Your Choice
We are confronted with choices all day long. My alarm goes off, do I get up or hit the snooze button? Do I lay there a while longer or pop out of bed? Do I have time to shower or not? What do I want for breakfast or should I not eat breakfast? Do I pack a lunch or buy my lunch today? What should I wear? How should I style my hair? What jewelry do I wear or choose none? Then what coat to wear? So many choices; it can be overwhelming and exhausting. All this even before I walk out the door to choose which way to drive to work. And then what happens when I make the wrong choice? I give up already.
What made me think to write about choices this month is that my husband, Gerry, and I are doing a Lenten program together this season. We do the work over the week including a workbook, then discuss what we have learned on Sunday. This Sunday, Feb 26, was our first discussion. He didn’t do the workbook but did watch the videos. (Sorry, honey, for throwing you under the bus, just a little. But you are the victor in the story). His choice. I did it all because that is who I am. But I had a lightbulb moment when we were discussing our week on that first Sunday. How often do we set out to do something for our own good, don’t do all of what we set out to do right away, so we quit? We make the choice to quit and give up because we didn’t meet our initial expectation toward the goal. For example, I decide I’m going to give up sugar for the week. Day 2 I give into my sugar cravings, decide I failed and choose to just keep eating sugar. I decide to start an exercise regimen. Day 4 I skip my workout, decide I failed, and choose no more working out for me. “I just can’t do it. I give up!”
What if we made the choice to start again instead of giving up? Gerry hadn’t done the workbook. That doesn’t make him a bad person. He hadn’t failed. Because he made the choice to do better moving forward, start over so to speak, and not quit, he is the victor! Would he have made the choice to continue had we not made each other accountable? Good question. Maybe, maybe not. I’d like to believe he would have made the same choice to do better because that is who he is. He chooses to start over as many times as he needs to so he can achieve his goal.
The point is we can choose to start again. We can choose to do better. We can choose to learn from the past and work to reach our goals. An accountability partner is a wonderful way to stay on task. Our trainers at GEFS want to be your accountability partners as do the other participants in the studio. Exercising when you don’t care for it is hard; easy to find excuses and give up. Find a way to be accountable by doing it with a partner, sign up for a class and commit to the instructor and other people in the class. Make the choice to follow through. If you don’t, do better next time. Don’t give up. Not completing a task does NOT make you a failure. It makes you a learner. Growth comes from your hiccup so you can make a better choice next time around.
Don’t let choices overwhelm or exhaust you. Choices are available so YOU can create YOUR life. Whatever it is you are trying to implement into your life, choose to start. Choose to move forward. Choose to do your best. Make the choice. It’s your way of creating a life that YOU choose, YOU prosper from, and YOU enjoy! Hit a road bump, try to start over again. Don’t punish yourself; learn and grow. You deserve it. Your mind, your body and your spirit deserve it, because you are worth it!
by raeanne
