September

Choice has been a resounding word for me lately, and the phrase, by choice (of one’s own volition) seems to resonate too.

In just the few hours I’ve been up and about today, I’ve made numerous choices. That is, to have selected or made a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. Examples: to take a longer-than-usual morning walk, to have strawberries and bananas at breakfast, to deep clean the tile floors with my steam-cleaning machine, to make a very difficult personal phone call, and to end my procrastination—carving out the time to consciously put pen to paper about this word, choice.

Think about all the choices you make in your current life—from the superficial choices to ones with deeper meaning, to ones that involve others, to ones that have life-changing impact.

In a recent Lights On! Workshop, I asked a group of women to each think deeply about important and critical choices made in their personal lives. What was that pivotal point?  What difference did that choice make?  How did just one choice co-create the future for her?

The important learning to me, about choice, is that we all have it! We each have 24 hours a day to deliberately choose, to co-create our own lives for the better.

Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice, notes that every choice we make is a testament to our autonomy, to our sense of self-determination.  Dee Wallace, in her book, Conscious Creation, underscores that we are all creating.  Every thought, belief, and action (choice) is a creation; but most of us are not creating consciously. Creating and living out our lives is an on-going process—one in which our choices matter—one wherein we must be conscious (aware) of our thoughts, our beliefs, our fears, our wants. Essentially, we are always “at choice”.

I like that---at choice! Lights On!

---------------

Claire Knowles, retired Human Resources and Labor Relations Manager, is now a life coach and business leadership consultant. Her coaching/consulting focus can be found at  www.lightsonworkshop.com.  Lights On! is created especially for women: Presentations, facilitations, retreats, coaching and consulting.