Question #4 – What are your choices?

Let’s look at question #4 about your choices. Sometimes it may feel like you don’t have any choices, but it is important to remember that you are always in choice. You may not always get to choose the circumstances, but you always get to choose your response to those circumstances.

If you are trying to change your perspective, and you don’t see that you have any options, you can start to feel real stuck. Try asking yourself what your choices are. Let’s say you are in horrible traffic on the freeway, and you are going to be late for a meeting. What are your choices? Most likely it is not your choice to make traffic go faster – maybe there’s an accident ahead, or maybe it is just one of those annoying mysterious slowdowns where you never do figure out what it was all about. But you may have a choice to get off the freeway and go a different route. If that is not a viable option, it looks like you are just stuck.

But you have another choice to look at. You have a choice in how you respond to the situation. You have the choice to get uptight and antsy and worry about being late and the consequences of that. So how do you like that choice? If you opt for that one, where are you down the road? Maybe still on the freeway; maybe at your appointment, but late; and most certainly agitated and worried and not in a good space.

So is there another choice? Maybe you have an option to call your appointment and explain your situation and reschedule. Or maybe your only choice is to just sit there and drive slowly and be late. But you are still in choice about how you respond to it. Instead of being worried and agitated, could you perhaps choose another response? Maybe practice your deep breathing, and a mantra of ‘it is what it is.’ The result will be the same as above, down the road you may still be on the road, or you may be at your appointment, late. But maybe you won’t be agitated. Maybe you will be in a better space.

The point here is that the choice is yours. I am not telling you what you should choose – it is YOUR choice. But you do have a choice.