Making choices is on my mind today. We are making choices all day long but so many of them we’re not even aware of. Sometimes you need to step back and make a ‘Conscious Choice’, as we call it in the Coaching World.
I almost made a crap choice earlier. I had an email from school inviting me to be a parent helper on my 8 year old’s theatre trip. I checked my diary, saw it was my art class, and was halfway through automatically replying ‘sorry I can’t make it’ when I caught myself. By pausing for a minute I realised I would much prefer to go on the trip and it doesn’t matter if I miss the art class. I’m not aiming to be a top artist anyway and in a few years my daughter won’t want to be seen dead with me on a school trip! I want to grab these opportunities while I can.
Similarly I have been in a grump (coaches are Human too) doing my Tax Return over the last week. I dislike admin and hence never do it which makes Tax Return time hideous because I have to do a year’s worth of admin before I start. And there’s an unconscious choice that I’ve been making all year to keep putting off the admin and give myself a hard time in January. I could consciously decide a different approach e.g. monthly accounts & an easy Tax Return, but I need to step back and choose to do that.
My question for anyone who fancies a ponder is where are you not making a conscious choice in your life and just doing what you’ve always done without thinking about it? If you pause and think about it, would you prefer to do something different? I haven’t decided about this year’s admin yet but at least I’m off to the theatre on Weds 🙂 Please like/share. Sue X