As I was sharing my life story with a fabulous story coachof international repute today, who is creating a pool of inspiring life storiesacross the globe, I discovered a pattern about the way I have been makingdecisions in life.
Making a decision, almost always, is about weighing theoptions one has and then thinking about the pros and cons before weighing in onone of the options. I use 'almost always' because there are times whenaccepting what comes our way and making peace with it, is sometimes, the onlygood choice to make when not many options are available to us, other thandenial, of course.
So let's say, something happens, which you were notexpecting to happen. You now need to deal with it and make a decision. How doyou decide? Try this. Take each option and fast forward your life post makingthat decision. e.g. If I take up this job now, then this might happen..and thenthat might happen...then...and you arrive at a certain set of things that mightor might not seem appealing. The further you are able to fast forward, thebetter you might be able to choose. Hold these thoughts and start focusing onthe option which seems the most appealing to you. Make that a 'wannabe' goalfor yourself. Now move into a rewind mode..get back to where you are today. Anthen start playing your life afresh. So, if that is what I might end up with,then this is what I need to do now - to get to it. It works. This is reallynothing but using your intuition for making decisions. The decisions you mightend up making as a result of this would be better accepted by you and hence bypeople around you and are likely to leave you a much happier person.
The key is to stay focused on what would work for us in thefuture and the vision that we find compelling. That way, we would find ourvision pulling us towards it and our chances of realizing it would be muchhigher.
We could, however, also use the converse of this techniqueto one's benefit if our intent is to focus on something we have been neglectingfor a long time, like health, for instance. Say, you want to lose weight butfind that you are not able to exercise or follow a diet. In this kind of asituation, when we already have a pre-determined goal, if we focus on thethings that can go wrong, we might be propelled towards action. So let's sayyou have been advised to lower your cholesterol levels and you want to reduceyour cholesterol by changing your eating habits. What could possibly happen ifyou don't do something about it? And then..? And then..? And...is that what youreally want? If not, then what should you do about it..now?
Every time you catch yourself slipping back into yourcomfort zone thinking you might want to take action some other time, fastforward to the worst possible outcome. Make that your driving force. You willdo something about it because you don't want to end up like that.
