It’s Your Choice!

Thanks go to Lindo Morolong, one of our trainee life coaches based in Botswana, who provided the inspiration for this week\’s post. Lindo queried a comment on the subject of choice made in one of our skills training manuals and  forwarded me an interesting article he had written about making choices, for an online magazine.

His article stirred my interest and prompted me to write on the subject.

[box type=\”shadow\”]“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.”

― J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)[/box]

A central theme

The issue of personal choice is a central theme in life coaching.

The truth is that we are faced with choices all the time and it is the very choices we make that determine what we achieve, who we become, and the kinds of lives we lead.

Fabulous gifts

We come into this life bearing two fabulous gifts – an open mind and a free will.

From day one we start to make choices about what it is we value, what it is we believe in and what it is we will do with our lives.

Shaping our choices

Of course nobody operates in a vacuum. There are many powerful forces that influence and shape our choices.

Our upbringing and education, our environment, the events and outcomes that we experience through life, and even our own creative imaginations all play an important role in determining how we perceive of our outside world and the role we should or should not play in it.

Because we have a free will we can also choose the extent to which we wish to retain an open mind.

An open mind

An open mind is critical for those who desire to pioneer, invent, discover and create new things and approaches – but it requires one to accept and even embrace the concept of constant change, renewal and transformation.

For many this can be a fearful thing because it opens one up to dealing with the uncertain and the unknown as well as to the prospect that the way we perceive things now – and even who we believe we are right now – may change.

In short, it requires both courage and the flexibility to adapt in the face of new knowledge, information and emotions.

Easier choices

An easier choice is to fixate ourselves on a set of values and beliefs and a concept of the world with which we feel comfortable, then to \’close our minds\’ to anything that does not meet the rules we set for conformance with those values, beliefs and our general perception of the world.

An even easier choice is to abrogate responsibility for choice. In other words, as Lindo would say, \’to choose not to make a choice\’.

There are many in the world who eschew their right to exercise their free will to make a choice, either due to fear of the consequences of making the wrong choice or due to a weak or conflicted set of values and beliefs.

Ceding our power

When we fail to exercise choice, we cede our power to shape, or at least influence, our future. In doing so we are left with no choice but to  accept that our future will be determined wholly by the environment or those around us.

If you leave your future in the hands of your environment or society in general, is it fair to expect to experience anything better than a pretty rocky ride?

That\’s why so many talk of life being unfair, even cruel.

A truly amazing experience

Life is certainly challenging. It is so because it is only through facing challenge that we grow. But through making deliberate, conscious choices and learning from the consequences of those choices we can turn life into the truly amazing and rewarding experience it was meant to be.

It\’s your choice

The precious gifts you were endowed with are worth far more than you may care to realise. They deserve to be unwrapped, explored and used to their full potential.

But whether you do so or not is entirely your choice!