from the moment you wake up
The sound of the alarm greets you in the morning to say hello.
Before becoming too familiar with the signature iPhone Alarm tone you quickly press the snooze button ready to embrace 8 more comfortable minutes of sleep avoiding the cold and avoiding your morning workout.
Then the ring returns just as you close your eyes only to realize the 8 minutes turned out to really be 45 minutes that you were not anticipating. So you awake, more tired than you were after the first snooze.
to selecting your clothes for the day, you have made choices
You roll out of bed, drag your feet to your closet and contemplate what today's work attire should consist of.
10 minutes later you make a choice and 15 minutes later, you are completely dressed.
You look down at your watch (Phone? do people use watches still) and see that you are late, stop at Dunkin to get coffee, then you hit rush hour traffic and frantically curse the gods for your unfortunate circumstance.
many people never take responsibility for the choices that they made
You arrive at the office 15 minutes later than your scheduled time. Your supervisor confronts you, and of course, you blame traffic for your tardiness. Never having to accept personal responsibility for the mishap, completely separating yourself from the effects of the choices that were made.
There were numerous things that could be done that would have shaved 15 minutes off of that inefficient morning, but will we ever have that honest conversation with ourselves? Probably not.
we would much rather blame an external circumstance
This may not be the exact scenario for you, but I know you are experiencing a similar situation. Maybe it is wanting to read, but being too into your cellular device. Maybe it is wanting to lose weight, but continually eating food that is bad for you. Maybe it is wanting to write consistently, but being too lazy to start the process (that's me by the way).
We routinely make choices that are not in line with what we actually want in life or the direction we want to go. Then make excuses to justify the active choice that we made. This becomes easier when you realize one fundamental thing.
what do your choices say about you?
There is no difference between you and any other person on this planet, we all have access to the same tools (there are exceptions, but let's dismiss the outliers). The only thing that makes us different from anyone else is the choices we make on how to spend our time.
you can achieve most things you want if you make wise choices
The average human makes about 220 choices a day. That is about 13 choices an hour (when you are awake) or 80,000 choices a year. How many of your choices actually serve you? How many Make you better? We are constantly making choices that seem inconsequential at the time of the choice but recognize on the large scale they actually do make a difference.
You decide to use your phone an hour less each day, congrats you just bought yourself 608 extra days over a 40 year period.
small choices can make a big difference
You decide to spend 3 fewer dollars a day, over that same 40 year period, congrats you would save an extra $43,800. Oh.. forgot about the compound interest, that's an extra $314K before taxes.
You decide to read 5 pages of a book a day, that is over 400 books over that same 40 year period. At this point, I am sure you get it and I do not want to continually make the same point.
how are you going to make a big difference in your life?
Imagine all of the things you could do with that extra time, imagine all of the extra opportunities you can afford with the extra money, and imagine how much additional knowledge you could attain with that extra reading.
We make choices every day, again what do your choices say about you? And how many choices serve who you are.