Many people go through life just existing – just going through the motions. They get stuck in a dead end job, a middle class existence, either just accepting mediocrity or yearning for more but not knowing how to get there. Those who are ignorant of the method to obtain success can be taught how to become successful far easier than those who are too lazy to pursue success, however both categories of individuals can ultimately obtain success and get what they want in life.
One of the benefits of being a Chief Strategy Officer is that I am educated in different strategic methods and philosophies and I know how to apply different strategic approaches in different situations. There are several approaches that I have applied in my life that have helped me obtain successes in my careers, in my personal life, and in life in general. The approaches I am going discuss in this article can be applied in many areas of your life.
First I want to discuss decision making as a strategy for positive change making. Decision making is really the key to getting out of the your stagnation and making a change. We get caught in these ruts and we refuse to make the decision to get out of the rut because we are comfortable in our stasis – and the fact that we do not have to utilize the energy depleting brain power to make a decision. The art of decision making can be learned. One strategy you can implement in your life to get accustomed to making decisions is making small decisions that barely move the needle on a daily basis and really thinking about and noticing the fact that you are making these decisions. I call this decision mindfulness.
Every day most of us wake up and get out of bed and brush our teeth. We make the decision to brush our teeth which is a hassle. It’s much easier not to brush our teeth…lets be real. But a long time ago, we made the decision to brush our teeth every morning, at the very least, and we programmed that process into our lives; taking away the need to make a decision. That is ultimately what you need to do with your larger goals. You are going to start to make decisions about small things that move the needles a tiny bit toward your goal, and get comfortable making those tiny decisions so you can program yourself to no longer need to make decisions about taking these actions anymore. Before you know it, the decision has become a positive habit to now be encoded in your lifestyle and you no longer need to think about it. You have the added benefit of practicing flexing that decision making muscle.
You can do this with something small to start. Maybe making the decision to invest one dollar in an index fund every day. Make yourself log into your account everyday and really feel that dollar leave your checking or savings account and go into your investment account. After about a month, this action will be encoded, and from there, you can feel free to setup automated transfers but the point is that you made a positive decision that will encode and beget more positivity as ultimately you will accumulate wealth. Then, take something, else – maybe something related to your diet, and make the decision to eat one healthy meal a day. after a while, the negative impact of having to choose that healthy meal will lesson and lesson, your cravings for something unhealthy will reduce, and ultimately the decision of eating healthy will become routine. Then do it with meal number two, then number three, then snacks.
If you feel you are undervalued in the workplace, make a small decision to help you improve your station at work. Buy a book on changing your worklife. After you read it, make the decision to employ one of its principals. Then employ another, then another, then another. Eventually, the decision making muscle will get stronger, and you will be able to apply your newly developed decision making skills to all aspects of your life.
Okay, so now that the decision making muscle is hypertrophic, I want to introduce the very simple concept of Small Consistent Actions. The concept of small consistent actions and the concept of decision making really go hand in hand. The concept is very easy and really entails performing small actions consistently to see big change. But before you do this, you need to be able to make decisions. If you look at a lot of top performers, they all took small consistent actions to get to where they are. For me, I made the decision to study to do well on my math test when I was younger, then I made the decision to study to do well on my English test, and then I worked my way up to performing enough small consistent actions in academia to get me into an Ivy League school and eventually into a good paying job which led to other opportunities that have made me money.
To conclude, I want to provide you with an example of employing decision making and small consistent actions in my life. When my son was a toddler, I noticed as he was getting bigger it was more and more difficult to pick him up and carry him around. It was very important to me to be able to connect with my son on that level. So I got a personal trainer, started working out hard three days a week, doing lighter workouts the other 4 days of the week, and focusing on my ability to improve my strength and my overall health. I started with the workouts, eventually took the action of adding multiple dietary changes, hydration loading and tracking, sleep changes, data tracking of my health, and joined an MDVIP practice. These small actions made me feel better and far more capable of lifting my son. But the one action of hiring the trainer and committing to working out, catalyzed all of these other decisions that improved my life.
