If you’re doing something for someone else’s approval, you may as well not do it at all.

There is only one reason to do anything: to announce and declare, express and fulfill, become and experience Who You Really Are.

Do what you do, therefore, for the sheer joy of it, for sheer joy is who you are. Do what you choose, not what someone else chooses for you.

- Neale Donald Walsch

When I talk to people about the idea of choosing the life they want, generally they get very excited!  Who wouldn’t want to choose the life they want?  Often though, that enthusiasm wears off when they realize that it isn’t as simple as rubbing a lamp and making three wishes.

photo by roboppy

If you’re one of those people who gets decision paralysis at the ice cream counter, then the idea of making choices about something as big as “your life” can seem overwhelming.  Here’s a short guide to help move you out of paralysis and into powerful decision-making.

Use the power of contrast
Some people have a hard time deciding what they want, but find it very easy to articulate what they don’t want.  This can be a fine starting point.  Take a look at the things you have in your life but don’t want, and start choosing to move in the opposite direction.  If you like your job, but don’t find it fulfilling, then start looking for something in your life to give you that sense of fulfillment.  If the job is fulfilling, but doesn’t pay enough, then start looking for an opportunity to earn more money.  The key with this strategy is to not get stuck on the negatives, but only look at them long enough to decide what the contrasting experience would be.

More please!
Mark Twain reportedly once said: “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like” and this is a great philosophy to adopt in life.  We don’t need to be able to completely and eloquently articulate what it is that we’re looking for, but when you find “it” – get more of it!  Take a few moments are reflect on all of the things in your life that you love.  The things that you appreciate. The things that really mean something to you. Now look a little deeper  – look beyond the “things” and look at the feelings that those things evoke in you.  THAT’S what we want.  We want the feelings!  Your job is to find “things” that give you more of those feelings.

Experiment
If we face each decision and choice with a sense of “life and death” urgency, then it will be virtually impossible to make a choice.  My suggestion is to try experimenting with things to see if they are a good fit or not.  We don’t walk into a shoe store, gaze at the selection of footwear, choose a pair, pay for them and leave.  No, we try them on.  We walk around in them.  We check them out in the mirror.  We seek the opinion of our friends and/or the store clerk.  We might even try on a pair “just for fun” – a pair that really isn’t our style, but look interesting.  Why not take this same approach to deciding what you want in your life?

Choose Again

We need to realize that making choices is not something we do once.  Life is constantly changing and we are constantly growing and evolving.  We need to give ourselves the freedom to realize when a choice we made once-upon-a-time is no longer serving us.  This can lead to regret, shame and all sorts of guilt.  But none of those are productive and empowering reactions.  Instead – we need to reevaluate our situation, priorities and desires and simply choose again.  And again. And again.

After all, it’s your life!

And be sure to steer cleer of the dreaded “what if’s”

Pssst! Hey you.  Yeah, you.  Wanna know a secret?

Life is all about focus.  It’s that simple.

And that complicated.  (Sorry)

What we get in life depends on what we focus on.

Photo by Sporadicity

In the Mortality Manifesto, I wrote “because fear is based on an imagined future, my focus on the present makes me fearless“.  Now I need to confess something – I wrote that particular line as a reminder to myself to keep my head out of the future.  You see, growing up I was always a very logical, auditory, left-brained kid, and for the most part, those characteristics served me well.  I always remember my father telling me to “think things through”.

The concept of “thinking things through” is a great approach to life when you’re 8 years old.  But it becomes much more problematic when you get older, simply because the decisions you need to make are much bigger and you have the mental capacity to project much farther into the future.  Our logical, “action / reaction” thinking leads us to try to control for every possible outcome and every possible variable.  And this is where you can fall victim to the dreaded “what ifs”.

There is no way that we can control for every possible variable and every possible outcome. Enter: FEAR.

“What if I make the wrong choice?”
“What if I say the wrong thing?”
“What if…?”
“What if…?”
“What if…?”

Of course, the reason that we ask ourselves these questions is that we’re hoping to find “the right” answer.  Well, the fact is that we won’t always get the right answer, which is where fear begins to show up.  And I can absolutely guarantee you that:

fear + decision-making = clouded judgement

So my prescription for dealing with the dreaded “what ifs” is to stay out of the future and remain focused on the present.  And the best way to do that is to connect with your heart and follow its lead.

“What if you tried that approach?  What if it worked?”

photo by Bien Stephenson

Imagine that you are walking along a beautiful moonlit beach with the warm waves gently kissing your toes. As your gaze extends ahead of you, you notice something shining in the moonlight. You assume that it might be a piece of broken glass and since you don’t want to step on it, your attention is fixed on the object as your walk closer. Soon, you realize that it isn’t a piece of glass at all, but rather some sort of shiny metal sticking out of the sand. You pull on it and while it moves a little, it remains buried in the wet sand. Intrigued, you drop to your knees and begin digging around the object. After a few moments, you are holding an ancient looking lamp that looks as though it was dropped by Aladdin himself. After a quick look around to make sure that no one is watching, you decide to rub the lamp – just for fun.

The next thing you know you are face to face with a ethereal floating genie, who may or may not sound like Robin Williams as he tells you that he will now grant you three wishes!

Here’s my question to you: “How long does it take you to answer?”

Do you know what you want?

How many of us can actually articulate what it is that we want out of life?