On The Topic of Choices

When it comes right down to this concept of designing a purposeful, life I am clear about one thing: It is much easier to talk about the design, the how, the why and even the gratification once you arrive there...than it is to begin this transformation. 

I say transformation because it is not at all like when I help people set up a daily system for their work day, walking through the steps of how to schedule their day and events. That’s a simple process that can be walked through in detail with easy actionable steps to follow. You know, follow steps 1, 2 and 3 and let’s see how this works. Even if you don’t believe in the process of writing things down or detailing your day, if you simply follow the steps I offer, it can work. 

It may not be sustainable, I mean, if you don’t believe in it, after a few weeks, even if it seems to help, you may resort back to your old ways as soon as something goes sideways. Maybe you don’t feel well one day, or you become back logged on work, or you just feel burnt out...any old excuse will do. It’s human nature. We slip back into our old habits and ways of thinking so easily if we aren’t really sold on any one new process. 

It’s why having a Coach is only helpful if you are in the right head space. In the coaching world we call it being coachable. Sometimes you are not coachable now, but will be when you just can’t stand the space you are in now. Sometimes life comes crashing down and being coachable suddenly feels urgent and other times...you just never slip into that coachable space and learn how to muddle through on your own. There is no right way or wrong way. My only point is that it is a perspective thing. 

It’s the act of how you think, that enables you to take on what is next. Whether it remains as is, even when bad, or if you are constantly on the prowl for something better. 

So this is where designing a purposeful life comes in. I can give you the check list, but no matter what, if you are not in the mindset of wanting or needing something better or different, it won’t be helpful to you and you might not be able to design anything that feels purposeful. 

But..if you are still listening to me speak at this moment, there’s a very good chance that you are in just the right mindset to work on some perspective shifts. Because shifting your perspective, the way you think, is honestly the secret recipe here. 

What I have witnessed is that people that are open minded to change, constantly looking inward to see what is good and what could be better, feel like endless choices are available to them all the time. Like, literally, all the time. Even when they feel stuck where they are, they know where to go and who to talk to. But you know what is interesting? Those same people, literally cannot understand why other people around them, even when they seem to complain more often, don’t choose something else. 

Why can’t they just choose differently, right? I mean, if you don’t feel comfortable in the chair you are in, you either find a different one to use, or buy a new one completely, right? Or do you just keep sitting in it assuming you can block out how much it is bothering you? 

 Which one are you? Do you suddenly say, wow, this is really uncomfortable. I can’t really think about anything else besides how uncomfortable this is...and then give yourself a few minutes to find a better place to sit? Or do you stay in it anyway, convincing yourself that discomfort is part of your work?

My dad used to say, it’s not supposed to be comfortable, thats why they call it work!

But I don’t buy it. And never did. And to be honest, I don’t really know when I began to live into that mantra, but it started early....I can remember all the way back to my gymnastics class. Maybe I was 8.  Every class we had to stay in that uncomfortable back-bend for what seemed like hours, which was  maybe only a minute, but I remember how uncomfortable it was. It hurt my head and made it throb actually. And since it was how each class began, it ruined the rest of the class for me. Just like that. 

 Lucky for me, my mom allowed me to stop attending. I give her credit. Not hitting me with the whole commitment and responsibility thing, which I am a big fan of! Seriously, I do not mess around about my commitments. I honor my time, your time and every other thing I say I am going to do. Period. 

But sometimes, like that darn chair...I quickly say, no thank you. 

But what about you? What does it take for you to actually get up and out of that chair...maybe it’s not quite as simple as a chair, but still, there are always other choices, right? What has to happen in your life before you are able to see the repeated discomfort, the repeated dislike, the repeated disdain for something, before you say, wait a minute...I can’t take this anymore.

My legendary mom, who passed away 5 years ago after a 2.5 year battle with pancreatic cancer, was the most amazing women I am sure I will ever meet. She made a 6-figure income in a sales career, that she hated except on payday. She was brilliant and beautiful and could sell used paper bags if that was what it was going to take to be financially independent. 

But while she did often acknowledge the uncomfortable chair, she wasn’t always quick to take a pulse on things that didn’t serve her well in her life and sometimes...waited a little too long before getting up to find a new chair. But once you are given a death sentence like stage 4 pancreatic cancer, life as you know it, stops. And then maybe, just maybe, you are able to see a new perspective. Only maybe. 

My mom was given 3 months to live at age 72. She was vibrant, a retired marathon runner, spending an hour a day on the elliptical, eating nothing but healthy food...and she took a quick look at that chair, and said ‘No’.

No thank you. Three months is not going to work for me...I’m not about to start fighting death. I’m going to fight to live.And that is exactly what she did. 

She journaled a lot and came up with catchy quotes, so that on really tough days, she could reread them and remind herself how badly she wanted to live. And every morning, she would call me. Her question would be pretty similar each day: How will I get through another day knowing what I know? I tried my best to change my morning answers, stretching my brain for ways I could accomplish the very same mindset. How would I get through another day, knowing what I knew as well? It was a tortuous ritual in the beginning, but then it became a game for both of us really....pushing us to see past this diagnosis, pushing us to see past this imposed death sentence for a crime she hadn’t committed....and it helped. A lot. I am grateful she needed me that way, because I needed it as well. 

I remember when she finally landed in the hospital and surrendered.

 I remember her looking at me and saying, Today is the day. Today is the day I’m going to die. I am going to call everyone I know to tell them how much they mean to me. How much I love them. But today. Today is the day....

At first I was horrified, quickly trying to put on my brave face. But it went on every morning for the next 3 weeks, so I had to learn to lean into that as well. 

And when she asked and I had finally found a comfortable enough seat, I said calmly, ‘well then I guess we will get a chance to practice what we have practiced all of our life...staying present in the only day we have.’

But that isn’t where I want to leave you today. That isn’t the place of choices. I mean, what choices did she have? She was dying. Right before our very eyes, she was dying. 

Yet as she sat in this uncomfortable chair, here is what she wrote: ‘In the end there aren’t even any real choices, except to stay in the game. Like it or not, it’s the only game in town.’

And that’s the part that gets me. Because you know you are sitting here right now thinking about your life. The people around you that are getting older...or even your own mortality. That game, that one she was referring to...it’s your life. She didn’t mean there aren’t any choices. Like there isn’t anything to choose. She meant the obvious about life itself. 

The only real choice is to stay in the game. This life. It’s all there is. 

The only real choice is to stay in the game…

We can choose this life and keep complaining about the things that are bothering us, or are not working or the people around us who are making us suffer most...or we can choose this life, like a choice...and then find another chair to sit in. 

What will you choose?

Remember: if you change one thing, it can change everything.