Hello fellow bloggers,
Today’s post in a dear friend’s blog (http://eileensodyssey.wordpress.com/) is so true, and applies even more in these often pressurised times.
I would like to add a few more decisions of my own to her very practical list.
So many of us think we are organised by having daily “to do” lists – often we spend so much time on these lists that we don’t have enough left over to complete the items on it, so back we go to craft yet another list for tomorrow, bearing the carry-overs from today. And so it continues, with a daily reminder, (the carry-over) of what we have in fact failed to achieve. Does such a list serve a positive purpose? I say no, not until you decide to craft a list that serves as a reminder of what you have realistically chosen to achieve for this day in your life.
And it is in the crafting of this list, that so many other decisions subsist. The two quotes from Eileen’s blog pertain here:
- Am I frittering away precious time in perfecting something that in fact does not doing at all? – can this once-in-a-lifetime chunk of time be put to better use?
- Is my ladder against the right wall?
The old chestnut of “man’s reach should exceed his grasp” is meant to serve as a motivating force, but even the best intentioned motivators can backfire if they are unrealistic in the context of the specific person and his/her abilities and life situation. So I say, CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES CAREFULLY, MAKE THEM WORTHWHILE, AND SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS NOT FAILURE. This is of course not always easy to do, but the mere exercise of thinking a situation through can often clarify your thoughts – sometimes in very unexpected directions.
A quote I have often found useful deciding on priorities is ´Will this still be important in five years from now?”
So do I use to-do lists? Yes. Where would any of us be without diaries, Post-its, notelets and fridge magnets? An important trick of course is to remember to actually use that list – remember to take that shopping list with you to the shops, remember to look at it so you pay that bill on time, send that birthday card, etc..
The other – and to me most vital – decision, is how you react. Many life coaches say that we can decide what happens to us, can decide what our future holds etc. That is true in many respects. But, there are still many situations in life over which we have no control: you do not decide that your child be killed in a car crash, that you develop a rare cancer or that the stock market crashes and wipes you out financially. And here is where my decision comes in: the only real choice here is in HOW I CHOOSE TO REACT TO THE SITUATION. In reaching this highly important decision, once again, all the others subsist and must be faced.
As Eileen has done, examine each important issue in your life with the larger picture in mind, and then make your decision. Is it easy? At first not and there may be some very deep or thorny issues to be faced. But it does become easier the more often you go through the exercise. So take that first step, start really thinking about what is important in your life – just for today. Then do it again tomorrow. After a while, your priorities will become crystal clear and your path to follow, highly visible. Then, somehow, the decisions seem so easy to make that they no longer seem like decisions at all, but merely “this is what I do and how I live”.
However, it doesn’t stop here. You cannot become complacent merely because you have reached this stage. If you don’t keep thinking and reassessing your life, your run the risk of becoming entrenched in a behaviour or response pattern that may become inappropriate as your circumstances change. So, constant vigilance and the ability to adapt remain vital tools: don’t pack them away, keep them handy, sharpened and well-oiled.
Remember: the difference between a groove and a grave is just a matter of depth.
