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Unleashing Your Remarkable Potential
Issue 5.2 - January 14, 2007 - ISSN: 1551-6571

In Kevin's Own Words

Five Daily Decisions That Will Change Your Life

We all make choices every day. In fact, one way to look at your life is to consider it as the sum total of all the choices you have made. It is easy to think about that in the big picture, think for example, about these choices:

• Whether to finish High School (or not)
• Whether to go to college (or not)
• Where to go to college
• What job(s) to take
• Who to date/marry
• Where to live
• Whether or when to have children

Certainly these are the “big choices” and the ones that anyone would say have an impact on who you are at a given point in your life. However, while these are important questions, I do not believe they are the most important ones we make. I believe the most important choices are the ones we make every day – in many cases subconsciously. There are two reasons why the daily decisions are more important:

1. Because you will keep making them. The big choices listed above have been made in the past. Yes, you can choose to go back to school, have children, etc. But for the most part, those decisions are a part of your past and cannot be altered from the past perspective. But there are thousands of decisions you will keep making every minute of every day of your life.
2. Because you’ve made so many of them. The sheer volume of these decisions makes them important.

If you buy my idea that daily decisions are important, then which of them are among the most important? Here are five I believe will have a tremendous impact on your future – meaning that your choice will impact your future results. This isn’t a complete list, and after reading these I am sure you will think of others that are especially important to you (I hope you will share those with me!). Here are my five important choices to get you started:

• Listen more, talk less. Listening allows you to learn. Listening allows you to build relationships. And choosing to listen (rather than talk or do something else while someone is talking) is a choice we all make all day long. Need I say more?
• Expect better (of yourself and others). Think about it, you tend to get what you expect – in terms of results, responses, and the performance of others. Expectations typically are based on experience, but all of that experience is in the past. In reality your expectations are a choice. If I told you that you could make a choice that would consistently improve your results, even if you “did” nothing more, would you be interested? Your expectations are exactly that. Choose to expect more, and more often than not you will welcome more in your life.
• Trust others more. This could be considered a part of the last bullet point, but it is so important I’m separating it. If you want more trust in your life (at work, at home, anywhere), then choose to be more trusting. You can make this choice with every person you meet. Might that be a risk? Sure, but by making this decision a conscious one, you are improving the likelihood that you will have more trust and more trusting relationships in your life.
• Match your actions with your goals. If your goal is to lose weight, then choose to leave the pantry and the refrigerator door closed. If you want to be better prepared for meeting, then prepare (now). If you say life balance is important to you, then choose to go home on time. If your goal is to read more, then turn off the television. These are just some examples of the daily (actually minute-by-minute) choices you can make. When you choose to align your action with your intentions, you can create miracles.
• Choose now. Your future begins right now. Make choices that will create the future you want. Make the choice and take the action.

Og Mandino wrote in his wonderful book, The Greatest Miracle in the World, that we should “use wisely our power of choice.” The five choices above are among these choices that we all make all day long.

When we make these choices wisely, we will create more of the results we desire.

Your life (and successes) is made up of the choices and decisions you make. Making these five choices will improve your personal and professional life, your results and your relationships in both the short and long term.

Your Comments: Please visit Kevin's Blog to leave your comments on this article.

Potential Pointer: Your life (and successes) is made up of the choices and decisions you make. Making these five choices will improve your personal and professional life, your results and your relationships in both the short and long term.

Kevin

Kevin's Recommends

The Amazon Kindle

A few days before Thanksgiving, Amazon introduced an electronic book reader. It isn’t the first of these tools, but it is the first from Amazon, and the first that doesn’t require a computer to buy or download the books you want to read. The Kindle is self-contained and the first major product in this category.

About a week later, my wife ordered one for me as a Christmas gift. She said it was “the perfect gift for me” – a blend of technology and books, two things I love. She also said it felt like it was a gift for her as well – since fewer “real” books might show up in our house! She was right – it is the perfect gift (however, books will still show up in our house and my office!). Apparently I’m not the only person for whom this is a perfect gift; about a week after they became available, they went on back order. She ordered mine November 30th, and it arrived January 4th.

Actually this tool is more than a book reader – you can subscribe to newspapers, magazines and blogs as well as choosing from more than 90,000 books (priced significantly less than buying a physical book).

I realize not everyone is an avid reader like me and so for many this might not be the “perfect gift” or even something you are interested in. But as people interested in personal and professional development I do believe The Kindle (and other similar products) is a tool that is a part of the future and therefore something you need to be aware of.

If you want to learn more about this great tool, you can check out Amazon for tons of photos, videos, descriptions and reviews and/or you can follow the thoughts of one of my blogging colleagues Lisa Haneberg here, here, here and here.

As Lisa says in her first post – Books Rule! and The Kindle rules! 

Learn more and purchase at Amazon.com.

Your Comments: Please visit Kevin's Blog to leave your comments on this recommendation.

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