Decisions: Making Your Final Choice
To dedicate time to a good decision is to dedicate you life to a purpose.
If you are joining here for the first time there are two post before this that will give a little bit of meaning. To begin, start with this post on Decisions: Making your Choice, and then move onto this post on Decisions: Preconceived Ideas and Fears. Otherwise, dive right in!
Keeping those pieces of paper handy that you have been working on, here are the final steps to making your all important decision, Your Life Changing Decision.
3. Narrowing The Decision
Time for some ordering now. You have your list with all your fears and preconceptions. Lets order them now.
Take each desire and give it a score of 1-10 of how much you would want to do that thing day after day after day. Not just once off, but every single day or week of your remaining life. 1 being all day long and 10 being maybe once a month.
(I am assuming that there are no items on the list you would not ever want to do so it is just frequency that we are after here!)
Again, take your time to evaluate each one. Score it 1-10 in the margin and work onto the next desire. When you reach the end you should have a number of 1’s, 2’s 3’s and so on.
Next piece of paper to the ready! Lets group these now into blocks according to number. Start with the 1’s. Write all the dream ideas you want in a list under 1 at the top.
When you have all the 1’s, draw a line across the page and place all the 2’s next. Finally, draw a line under the 2’s and then write the 3’s. You should have a nice little list available to you now. (only cover 1-3 though)
Begin with 1 and again work out which you would most like to be doing every day, of every month of every year. Once you have 1 all ordered 1-10 begin on 2 and start again, and then 3. You should now have each category (1, 2, 3) also ranked again from 1-10. This is going to give you a clear idea of what stood out for you in the 1’s and in which order you rated each item in accordance to your own desires.
You made it!
Phew, if you are right down here, give yourself a high five, because life is about to get all exciting for you.
Lets look at the first category of things you want to do – and the number 1 dream of that category – ask yourself, “Why am I not doing this right now?” Look back to your preconceptions and fears, add anything you may have missed if you remember something new. Maybe commitments are holding you back, knowledge or someone else. It is time to make the adjustments.
Take that first dream, write it on the next piece of paper and write your first preconception, fear or commitment. Now lets begin looking for a solution to it. How can you overcome that issue?
Do you need training – look for a course. You work full time – take the course in the evening, weekends, or online. Don’t have time – stop watching the TV! Laziness/apathy – You only get one chance in this life to live it, there is no later on, there is no second chance, your time is ticking down. Why would you surrender all that because you were just too lazy or apathetic*.
Once you have addressed each preconception, fear and commitment holding you back, and you have a solution to each of them – YOU ARE NOW READY!!!
You Created Purpose!
Ready to make your life meaningful, colourful and creative. You are no longer concerned with the Joneses, the TV or what that famous actress is doing. Why, because you have PURPOSE. You have a goal to achieve and aim for. You are now determined to make it happen. The decision is ready to be grasped with both hands.
Sad Realisations
As a teacher the two most upsetting statements I heard from 2 different pupils in different schools at different ages was that they could not do what they wanted because they had to keep doing what they were currently doing. Young lives, ready to change the way the world is, yet under the belief they had to live up to another standard.
The first was a boy of 15 who only wanted to be a plumber. He resigned himself that he could do nothing else in school to help him in his chosen career, so he sat and quietly failed every exam, and caused staff little hassle.
When I asked him how he could begin to start working toward bettering his knowledge for his career, he said he couldn’t because he had to stay in school. He was missing opportunities to add value to his main desire, even though he knew what he wanted!
The other boy, was one of the most intelligent young men I have met in my life. He was hard working, studious and had the world to chose from. His passion was to make films. Take interesting ideas and making them visual to bring a pertinent point across to the viewer.
He did all this; script writing, directing, filming, editing and production in his spare time outside of his studies. I was so excited for him to be already starting on his desired path, but to my amazement when I asked if this was what he was going to do, he said no, because he feared living in small apartment, having failed at film making and nothing to show for it. He would rather be a Doctor and have the security.
He, with all the intelligence and sharpness of mind, missed what life is about. To savour the experience of life and be creative.
It’s Easy when you know how!
Our decisions in life are all easy when we know what our choices are, but not addressing the list of choices first is our first weakness and leads to unhappiness.
To be truly happy in this life I believe you need to follow your heart. Go where it goes, and create. It might be designing a small bolt for the next eco-car or the next masterpiece to rival van Gogh. Either way we are creative and unless we express this we are eternally unhappy.
Nothing more excites me than to arrive at a new destination and see people living their lives. To talk to others and discuss the world and our place in it and to write ideas which have collected in my head and put them in an orderly manner. Even now I can feel the excitement building about those ideas and experiences.
I have less now than I did when I was growing up. I realise that the enjoyment I seek must come from inside me first. By doing what others have wanted me to do – or rather what I thought others wanted me to do – led to my own process of self examination. These posts show you one way to make that same inward assessment of happiness.
Act Anyway
This post falls under the ACT ANYWAY philosophy I am currently writing about. It is you and your life that matters here and now. You cannot plan indefinitely, put off till later or hope for one day.
You must act, and if it is just a small action of writing a few desires on a piece of paper, or taking the little step closer to your dream by enrolling on an evening course, you must ACT. When you do and you feel the fire ignite within you, you will be amazed at what you can achieve.
If you feel the fire, took the step or just wrote a list, I would love to hear how you are doing. These are my stories and I feel excited by sharing them, I hope you feel the passion too, and by you sharing with me, the experience is trebled.
Want to get in touch, you can contact me via email above, or find me on Facebook or Twitter. Thanks for coming along and I am pleased you decided to make a little step forward.
ACT ANYWAY or you will forever long for happiness
