We go through the day making hundreds of small decisions daily. The reality is that these small decisions offer us the opportunity to make big changes in our lives. Most of the time, we find ourselves engaging in habitual ways of doing things simply because they are the default. Once you learn to recognize where your decisions occur, however, you get the chance to alter the course of your choices.
There are 5 key steps to doing this:
1.Notice decision points
The first step is to notice the decision points along the way. Pick an area of life, for instance, where you struggle at present. Wherever it is, notice what happens before you engage in the old bad habit. When you identify this, you will start to realize that there are decisions you make that lead you into these patterns. This is important to notice.
2. Open up more options
Secondly, you can ask yourself what other options you have at these decision points. Instead of doing what you normally do, what are other things you could do instead that would make you happy and would give you more possibilities.
3. Identify results
Next, what kind of results do you get with the old habits and behaviours vs the other choices that you can make. Begin to evaluate the various different results you will get from the different actions so you are clear of the consequences of the choices you make.
4. Restructure choices
Based upon the results you have evaluated, you can now restructure the choices that you have by making the new habits easier to do and make them the default options. You also can make the old habits harder to do and make them require extra steps so they are no longer default for you.
5. Factor in challenges
Lastly, as you make the new choices part of your life, factor in any potential obstacle to these new choices that you want to make. When you are prepared for any possibility that might throw you off track, you are more likely to successfully find your way around them.
