Making Better Choices By Shifting Your Focus

"May your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears" - Nelson Mandela.

Thoughts. Where are your thoughts today? Are they preoccupied with to-do lists, what you just saw on Facebook, or your family? I love this quote, because it explains how our lives are shaped by the choices we make, based on the thoughts in our head.

It is well known that what you put your attention on grows. If you focus on gratitude, you become happier; if you focus on a personal wrong, you increase your own suffering and become angrier. So the focus of your thoughts impacts your choices from moment to moment. 

I am not advocating for residing in “a happy place” and denying difficult emotions. All of our emotions have a place and function. Conflicts do need to be faced and resolved. ​

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But it is helpful to look at what’s motivating your day-to-day choices. Is it your hopes, your values, and what’s most meaningful for you? Or, is it fear, anxiety, doubt? Most likely, it’s a combination of things, and on different days it’ll change.

So, here’s a little challenge… If you check in on the next two choices you have to make when you finish this email, can you identify what is driving them? Are you completing that email out of worry or duty? Are you making the call out of generosity and kindness?

What if you were to intentionally shift your thoughts about the task ahead of you? What would it be like to infuse that task with a quality you want to grow in your life? Today, for me, that's service. So as I write this newsletter, instead of focusing on perfecting it (common, for me), I am choosing to focus on the service of it. And I’ll tell you what, it changes what I write.

How could you use this insight in your daily life? Even simpler, in the task in front of you? Please share your thoughts about your thoughts, click reply or share on my blog!

Hope You’re Having a Great Summer!
Jen

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