Every minute of every day we are faced with choices. Each decision we make leads us along a new path. The road to our future is determined by the choices we make now! Unconscious of the fact that we are making these choices we are led down the well trodden paths of decisions already made. The road we choose appears familiar because our habitual conditioning has led us this way before. Why is this? Because invariably we take the easy option over the better one. We settle for the comfort zone afraid to venture into realms unknown and the excitement of unchartered paths. The easy choice means we don’t have to think or take action. If we did, we would have to take responsibility; a rare experience indeed.
The true purpose of Life is expansion and growth. When we take the easy option we are not being truthful to ourselves. We are settling for less than we are and our lives are forged by the dreams of others. What happens to us? We become ‘set in our ways’ and grow weaker through inactivity. When we don’t think for ourselves our brains become dull. When we are physically inactive we become weak. When we eat the wrong things our energy is depleted and we fall victim to bad health. And all because we choose the easy option!
We can’t possibly move forward unless we choose the better option. We can only grow by overcoming challenges, experiencing setbacks and taking responsibility. This is achieved by taking on things bigger than we are, by extending ourselves to become better than we were. There is no doubt we will experience defeat but this is just an inevitable part of the process. Successful people aren’t successful because they haven’t experienced failure. On the contrary, they generally have experienced failure more often than most. Neither are they luckier than most. As one famous quote by Roy D Chapin Jr puts it “Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.” Opportunity is down the path we have never travelled not in the places we keep coming back to. Successful people are simply better prepared to make the most of any opportunity that comes their way. How are they better prepared? Because they chose a different way; when the going got tough they chose the better option.
How do we know what choices to make? When we know what our goals are the better option is immediately apparent. It is the option that leads us towards our goal in the quickest way possible. It is not some subtle distraction that takes our sight off the target or a well crafted excuse to procrastinate. It gets us from point A to point B via the shortest route even if that means leaving the comfort zone to do it. We forge new paths, experience new things and grow even stronger as a result. Do you see how we make our own luck? Treading the same path day after day is hardly the recipe for success!
Do yourself and everyone else in your life a favour. Go for your biggest dreams and make the world a better place. Choose the better option over the easy option everytime.
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