CHOICES / HOW IT CONTROLS YOU / BUILD HABITS USING CHOICES / WHY IS CHOICES SO IMPORTANT?

Choices

Choices  can be our best friend or our worst enemy, they can deliver us to our Goals or send us orbiting into a galaxy far away,

“you make your choices and then your choices make you” 

Our choices are often shaped by our culture and upbringing, they can be so entwined in our routine behaviors and habits that they seem beyond our control, nobody intend to become obese, go through bankruptcy or get a divorce but often if not always those consequences are the result of a series of small poor choices.

Let’s say you drink a soda and eat a bag of potato chips suddenly realizing  only after you had the last chip that you blew an entire day of healthy eating and you weren’t even that hungry to began with you get caught up and lose 2 hours watching mindless TV before realizing you spaced out preparing for an important presentation to land a big client for your company , you blurt out a lie to your spouse for no good reason when the truth would have worked just fine.

You ask yourself what’s going on with me ? you’ve allowed yourself to make a choice without thinking and as long as you’re making choices unconsciously ,  you can’t consciously choose to change that ineffective behavior and turn it into productive habits, it’s time to wake up and make empowering choices

The Blame Game

It’s easy to point fingers at others isn’t it ? Blaming everyone and everything around you,  I’m not getting ahead because of my boss. I would have gotten that promotion if it hadn’t been for that backstabbing co-worker. I’m always in a bad mood because my kids and family are driving me crazy.  Many of us are particularly gifted in the finger-pointing department when it comes to our romantic relationship , where the other person is the one who needs to change.

Attitude Is In Our Control 

By John C Maxwell

our attitude is a choice and to be grateful is a choice and I know a lot of people who have a lot of blessings that aren’t really grateful, I also know a lot of people who have very little and are very grateful , so it’s not what you have , it’s not possession it’s not where you’ve arrived positionally I think it’s a spirit and the attitude of gratitude to me is saying there have been others in my life that have done things for me I couldn’t have done for myself and the way to express I think indebtedness to people is by being grateful to them. The person that says well I’m grateful, I just never expressed it that’s not adding value to anyone so the lesson here is not only look for what you appreciate but give that appreciation to others and as the saying goes what you appreciate “appreciate”. 

Are You Owning 100% Responsibility?

If I always took 100% responsibility for everything I experienced, completely owning all of my choices and all the ways in which I responded to whatever happened to me I held the power. Everything was up to me I was responsible for everything I did, didn’t do or how I responded to what was done to me I know you think you take responsibility for your life but the truth is I have yet to ask anyone who doesn’t say of course I take responsibility for my life but when you look at how most people operate in the world there’s a lot of finger pointing,  victimhood, blaming and expecting someone else or the government to solve their problems. If you’ve ever blamed the traffic because you’re late or decided that you are in a bad mood because of something your kid, spouse or co-worker did ,you are not taking 100% responsibility. You alone are responsible for what you do, don’t do or how you respond to what’s done to you. 

This empowering mindset revolutionized my life, luck, circumstances or the right situation, wasn’t What mattered “if it was to be it’s up to me”. No matter who was elected president, how badly the economy tanked or what anybody said, did or didn’t do, I was still 100% in control of myself. Through choosing to be officially liberated for the past present and future victimhood I hit the jackpot.

Getting lucky

The difference between becoming fabulously Rich , happy and healthy or broke, depressed and unhealthy is the choices you make throughout your life, nothing else will make the difference. Here’s the thing about luck: we are all Lucky, when I asked Richard Branson if he felt luck played a part in his success? He answered yes of course we’re all lucky if you live in a free Society you are lucky, Luck surrounds us every day we are constantly having lucky things happen to us whether you recognize it or not. I have not been any more lucky or unlucky than anyone else, The difference is when luck came my way I took advantage of it. 

Formula for becoming Lucky

The formula for getting lucky, here’s the formula, Preparation, Personal Growth bettering yourself plus Attitude believe in mindset plus Opportunity that good thing coming your way plus Action doing something about it, equals luck.

