Current-Events
The three decisions that control your destiny are:
- Your decisions about what to focus on.
- Your decisions about what things mean to you.
- Your decisions about what to do to create the results you desire.
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Too many of us do NOT make the majority of our decisions consciously, especially these three absolutely crucial ones; in so doing, we pay a major price. In fact, most people live what I call "The Niagara Syndrome." I believe that life is like a river, and that most people jump on the river of life without ever really deciding where they want to end up. So, in a short period of time, they get caught up in the current: current events, current fears, current challenges. When they come to forks in the river, they don't consciously decide where they want to go, or which is the right direction or them. They merely "go with the flow." They become a part of the mass of people who are directed by the environment instead of by their own values. As a result, they feel out of control. They remain in this unconscious state until one day the sound of the raging water awakens them, and they discover that they're five feet from Niagara Falls in a boat with no oars. At this point, they say, "Oh, shoot!" But by then it's too late. They're going to take a fall. Sometimes it's an emotional fall. Sometimes it's a physical fall. Sometimes it's a financial fall. It's likely that whatever challenges you have in your life currently could have been avoided by some better decisions upstream.
How do we turn things around if we're caught up in the momentum of the raging river? Either make a decision to put both oars in the water and start paddling like crazy in a new direction, ordecide to plan ahead. Set a course for where you really want to go, and have a plan or map so that you can make quality decisions along the way.
Although you may never have even thought about it, your brain has already constructed an internal system for making decisions. This system acts like an invisible force, directing all of your thoughts, actions, and feelings, both good and bad, every moment that you live. It controls how you evaluate everything in your life, and it's largely driven by your subconscious mind. The scary thing is that most people never consciously set this system up. Instead, it's been installed through the years by sources as diverse as parents, peers, teachers, television, advertisers, and the culture at large. This system is comprised of five components:
1) Your core beliefs and unconscious rules
2) Your life values
3) Your references,
4) The habitual questions that you ask yourself
5) The emotional states you experience in each moment.
The synergistic relationship of these five elements exerts a force that's responsible for prompting you to or stopping you from taking action, causing you to anticipate or worry about the future, making you feel loved or rejected, and dictating your level of success and happiness. It determines why you do what you do and why you don't do some things that you know you need to do.