you're going, because you're not actually starving. And if you think you're starving, you literally don't understand starvation again, I'm starving. That's a story. What you are is hungry, and that's okay. And by the way, being hungry for a while not the worst thing. I don't think you should be hungry

all the time, but being hungry, you know. So, we're constantly navigating the practical reality of our world, and we're making decisions constantly which either align or don't align with our values. We're making decisions with which do or don't align with how we want to be and who we want to be in the world. We're making decisions which align with our goals, with our truth, with our purpose. As I said, who we want to be and how we want to be in the world. Does this decision?

By the way, most decisions are somewhat incidental, So let's not overthink everything from when we get out of bed or we'll give ourselves an aneurysm and do our own head in. But when we're making the stuff which is more significant and more flu influential on planet U, he's a really easy kind of he's a really easy no brainer question, which is does this does this thing that I'm choosing, does this decision align with who and how I want to be? Does this decision align with my values?

Does this decision that I'm making to do this thing, to eat this thing, to not do this thing, does this stack up well against my purpose, my moral compass, And if it does, will make your decision. If it doesn't, also make your decision, there's no there's not meant to be for me anyway, any judge or provocation in this, but just rather this metacognitive process of thinking about our choices, thinking about why do I think? To make your choices

are a byproduct of your thinking. You're thinking is something you can analyze. You're thinking is something you can put under a microscope. Here's a really good metacognitive kind of corridor to walk down. Why do I keep making decisions which fuck up my own life? That's a really good I don't know the answer, By the way, It's different things for different people. But for some people they make decisions in the moment which in the moment give them a dopamine hit or some kind of pleasure or some

kind of momentary fulfillment or escape. I get that. I get that, I have done that. I have done that many times. But one day I wake up and I've been pushing the dopamine button like a motherfucker for fifteen years, and now I weigh one hundred and twenty kilos, which is what happened to me when I was a young personal trainer and I went from at one stage seventy nine kilos I'll be completely honest, up to one one seven. So what is that? That's thirty eight kilos I gained?

And why Well, I could be more in depth and more detailed, but I was hitting the dopamine button, and the dopamine came for me generally in the form of food that I shouldn't eat, and not just food like types of food, but volumes. Right. I made those choices, I took those actions. I created that weight gain all me, Am I beating myself up? No? Am I being real and raw and honest? Yes? Did I create the problem? I created the problem because I made the decisions that

led to the result. We have to be if we want, like, if we're serious about this idea of living our purpose, taking the narrow path, exploring our talent being the best version of us, optimizing our talent, our time, our resources, our genetics, our IQ, our creativity. If we are serious about doing that, then it needs to become something much more than a fucking intention and plan and idea, And they listen to a podcast. No disrespect, no offense meant, but we need to you know, I'm the theory guy.

I write shit, I say shit. I stand in front of audiences and I share what I think sometimes are mildly amusing and staining inspirational things. But I have personally never changed one person. I've spoken to a lot of people. I've probably influenced a fair few people. I've poked and prodded. But I'm not the answer. The answer will always be you. The answer will always be your ability on planet you.

The answer is you, your ability to make the decision to take the action, to persevere, to roll up your sleeves, to get uncomfortable, to fucking get up when most would give up, to step up when most would step down, right, that is? And that's a choice. Oh it's hard, I know. So what are your choices? Oh well, I can keep going on? Stop cool? What do you choose? What do you choose? Of course? It's fucking hard. Life's hard. Getting in shapes hard, business is hard, making money is hard.

Having great relationships is hard. All of that shit is at times, I say underlined at times hard, not all the time. But growth and development and awareness and resilience and improvement and adaptation and awesomeness doesn't come from sitting on the fucking coucheating KFC going. Nobody understands me. How come I ended up here? How come? Well, I can only speak for me, but how come I ended up in the places that I ended up? For the most part,

few variables out of my control. But for the most part, if I'm being honest and authentic and a bit self aware, most of the issues in my life were Craig created most, and of course bad things happen to me. Of course, I've had some shit go on. I've had friends die, I've had people rip me off. I've had people that I trust prove that they were not trustworthy. I've had disloyalty. I've had people steal money from me, lots of things. Of course, guess what that happens to a billion people.

I'm not Robinson Cruz, So guess what even in the middle of those bad things happening, When I contrast my bad things next to some real bad things that are happening happening around the world right now, to other people in other countries and other cultures. My bad things are a fucking one out of ten on the bad thing scale, and I can immerse myself in self pity, and I can throw myself a pity party and invite everyone along.

Or I can say, well, that sucks. That sucks. I wish that person didn't do that, but they did do that. I wish I didn't lose that money. I wish that bad thing didn't happen. I wish my friend didn't get sick. I wish all of that, but me wishing doesn't change anything that happen. Now I need to choose how I will be and who I will be in the middle of this shit that I didn't choose or want. So the stuff that I didn't choose happens to me around me, because of me, inspite of me, And then I choose.