Let’s look at them one by one

Preparation

By consistently improving and preparing yourself ,your skills, your knowledge, your expertise, your relationship and your resources you have the wherewithal to take advantage of great opportunities when they arise. 

Attitude 

This is where luck escapes most people; it’s simply a matter of seeing situations ,conversations, circumstances as chance. You cannot see what you don’t look for and you cannot look for what you don’t believe in.

Opportunity

It is possible to make your own luck but the look I’m talking about here isn’t planned for or it comes faster or differently than expected in this stage of the formula, luck isn’t forced it’s a natural occurrence and often shows up seemingly of its own accord.

Action

This is where you comes in, however this luck was delivered to you from the universe, God, the Lucky Charms, leprechaun or from whomever or whatever you associate delivering your good fortune, it’s now your job to act on it no matter what has happened to you take complete responsibility for your action good or bad, Victory or defeat own it.  Jim Rohn said the day you graduate from childhood to adulthood is the day you take full responsibility for your life from this day forward ,choose to be 100% responsible for your life. eliminate all of your excuses. Embrace the facts that you are freed by your choices.  As long as you assume personal responsibility for them, it’s time to make the choice to take control.

Scorecard 

Right this moment, pick an area of your life where you most want to be successful. Do you want to have more money in the bank, a trimmer waistline, the strength to compete in an Ironman event, a better relationship with your spouse or kids picture where you are in that area right now. Now picture where you want to be richer, thinner, happier, you name it ,the first step towards change is awareness. If you want to get from where you are to where you want to be you have to start becoming aware of the choices that lead you away from your desired destination. 

Become very conscious of every choice that you make today so you could begin to make smarter choices moving forward if you decided you want to get out of debt you’re going to track every penny you pull out of your pocket/card, if you decided you want to lose weight you’re going to track everything that you put into your mouth, If you decided to train for an athletic event you’re going to track every step you take every workout you do. Simply carry around a small notebook, something that you will keep in your pocket or purse at all times and a pen. You’re going to write it all down every day without fail, no excuses, no exceptions. It doesn’t sound like much I know, writing things down on a little piece of paper but tracking my progress and missteps is one of the reasons I’ve accumulated the success I’ve had.  The process forces you to become conscious of your decisions but as Jim Rohn would say “whats simple to do also simple not to do”

The magic is not in the complexity of the task (doing the work) , the magic is in the doing of simple things repeatedly and long enough so beware of neglecting the simple things that make the big things in your life possible.

Successful vs Unsuccessful

The biggest difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people are willing to do what unsuccessful people are not. 

All winners are trackers, tracking is a simple exercise. It works because it brings moment to moment awareness to the actions you take in the areas of your life that you want to improve, you’ll be surprised at what you will observe about your behavior.

You cannot manage or improve something until you measure it. Likewise, you can’t make the most of who you are, your talents, your resources and capabilities until you are aware of and accountable for your actions.

Every professional athlete and his or her coach track each performance down to the smallest minutia, Pitchers know their stats on every pitch in their repertoire, Golfers have even more metrics on their swings, professional athletes know how to adjust their performances based on what they’ve tracked, they pay attention to what they record and make changes accordingly because they know when their stats improve they win more games earn more in endorsement deals.

Keep it slow and easy so what will tracking look like it will be thorough as in organized and Relentless as in constant, each day you’ll start at the top of a fresh page and start keeping track what happens after the first week of tracking you’ll probably be in shock of your new journey , you’ll be astonished at how those calories, pennies, minutes have been escaping you all this time. You never even knew that they were there, let alone that they’d vanished. Now keep going, you going to track in this area for maybe 3 weeks, you’ll be so blown away by the results after one week you’ll sign yourself up for another two I can practically guarantee. Why 3 weeks you’ve probably heard psychologists say that something doesn’t become a habit until you practice it for 3 weeks or 21 days.

For the next 3 weeks choose to carry around your own small notepad and write every single thing down in your category.  what happens in 3 weeks you move from the shock that follows the first week to the Happy surprise of seeing how merely becoming conscious of your actions begins to shape them.

Make the correct Choice every day, every week for many years and you can quickly see how you could become Finance abundant.

