Break It Down to Choice
Making big changes in our lives can feel completely overwhelming.
We get on the scale after a few months of ignoring it, only to discover the number is twenty pounds higher than it’s ever been. We open a credit card statement with an alarming number in the amount owed column. Our closet looks like a small bomb went off, knocking all the clothes from their hangers to the floor.
At this point, the big picture situation in which we find ourselves can seem like a mountain too tall to climb. But so many of the undesirable situations we find ourselves in occurred only after a certain number of times in which we checked the yes box.
Yes, I’ll stop again this afternoon for a chocolate muffin treat from Starbucks. Yes, I’ll go ahead and get those shoes that are on sale and catch up on the credit card next month. Yes, I’ll just throw this outfit in the corner of my closet instead of hanging it up.
Moment by moment, day by day choice is the vehicle that takes us to these destinations we eventually wish we never had to visit. The reality of our arrival can be enough to put us in a state of paralysis. I’ll never get out of this fix.
But the truth is we got there one individual choice at a time. And if the knitting together of those choices resulted in an outcome we’re not happy with, we also have the ability to unravel our situation by reversing those choices.
We substitute our afternoon stop for the chocolate muffin stress reliever with a twenty minute walk in a beautiful spot. We leave the next pair of must-have shoes for someone else to buy because we already have a similar pair anyway. We take the extra fifteen seconds to hang up the dress we wore to work.
It’s empowering, really, to realize how meaningful a single choice is. It doesn’t seem so in the moment. But when those choices are added up and occur often over a long period of time, they become very meaningful.
I’ve thought a lot about this recently. About how a reasonable amount of effort applied each day, whether it’s to exercise or some goal we’re trying to meet, consistent, deliberate choices truly do make the difference between being fit or out of shape. Being at a weight that makes us happy or not. Having control of our spending and our debt or not. Walking into our closet and feeling pleased by what we see or not.
Controlling our choices may be simple, but no one, least of all me, would say it’s easy. A slip, an indulgence now and then won’t build that mountain we do not want to end up having to climb. But making the choices that we know create the kind of big picture that keeps us the happiest, makes us feel the best about ourselves, is determined by our everyday, individual, moment by moment choices.
In thinking about all of this, I’m fine-tuning my awareness of even the small choices I’m making, especially when it comes to my weak-points.
It’s good to know where we’re going. And how we’re going to get there. Or not.
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