What’s destiny?
It could be a name, we’re talking about something that happens in the future or is going to happen because of what is happening now
Are you headed down the rivers of success or the rapids of failure?
If you take the time to look (that’s a problem because no one does) you’d figure it out, and you’d be able to see what is coming, in different areas of life too: physically, mentally, emotionally, relationship…
There are three different decisions that we can make to control our destiny.
- Our decision on what to focus on
- Our decision about what things mean to you
- Our decision about what to do to create the results that we want.
Too many people just go through life with no intention but if you paid attention – which anyone can afford to do – you could see the warning signs blasting in your face.
It may not be in the form of a physical sign “wrong way” – we have to read between the lines.
If we stopped to look at our finances, we’d see that we’re losing money each month and going into more debt with high interest rate that could haunt us for a long time. Our decision to live below our means and review our finances daily can start now.
If we stopped to consider the consequences of taking hard drugs, we wouldn’t need resuscitation to come back to life. Even before that, our decision to hang with the wrong crowd, or try drugs just once. Or we got drugged and now we’re addicted, but we were too ashamed to ask for help. We can decide to ask for help now, we can decide to come to terms with our pain or gain a new habit to use as a healthy outlet.
There’s a 99.9% chance that anything we’re facing in life, is a result of a decision we made in the past.
And that’s where the third point comes in: we can choose to change our reality and create a new reality for ourselves, our past doesn’t have to define our future.
The thing is, we know it really doesn’t happen overnight and that it’s a better game to take things day by day. It may not be easy, but it’d be damn worth it. Just have that long term vision and trust the process.
Because eventually? We’ll be living the life that we dreamed of.
And what if, it turns out, that we made the wrong decision?
Because it could happen with any decision we make.
The key is to be flexible, learn from each outcome, and use those lessons we learn to make better decisions in the future.
Because ‘success’ is the result of good judgment, good judgment is the result of experience and experience is the result of bad judgment! Bad decisions lead to better judgment.
So here’s an important decision that we can all make right now: our long term happiness is to use whatever life gives us in the moment, to work with what we got.
Because there’s nothing we can’t accomplish if we decide what it is that we want, take action toward that goal, realize what works and what doesn’t, and continue to stay flexible with our approach until we get what we want, with whatever we got along the way.
It’s a long game, and most of the problems we face in life are from having a short term focus, with little decisions. We focus so much on instant gratification that our short term solutions become long term problems.
Not persisting, quitting too soon, not being in control of our emotions, not focusing on what we can control (which isn’t that much)
On the other hand, when we get what we want – we’ve held ourselves to a higher standard, knew what we wanted, had a focus, and got what we wanted.
It’s deciding to commit to the long game vs the short game (and that’s not sitting on our ass waiting for things to happen, it’s coming to terms with the fact that things take time but require that daily effort. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but the Romans for damn sure laid brick everyday.)
Remember:
- decisions rule the world and there’s a serious power to the small decisions that we make
- that the hardest step is actually making a decision, a real, true commitment to something. “I want this” It’s putting us on the hook.
- to make decisions often and learn from them.
- to stay committed to your decisions, but flexible in the approach. 2 + 2 = 4 and so does 2,268 / 567
And maybe most importantly, remember to enjoy the act of making decisions
Decisions set the wheel of events in motion and can change our life forever. For better or for worse.
With all that being said, it’s our decisions – not our conditions, that determine the future we will get to experience.
What do you want your future to look like?
Joe DiAndrea 