Choosing your way to a life

Without realizing it, you’re choosing your way to a life that may or may not be the life you want to live. But before you gloss over that sentence … it’s not just the big important choices we make that define our lives.

Take it from me, the little 8-year-old girl who stood at the candy counter for 20 minutes every week, trying to decide between an Almond Joy, a Snickers, or red licorice.

Choices, whew. You’d think picking a 10 cent piece of candy was life and death, or that I wouldn’t have a chance to make a difference choice the next week when mom brought us to the laundromat. (Yes, go ahead and Google when a candy bar was 10 cents; I know I’m dating myself!)

Do these small choices really define our lives?

Maybe not, but the choices our younger selves made tell how we make decisions. And how we make our choices, it turns out, tells us as much about the lives we’re making as what choices we make.

Stephen Covey said, “But until a person can say deeply and honestly, ‘I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,’ that person cannot say, ‘I choose otherwise.'”

Before we can move forward, we have to recognize we’re not only a sum of the decisions we have made so far, but also how we make them.

Choosing your way to a life is subtle

Another well-known quote says that “Small choices become actions, actions become habits, and habits become our way of life.”

And, that’s just it. We’re not talking about candy bar decisions today, and yet paying attention to our younger selves making the decisions “back then” gives us valuable information.

That little candy-choosing girl was paralyzed by a decision because deep inside she was afraid she’d never get another candy bar. She was choosing out of scarcity. And worse yet, she was afraid to make the wrong choice.

Now looking back, I realize that pattern defined the way I made many choices later in life.

Important truths about choices

Before we walk through some important steps to understanding your own choices, let’s start with a few important truths about choices:

• Choices aren’t necessarily good or bad. They’re just choices.
• Owning our choices means accepting the consequences, not wallowing in regret. We need deep, honest reflection, with loads of grace for the you that made choices with the best information and resources you had at the time.
• Shame and blame have no place here, as you look back. Examine your choices as though they are floating past you, freely, just noticing how and why you did what you did. You’re searching for freedom, not trying to make yourself feel trapped or ashamed.
• Sometimes you may have felt you had no choice. When in reality, the choice you made was the easy one and the cost for the harder path was more than you could bear at the time.
• And, sometimes you really didn’t have a choice. You were a victim of your circumstances, of events beyond your control.

In this middle stage of life, it pays to pause and evaluate. Here are a few thoughts to help us understand the choices we’ve made so that we can choose the life we want to live going forward.

First, identify the choices you made

We need to understand the choices we made because those choices made us who we are today. Honest introspection helps us look at how we arrived at our current state. And we have to assess this as Mr. Covey says, “before we can choose otherwise.”

What choices led you down the path that is your life today? Brainstorm a list of choices you’ve made in your life so far.

These might include: whether or not you went to college, the college you chose, finding a spouse, deciding to have children or not, picking a career or job, making a move, buying a home, creating a savings or investment account, making a large purchase, etc.

Second, dig deeper

Why and how we made the choices is just as important as the choices we made.

Example: I chose to go to Central Oregon Community College near home.

• Why? Because my cousin Ann had gone there, two of my best friends were going there, it cost less and my family couldn’t afford a more expensive option. Also, it was a lower cost way to complete the basic educational requirements.
• Is that really why? Well, I could have gotten a student loan for Oregon State, but I was afraid of taking on more debt.
• And why was that? Deep down, I lacked confidence in myself, my direction and ability to take care of myself. And I was afraid to leave the safe cocoon of my family and home. (I literally cried as I loaded up my belongings for the dorm and left my mom on the front doorstep, driving the 45 miles to college.)

Third, assess for patterns in your choices

Perhaps you can see, as I did, similarities between the little girl making a choice between candies and the young adult choosing a college. I notice how my lack of self-confidence impacted my decision-making processes. I observe a pattern of scarcity thinking, a sense that every choice leads to a defined end that can’t be changed.

I’m tempted to berate the younger me, “you silly girl, can’t you see the big picture?”

It is a danger, this backward thinking. If we’re not careful, we can get stuck in regret or worse, shame. We have to look objectively. Our choices were made with the best information and resources we had at the time. Blaming or shaming ourselves defeats the purpose, will trap us. And besides that, I met my future husband, the father of my girls, at that college. I wouldn’t trade that choice.

The habits I acquired consciously or even unconsciously were part of normal growing up. They came out of both nature and nurture, of how I’m wired and how I was raised. It does no good to berate, there’s only learning.

Be honest. Give yourself grace, lots of grace.

Are these patterns serving you well? Or are there lies you need to stamp out and replace with important truths that will help you choose your way to a different life?

Fourth, acknowledge current crossroads

Our past choices made us who we are today. But more importantly, the choices we make today impact future us. Where can we see, like Stephen Covey, “I choose otherwise”?

I want us to acknowledge these crossroads because, big and small, they define our lives. Future Elaine has to answer to present-day Elaine.

Future YOU has to answer to present-day YOU and the choices you’re making. What crossroads or choices stand in front of you? Name them, describe them. Be specific.

And, finally, make a choice for today

Speak truth into yourself and make a choice that builds toward the life you want. Now that you’ve identified key past choices, dug deep to understand how and why you made them, assessed patterns and acknowledged your current crossroads, it’s time to move forward.

To make significant changes in our lives, we have to become aware of the choices we make, acknowledge the impact of our decisions, and understand how our choices, our actions and our habits create our lives.

Elaine junge

How are you choosing your way to a life today?

Just like that little girl with the candy bar, we begin with tiny choices that become actions, then habits. And before we know it, our choices become a way of life.

As we consider how to move forward, sometimes it helps to write letters to our younger selves, to remind us of the impact, of how we’re choosing a life.

What would you tell yourself?

I’ll start. One year and one month ago, I wrote myself a postcard while I was at the beginning of a year-long writing mastermind, with 27 people I’d just met. I was at the crossroads of becoming a writer, of trusting myself in a process that felt new and scary and intimidating. This is what my postcard said:

“Dear Elaine, Remember how you felt you were swimming in circles with concepts and ideas? What was life giving at the first mastermind gathering was knowing you aren’t the only fish! Reach out, trust feedback so you can break through! You are not alone — invite them in to help. P.S. Write!”

Choosing your way to a life matters

It matters because living your life well matters. That message and especially the postscript has saved me so many times when I felt like giving up. Writing is a choice I make every day for future Elaine, the one who wants to know she’s done good creative work and made a difference with her life.

And my letter to 8-year-old Elaine? It says: “Trust yourself, dear one. You’ll make many choices in your life, far more important than this one. You’re GREAT at making wise choices. So for today, pick a candy bar and savor every darn bite.”

Your turn!