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“The possibilities are numerous once we decide to act and not react.” - George Bernard Shaw
Have you ever heard the term 'Adjacent Possibilities"? I hadn't, until the latest book I'm reading. I don't mean to alarm you, but we are where we are today because of all the decisions we have made, conscious & unconscious. There is no one else to blame, they have all been our decisions. We have all made decisions we have regretted at some point in our lives, but they can't be changed, we have hopefully learned form them. Can you imagine where you would be right now if you had made a different decision at some turning point in your life?
That's what adjacent possibilities is all about. Our current thoughts have adjacent possibilities running alongside them all the time, some better, some worse. And we can always choose which ones to follow. If you like the current thought, stick to it, or choose an even better one, if you don't like it, definitely choose a better one.
“The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future.” - Gifford Pinchot
Now most of us would say, 'I can't help what I'm thinking or feeling!'. If that's the case, we are currently living what is known as a reactionary emotional existence. Let me explain, when we wake up in the morning we can either decide to have a good day, or we could let the day decide for us. If I get up in the morning and decide that today is going to be a good day and I walk out the bedroom door and kick my toe, two adjacent possibilities are present. I could either get angry and say to myself, 'If that's how my day is starting, the rest is going to be a disaster!' OR I could silently scold myself for being clumsy and just tell myself to be more careful in future. If I had reacted angrily without thinking it would have been an emotional reaction. Some of us go through our whole day reacting to every situation as it occurs in which case we are living a reactionary emotional existence.
“The vast possibilities of our great future will become realities only if we make ourselves responsible for that future.” - Gifford Pinchot
To start becoming responsible for our own lives, we need to understand how life really works. I could buy the most powerful computer in the world, but it would just be piece of junk if I didn't know how to use it. I often have discussions about my belief system, and I have often been told my mind is 'too open'. All I want to find out is the truth, and to find the truth I have to have an open mind. Why do I want to find out the truth? Because I want to live the best life I possibly can, and to do that I need to get as close to my creator as I possibly can. But that's a discussion all on it's own!
“Stop thinking in terms of limitations and start thinking in terms of possibilities” - Terry Josephson
Every time I need to make a conscious decision I remind myself of the adjacent possibilities, and I always try to choose the thoughts that bring me feelings of joy and happiness, and if something bad is happening and I feel I have no control over it, I look for the lesson or the best possible outcome and then I let it go. Why don't you start choosing your thoughts and emotional reactions, it really is empowering, and the more you do it, the easier it becomes, just like any other habit.
“The optimist lives on the peninsula of infinite possibilities; the pessimist is stranded on the island of perpetual indecision.” - William Arthur Ward
“Limitations live only in our minds. But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless.” - Jamie Paolinetti
“More than anything else, I believe it's our decisions, not the conditions of our lives, that determine our destiny.” - Anthony Robbins
Two weeks ago I wrote about the importance of making decisions when in the right emotional frame of mind. I can't stress how important this is. Most wrong decisions are made when our emotions are not in sync with our mind. So how do we get into the right frame of mind? A while back I wrote an article on climbing the emotional scale, read it here.
There is also another very important component to decision making, and it is known by many names; 6th sense, hunch, inner voice, gut feel, etc. For the purpose of this article I'm going to call it 'spirit'. How often have we made decisions because something just didn't feel right? Not often enough I believe. That's because most of us have lost touch with our spirit. There is so much noise in our lives at the moment that when our spirit speaks to us we aren't able to hear it.
Last weekend I went for a walk down to the beach and came to a fork in the road. There were no signs indicating which way led where, so how did I decide which one to take? Fortunately the only noise around was the sound of the ocean and the thoughts in my head. So I stilled my mind as best I could, (it is not an easy thing to do, just try it), and took the left fork. Was it the right decision? Well it was for me. Fortunately I had enough time to go back and check where the right fork went, and although it also led to the beach, where it ended up was not nearly as much fun as the left fork.
What point am I trying to make here? I had to make a decision with very little information available to me, both paths led down, so I had to trust my spirit to guide me. Some of you may say I was just lucky, maybe so, but We do make our own luck!
“Make decisions from the heart and use your head to make it work out.” - Sir Girad
What is all this noise that I am talking about? Well it's things that can influence our decision making. Television, radio, magazines, books, people, the list goes on, and too often we make decisions that are influenced by this noise and it ends up being the wrong decision. And then we try to blame this noise, but we are the ones who made the decision, aren't we?