I get to choose how I will be and who I will be in the middle of the shit. I get to choose if I will respond positively or negatively. I get to choose if I will be the solution person or the problem person. I get to choose how

I will connect and relate and be with others. Will I be toxic to be around, or will I be the kind of person that people want to be around, not because I'm faking it, but because I'm working my ass off and I'm trying to be the bloke, to be the woman, the man, the person that lives their values. I can't change my genetics, neither can you. We can influence them, as I've said before, with epigenetics, or we can with behavior, I should say, and lifestyle. So that's

that epigenetic kind of variables and influences. But what I can do is I can choose to optimize what I have been given at birth. Greg, here's your body, these are your genetics. Off you go do eighty years or so or whatever. Hopefully eighty, hopefully a bit more, who knows. But this is what you've got to work with. So in the middle of all the stuff that I can't change my genetics, I get the opportunity to choose to make a choice, to make a decision about what I

will do with what I've been given. And now, over my journey, I have made bad choices. I've made dumb choices which created bad results. But the bad results were not about my genetics, but rather my inability to make good decisions, to optimize, and to execute on those decisions, which would create the kind of body that I wanted

to live in. Fortunately for me, I found something, some self control, some discipline, did a bit of you know, self inventory, self searching, and now I have found a way to operationalize and optimize what I have to work with. But do I have great genetics? No? Now do I have an operating system and habits and behaviors and lifestyle which support the best outcome for my genetics? Yes? I do. Can you do that? Yes you can. Will you have a cheer squad? Probably not? In fact, I kind of

hope not. You know, And this sounds harsh. Maybe the odd person here and there, or one person in your corner great. But here's my thing about cheer squads. People become dependent on them. And when you're dependent on the cheer squad, the backslappers, the trophies, the accolades, the validation, the approval, the round of applause for eating a fucking salad, you know, the standing ovation for getting out of bed. You're empowering them, not empowering you. And now you're just

creating a new dependency. You're creating a new addiction, a new problem. If you have a cheer squat, great, I'm not against them, not a big fan support encouragement, yes, but this over the top kind of bullshitty. Everyone's a fucking winner. Everyone's not a winner. Everyone's not We're not all fucking winners. There have been many, many times in my life where I have not been a winner. I've been a dumbass, I've made bad choices. And we're not

all fucking special and amazing. We're not. Sometimes we're dickheads, sometimes we're brilliant, sometimes we do good things. There's eight billion of us on the planet. We're so not fucking special. It doesn't mean that you, to your family, though, are not special, or that your children to you or your partner to you is not special. Of course in that context, yes, But winding back the lens or stepping back in the global context, in the group context, we're just another an

other fucking human on the big spinning blue ball. And that's not good or bad. That's just what we are. And so we are born with certain amount of time and certain genetics and certain abilities and resources, and that stuff we can't change. I can't change where I was born out of my hands. Can't change what I was born with, who my parents were, can't change my programming, my conditioning. I can't change the things that happened to me up until today. I can't change them. I can't

change what anyone else does. I don't want to. I can't change the fact that bad things happen to good people, that pain and suffering will be a fucking ever present component of the human experience. I can't change any of that. But in the middle of all of that, I get to choose what I do with my time, with my talent, with my relationships. I get to make hard choices, do hard things, and create good outcomes. I get to optimize my natural ability and talent by choice or waste it

by choice. I can't change the fact that you and I have twenty four hours a day, the same allocation you and me every day, fourteen hundred and forty minutes. But how you choose, how you choose to use Wow, say that ten times. How you choose to use your fourteen hundred and forty minutes is the thing. What I do with my time is the thing. Ah, But I'm busy, yep,

me too, I'm busy too. I work full time, I study full time, I travel, I do lots of shit, and I'm not looking for accolades because I'm not special and what I do is not special. I'm just busy. But in the middle of the busy, I still make decisions with which align with who and how I want to be. I still eat the way, I still don't drink, I still don't use drugs. I still train every day, I still eat good food. And all of those things don't make me special at all. I'm not special. All

of those things are just byproducts of my choices. And is it easy to navigate life by making tough choices and the right choices? Is it? No? It's not. It's just not. Is it easy to you know, to listen to this and then to actually go and fucking do something, not just go, oh, yeah, that resonated, that's good. Yeah cool. I love that that you like this. If you like it, I love it that it resonates. I love it that it may be a fucking light bulb. I love all

of that. But none of that shit will make one bit of positive difference in your life, none of it unless you do something because it's in the doing of the something that you change, and then when you change, and then when your life changes, and then when you make those you make those decisions which lead to this better version, this better reality, these better outcomes. I didn't do what you did. It's always you. You are the problem,

you are the solution. I'm just a resource. I'm just a bloke who happens in your ears every so often. You are not a character in anyone else's play. You are the author of your own story. You are the reality creator. You are the decision maker. Make some decisions, hard decisions. Don't fuck around anymore. Don't bullshit yourself, don't bullshit others. Don't believe your own stories. I'm not saying be reckless. I'm not saying doing anything, do anything dangerous.

I'm saying, if you want to be strong, resilient, if you want to produce a don't let another week go where you just fuck around in a holding pattern where you just wait for the next week or the next month, or the next opportunity or the you'll wake up in a minute, you'll be it'll be twenty twenty five, and you'll be like, fuck, remember when Craig said that, see you next time.