Once you start tracking your life your attention will be focused on the smallest things that you’re doing right as well as the smallest things that you’re doing wrong and when you choose to make even the smallest course correction consistently over time you’ll begin to see amazing results. It’s the littlest discipline that pays off over time the effort and preparation for the great Triumph that happened when no one was looking and yet the results are exceptional. After hundreds of tournament played and thousands of Strokes Talley the difference between the number one ranked golfer and the number 10 golfer is an average of only 1.9 strokes but the difference in prize money is 5 times over 10 million versus 2 million the number one golfer isn’t five times better not even 50% better or even ten per-cent better in fact the difference between his average score is only 2.7% better yet the results are five times greater, that’s The Power of little things adding up it’s not the big things that add up in the end it’s the hundreds, thousands or millions of little things that separate the ordinary from the extraordinary. Let me give you a few more ways tracking small changes can result in huge payoffs. 

One is the way of reframing your savings account, this comes from dr. Mehmet Oz I tithe to myself , this is true when I was making $29,000 as an intern and it’s true with my money right now 10% of what I earn I don’t touch it’s as though I didn’t earn that money I don’t actually put it aside for a rainy day I put it aside because that buys me peace of mind.

Wow Peace of Mind account, I love that who wants to take their hard-earned money and stash it away for a rainy day how fun and beneficial does that sound but peace of mind yes I want that and it’s worth spending or in this case saving money to buy it, I think doctor has put the idea savings into Context thinking about buying peace of mind is a great way of reframing and understanding this important behavior.

Said Dave Ramsey; After working with hundreds of thousand of people over some time i notice that personal finance is about 80% behavior and it’s only about 20% head knowledge, we all know what to do it’s doing it that’s the problem so the problem with my money is this idiot that I shave with every morning. he also said the first thing is you have to pay attention you have to be purposeful you have to be intentional and the second thing is maturity “adults devise a plan and follow it children do what feels good” you have got to do the right thing every time all the time that’s the number one indicator in your character toward becoming wealthy handling money  is a learned technique.

It’s about choices that lead the behavior done long enough to become habits that overtime compound into our results: wealth and financial abundance or Bankruptcy , heartache and despondency. The choices are small ,the behavior changes almost unnoticeable but the outcomes are profound by comparison.

Time is of the essence don’t wait another day to start the small disciplines that will lead you in the direction of your goals. All you have to do is improve yourself, your performance, your output and your earning by one-tenth of 1% each work day. Do you think you can do that? of course anyone can do that simple, do it each day of the week and you’ll improve by one half percent each week ,translation not much equaling  2% each month which compounded adds up to 26% each year you don’t have to put in a thousand percent more effort or work 1000 percent more hours just 1 tenth of one percent Improvement each day that’s it.

Said ; Donny Deutsch what is the most important ingredient to success was this was his answer the most important thing I say is “are you learning everyday”, “are you growing everyday”, “are you being challenged everyday” that is the key to success. The day that stops happening the world is going to turn in the wrong direction for you. 

Said; Harvey Mckay you don’t go to school once for a lifetime you’re in school all of your life.

Said; Jim Rohn ,formal education will make you a living but self-education will make you a fortune.

Lastly this concept of constant and never-ending Improvement is echoed in every endeavor ,it’s important especially in this economy you can’t stay around if you’re not getting better no business or baseball team is going to keep people just because they show up you have to constantly be looking for ways to get better and looking for ways to improve your value to the organization you have to develop strong fundamentals no matter what you do and you have to make yourself indispensable that requires you to be evaluating what you’re doing and what needs to be done.

Conclusion 

Success is a half-marathon since your outcomes are the results of your moment-to-moment choices. You have incredible power to change your life by changing those choices step-by-step day-by-day your choices will shape your actions until it becomes a habit where practice makes them permanent. Losing is a habit so is winning. Now let’s work on permanently instilling winning habits into your life. Eliminate sabotaging habits and instill the needed positive habits and you can take your life in any direction you desire to the height of your greatest imagination.

CREDIT and teaching from: the the compound effect by darren Hardy .

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