"It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are." - Roy Disney
So when making decisions, be very aware of your emotions, and make the decision from a place of peace. Meditate, pray, go for a walk or workout, whatever it takes to get away from the noise. Your ability to make the right decisions will increase immensely.
"Decisions become easier when your will to please God outweighs your will to please the world." - Anso Coetzer
Try and make one decision from a place of peace. I have decided to be grateful for every day! (because I believe every day is a gift from God.)
Have an awesome week.
“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.”
- Keri Russell
We seldom realize the importance of decision making until it's too late, but did you know, we can learn to become great decision makers. And it all starts with understanding our emotions.
Did you know that every single decision we make is emotional, some more than others. And there is research to prove this theory.
Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio studied people who had received brain injuries to the emotional part of their brain, in all other respects they seemed normal - they just lost the ability to feel emotions.
The interesting thing he found was that their ability to make decisions was seriously impaired. They could logically describe what they should be doing, but in practice they found it very difficult to make decisions about where to live, what to eat, etc.
I believe 90% of us make decisions when we are in the wrong emotional state, the other 10%, well they are the successful people in the world. And of that 90% a lot are too scared to make decisions, in case its the wrong one.
“We can try to avoid making choices by doing nothing, but even that is a decision.”
- Gary Collins
I used to think emotional intelligence was just another gimmick, because like most people, I chose to be ignorant, but after doing a bit of reading and research, (deciding to educate myself), I have come to realize it is actually an important life skill.
If we can learn to understand our emotions, we can also learn when to make certain decisions and our lives can only improve.
This is a fascinating topic and one that requires a bit more discussion, so until next week, watch your emotions...
“A wise man makes his own decisions, an ignorant man follows public opinion”
- Chinese Proverb
“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.”
- Roger Ebert
Our emotions are extremely powerful feedback mechanisms, yet most of us choose not to try and understand them and listen to what they are telling us. Believe it or not, our emotions can actually cause us harm and eventually kill us, we will always blame it on some form of disease, (dis-ease), but that's just the easy way out, trying to blame something else, which is far easier than taking responsibility.
What are emotions really? Most people seem to think our emotions have something to do with our heart, mainly because of the feeling a lot of us experience in our chest area during times of intense emotion. But our emotions are actually controlled by 2 glands in our brain, the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland. So, our thoughts controls our emotions and we control our thoughts. Well, most of us do, the rest of us believe we are slaves to our emotions and that life is just mean to us.
So how do we learn to control our emotions? It has taken me years and plenty of reading but I have finally found something that works for me, maybe it will work for you. Below is something called 'The Emotional Guidance Scale' from the book Ask and it is Given by Esther & Jerry Hicks.
1. Joy/Appreciation/Empowered/Freedom/Love
2. Passion
3. Enthusiasm/Eagerness/Happiness
4. Positive Expectation/Belief
5. Optimism
6. Hopefulness
7. Contentment
8. Boredom
9. Pessimism
10. Frustration/Irritation/Impatience
11. Overwhelmed
12. Disappointment
13. Doubt
14. Worry
15. Blame
16. Discouragement
17. Anger
18. Revenge
19. Hatred/Rage
20. Jealousy
21. Insecurity/Guilt/Unworthiness
22. Fear/Grief/Depression/Despair/Powerlessness
The goal is to try and spend as much time as your can in emotion no. 1, but it's not always easy. The biggest mistake people make it to try and go from anger straight to happiness, possible, but not the wisest method. I would recommend going from anger to frustration to hopefulness then to happiness and up to no. 1. Climb the emotional ladder so to speak.
How do you do that? Firstly you need to recognize that you are angry, admit it to yourself, write down why you are angry, it always helps. I can't tell you the number of times I have started writing a letter to my wife and then gone back and read it and realized it'd not such a big deal and the writing helps me get the frustration out of the way. Then just start changing your thoughts, think of your hopes and dreams, think of past memories that have made you laugh, think of the people you love, things you love doing, things you are grateful for. etc.
“The strangest and most fantastic fact about negative emotions is that people actually worship them.”
- P. D. Ouspensky
It really baffles me how many people are unhappy, and how many people talk about negative things most of the time, I suppose it makes them feel better knowing they are not alone in their misery. Anyway, I hope that what I am sharing with you today helps, if it helps just one person I'll be the happiest person on the planet.
“Negative emotion is your indication from your Inner Being that the action you are considering is not in harmony with your greater intentions.”
– Abraham-Hicks
