Making Intentional Choices
By Dr. Tracie Hiemstra, 2000
Being intentional about your choices is important to creating your personal future. Understanding the three keys to making good choices is also key. Number one, you must realize there are options from which to choose. Number two, you must realize your choices impact others. Number three, you must understand that you are responsible for the choices you make and their consequences.
“Remember, you want to be direct and aim towards specific goals, not just react throughout life.”
Understanding there are options from which to choose is accepting the fact that you are able to make decisions about which pins to put in your bowling alley. Remember, you want to be direct and aim towards specific goals, not just react throughout life. You want to be bowling in a defined lane, not just hitting a handball back at the wall. This takes awareness and commitment. You may not be willing, but you are able. You do not have to accept choices dealt to you – you can declare your own.
Those choices also impact others whether we realize and accept it or not. Sometimes, because of low self-esteem or other factors, we do not recognize this. We must value ourselves in order to believe anyone else would value our opinion, behavior or example.
We cannot operate in a vacuum as much as we sometimes may like to. We are responsible for the consequences of the choices we make. We may not like that burden, but it is still ours.
It may seem easier to just take what comes. Even though being intentional and congruent is quite simple, it does take concentrated effort at least from the standpoint of awareness and commitment. Once we have become aware, conquered the process, and committed to our own personal congruence, the doing becomes more natural. Our handball turns into bowling. We rotate the pins as needed, but unless we are in transition, our actual bowling alley remains fairly constant. That’s when intentionally creating our personal future becomes easy.
Tracie Hiemstra, Ph.D., with decades of original research and writing has authored How Can It Look So Good And Feel So Bad? Your Guide to Inner Peace; The Productivity Bridge; the Life Balance Scale ©, Personal Culture System © and various other models, books, and empowering materials. Over the years, Dr. Tracie has been a practicing Hypnotherapist; a consultant for many organizations, most extensively The Boeing Company; and owned and operated a specialty retail store. She is now enjoying retirement.
