STEMS OF HABITS – Choice
High functioning habits are not just birthed out of the blue; there are specific processes that are responsible to that end. These processes, which are habits in themselves, are like the roots from which high functioning habits stem.
With a critical observance, you’d eventually notice that the one thing you can exercise control over is your perspective. The situation may be beyond you, but you have a choice on the angle from which you view it. You can choose to either be miserable or to motivate yourself. Whatever decision you make, it was your choice all along. It’s no different from choosing a path or having a set-goal, you have to choose to want a high functioning life. With a wholesome review of books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, 7 Habits of Highly Effective Habits, High-Performance Habits, Think and Grow Rich, they all have a general standpoint – MINDSET. It’s your mindset that is so important right out of the gate.
If you want to be high functioning in any area of your life, you must choose it. That has to be the first thing you do; the habits are things that come after. Without choice, you’re going nowhere. Remember that your habits are going to be personal to you. You also need to realize that time is of the essence when making your choices. A bunch of our important choices have timelines, often our fears and doubts impede us from making choices that include changes. Hence, we miss out in the long run. You must be open to the fact that you are ignorant about some things. That is probably my first lesson when I was younger, one that has kept me moving forward and asking questions. What got me out of my ego and arrogance of my 20’s was accepting the fact that people around me may know what I do not know. After all, you don’t know what you don’t know! The irony, however, is that the second you admit that fact, God and the Universe will bring to your life the right people, they will bring along with them the right circumstances and unfortunately lessons that you will find a little uncomfortable.
Once you’ve chosen, there is no place for excuses. You need to work through the layers of the onion to get to the core where you find out what is really at the root so that you can build up the habits from there and subsequently change the results around you. A core evaluation is critical because that’s always the cause. The reason Northern America’s medical system is so appalling right now is that everything is about a band-aide. No one wants to find out what’s wrong; they want to fix the symptom but to what end? The symptoms are certain to raise their ugly heads again. Many people are caught in this loop. Well, that sort of mentality needs a paradigm shift in thinking. There has to be a change in our thinking and belief structures. There is no place in high functioning habits for fixing symptoms; you must always aim at the cause. Be that as it may, there are things that you may need to work on that are simply symptoms, you will need to make a few adjustments, and that usually is the first step. You are always going to work on those sorts of things because they are always going to lead us backward. That sounds counter-intuitive, but we do want to work backward to the root of the problem so that we change the habit around that problem to create a different lifestyle, a different way of being conscious and a different way of reacting to things around you.
Where does choice come in here? Simple: When you know you can’t be perfect in every situation and that there are times you’ll encounter tough ones, you have to stand up to your feet because now you know that it’s not just about the situation but how you deal with it and that’s a choice you always have to make.