Choosing something different
I find it funny now that I never used to consider that I am creating my life. That what I consume - not only food and drink but also through what I watch, what I read, who I listen to, how I think - it has an impact on how I feel, on the health of my body and mind, on what I do, on what I am capable of and who I am.
I just used to think well I am who I am and that's it. But I've learnt over the last few years that this is not true. I am shaped and created by everything that I choose and everything that goes on around me. And with a lot of this I can choose something different.
“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.”
—John C. Maxwell
At the moment I have been practising making different choices around food, eating more vegetables and less processed foods. I notice my body feels healthier and my brain feels a lot clearer. And it is rather amusing that I am writing this after eating half a large bar of dark orange chocolate, but hey I don't want to be one of those yogis/people who is perfect, and preaches perfection. It's just a choice. It's not right or wrong, should or shouldn't. It's simply choice and consequence and looking at whether the consequence is what you want. And isn't it funny sometimes you want it and yet you don't?
Dark orange chocolate choice. Consequences: delicious eating of chocolate, followed by less delicious eating of chocolate (have you noticed the first bite is always the best?!), followed by mindless eating of chocolate whilst browsing for vegan brownie recipes on phone for Sunday movement class. Then a slight feeling of guilt - so I get to see there's an expectation that I should be someone who eats differently and who certainly doesn't do things mindlessly - haha! Fortunately the blood sugar swings that you can get seem to have been offset by the food I ate before the chocolate - phew!
So many of our choices in life are made up of habits. We just do them every day because that's what we did yesterday and the day before that. It doesn't take any energy to make the decision to do them. To make a different choice takes some conscious energy. In fact the most important things you need to make new choices are awareness, acceptance and kindness.
And if you want to choose something different. First decide on what that is. What really isn't serving you in your life that you feel ready to tackle.
“Your life changes the moment you make a new, congruent, and committed decision.”
—Tony Robbins
- Review the consequences of your current choice to check that there aren't any good ones that you need to keep in some way.
- Decide on a new choice. Think about the consequences of this - How will you feel different when you are doing this? What difference will it make in your life?
- Make sure you feel motivated - do you actually want to change this? Or do you just think that you should? Should is really not motivating at all.
- Decide how you are going to implement your new choice. What are you going to do differently and when?
- Set your intention every day. Take a few breaths, feel your whole body, set your intention and ask the whole of you to be behind it and support you.
- Use any "failures" as an opportunity to learn. 😊
Choosing different things when you're tired, emotional, hungry or stressed is really hard. So throw away any judgement when you choose things that don't have the consequences that you want. Just come back to awareness, acceptance and kindness. Begin again tomorrow and see if you can find a way to make the new choice easier when you're tired, emotional, hungry or stressed. What would help you? And perhaps set yourself a success/failure rate that's more of a scale than a switch.
Failure is not a bad thing - it's absolutely necessary for learning. If we gave up trying to walk after the first few attempts, we would be a nation of crawlers.
And if you need some support with this - and don't we all need support at times! - talk it through with a friend or someone who embodies the new choice. Surround yourself with other people who are making this choice. Or come for some coaching. :-D
“How am I going to live today in order to create the tomorrow I’m committed to?”
— Anthony Robbins