You Have A Choice And That's The Problem
Jim Rohn always said that humans are the only living species that do not grow to its maximum potential. If you plant a tree, no matter what, the tree will grow to it’s maximum. It will grow as tall as it can, it roots will go down as far as they can go and it will produce as many leaves as it can. To the max. Yet we humans don’t do that. Most people do just as much as they have to, and nothing more.
Why is that? The reason is simple. We have the dignity of choice. We can choose not to do things. We can choose not to smoke, we can choose not to overspend our hard earned money, we can choose not to stay in a job we hate. A tree has no choice but to grow to the maximum it can, no matter what the environment it finds itself in.
Choice is both a benefit and a curse. It means we have to make decisions. We can either decide to do something that will bring benefit and joy to our lives, or we can choose to do nothing and stay in stagnant life, choosing to blame everything and anything around us instead of doing something to change the things we do not like.
I believe choice is a wonderful thing. We have the power to choose exactly what we want to do with our lives. This one life we have on earth. Compared to a tree, our lives are very short. Many trees will live and grow for hundreds of years, we will be lucky to get ninety years. That gives us a choice over what to do with our years. Will you choose do something to benefit mankind? Or will you follow a path of insignificance, regret and ultimate disappointment. The choice is always yours.
Your don’t have to follow society’s blueprint — go to school, get a boring office job, marry, retire and die — you can choose to start your own company, write or record your life on video and help other people. There are limitless possibilities. You just have to decide what it is you want to do with your precious life.
The disappointing fact is most people never choose. They just follow what society tells them to do, never taking the time to decide what they really want to achieve in their lives. This is because it is very hard to find out what we really want. It involves a lot of thought, a lot of self-analysis, often having to face up to our weaknesses and fears. It is much easier to do nothing and just let life push and pull us in whatever direction things go.
Of course, you do not have to live that life. You can choose to pursue your dreams and goals. You can choose to do almost anything you want. You just have to decide what it is you want. That means taking some time to design the life you want to live, what you want to do and what you want to achieve. It just takes one decision. To make a choice. Once you make that choice, you need to work out how to do it, create a step by step plan of action. Create a set of life rules that will lead towards where you want to go. It all begins with making a positive decision.
In my job of helping people to improve their communication abilities, I meet many fascinating people. People who made the decision to do something they wanted to do with their lives, and people who chose to follow what their parents told them to do, then what their managers told them to do. The difference in outlook, energy and success between these people is huge. The ones who made the decision to do something they wanted to do are happy, content, full of energy and positivity about their lives. The ones who chose to follow whatever society had in store for them are desperately unhappy, disenchanted and stressed out about the future. A future they believe they have no control over.
The truth is we do have control over our lives, we can make choices about where our lives will go. We are not trees. We can choose to grow to our maximum potential, discovering new talents, learning new skills and developing ourselves so we can do the multitude of things we want to do. We just have to make that choice. We can decide today to change our lives, to start making progress towards creating goals that will take us from an unhappy, unfulfilled existence to a life of joy, happiness, success and fulfilment. Surely, that is the kind of life you want for yourself?
Starting today, make a choice about what kind of life you want. What skills you want to learn, how you want to develop yourself and where you want to make some changes in your life. That choice is yours. That is what makes you different, that is what will make you happy.
If you want to take control of you life and your time, then I have an online course designed to help you to discover what you want, how to achieve it and how to take complete control of your own life and your time so you can go out there and make it happen. If you enrol before the 17th September 2017, you can get the course with a 25% early bird discount. So sign up today, right here. You can take the course whenever you like once you have enrolled.
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Carl Pullein is a personal development and productivity specialist, presenter and author of Working With Todoist: The Book as well as Your Digital Life, a book about using your technology to achieve greater productivity. Carl works with clients all over the world to help them focus on the things that are important to them and to become more successful, productive and creative.