The Thousands of Choices Every Day
I have become increasingly aware in the past few years of how fundamental choice is in creating what we want (and also creating what we don’t necessarily want). Each choice that we make effectively determines our path forward. Our choices determine what we want, who we are and what we believe, what we create, what we feel, and what we experience. So the question is: how aware are you of each choice you make on any given day?
Psychology Today reported in 2021 that the average adult makes 35,000 choices per day. Separate research performed at Cornell University in 2006 demonstrated that people make 221 choices per day associated with food alone (full disclosure: these were college students 😁). More recent research commissioned by the psychology-based app Noom reported that we make 122 “informed” decisions daily, using thought, input, information, or analysis to make a decision.
The actual numbers aren’t all that important to me, although they certainly demonstrate that we are making way more choices each day than we are probably aware of. The real discussion here is: on any given day, how many decisions are we purposefully and consciously making and “owning” based on what we want and what’s most important to us?
IF choice lives in every minute (yes), AND
all of these choices have implications (yes), AND
IF we believe these choices directly impact our ability to create what we want (yes), THEN WE MUST proactively and consciously manage our choices to succeed and get what we want.
“Being mindful of the choices and their implications immediately unlocks our power to engage in those choices.” - Rob Fenty
The first step in retraining ourselves to do this is to become consciously aware of the presence of these choices. There are three things that we can start to practice every day to increase our awareness and our ability to better align our choices to what we want.
Awareness of the choices themselves.
We need to become aware of and start to take ownership of every choice we are making, e.g., how we spend our time, what we do or not do, what we think or feel in any given situation, how we respond, whether we stay focused or get distracted, where we put our focus and energy, the words and tone that we use in each interaction, etc. Whether these are choices that we are consciously discerning or if entrenched beliefs and past experiences govern them, the more aware we are, the more power we gain in our ability to choose knowingly. The key to fulfilling who we are and attaining what we want in life is simply achieved by engaging and owning our power of choice.
Awareness of what is driving or influencing choices.
Becoming aware of the choices at hand also means that you must become aware of past beliefs and stories that influence and motivate these choices. These are the underlying beliefs and motivators formed from your past experiences that have effectively created decision rules for your choices. When you don’t consciously engage and choose, these decision rules will make it for you. For example, suppose you have an underlying belief that people are out for themselves. In that case, you are going to react and respond differently to a situation (without even realizing it) vs. a person who believes people are always doing the best they can. You certainly have the power to choose over and rewrite these beliefs and decision rules. To do so, you must become aware of them to gain control.
Awareness of the implications of choices.
All choices have implications. You need to think 2-3 steps ahead at any given moment. In addition to the choices themselves, you need to have awareness of the implications of the choices in context to what you truly want. All choices lead somewhere. They lead to other decisions and close-off choices that would have been available on a different path. The key to this awareness is to truly embrace and trust your power of choice as your ultimate tool as a leader and a creator of whatever you want in this life.
The simple starting place is to become aware of how choice lives in every minute. Being mindful of the choices and their implications immediately unlocks our power to engage in those choices.
