The power to choose

Your thoughts and your life.

Artist: Karl Blossfeldt (1928) from Urformen der Kunst. Source: Rijksmuseum, Public Domain Image Archive

I touched on this topic on Wednesday when I explored productive ways to move forward when inevitable setbacks happen in your business.

In the article, I quoted Victor Frankl:

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms— to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.”

This gets referenced a lot and for good reason. If Victor Frankl could find a way to choose his response to the horrific circumstances he found himself in, surely we should be able to do the same. And once we wake up to the possibility of this power, it’s hard to un-see it.

The truth is we’re always choosing our attitude, but often we’re not aware of the choice we’re making. We’re running a default program without realizing we’re doing so. Reacting in the same way we always have without understanding why. And so goes our lives.

Here’s the rub, if you’re not consciously choosing your attitude, it’s very difficult to live an intentional life. You’re at the whim of whatever is happening to you personally and whatever is happening in the world. Especially now, when there’s so much happening on both a micro and macro level.

Living an intentional life is where it’s at. Not only does it impact you (no small thing) and your close contacts(family, friends, clients, book club members, yoga class besties), but there are ripple effects beyond your immediate circle. Subtle, quiet, often unseen ripples, but make no mistake, they’re there and they matter.

So, how do you get there? How do you exercise the power to choose? Both in the moment and for the longer term.

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Reacting versus responding.

Inherent in the power to choose is the ability to respond versus react.

To develop this ability, we need to learn how to introduce a tiny moment between stimulus (whatever is going on) and response (what we do with what’s going on). We’re able to pause and create space for something new to emerge. And we’re only able to pause we’re aware of what we’re thinking.