Making Decisions

Sometimes we think that what has been will always be, or we think that where we are is "it" and we're convinced that things will never change.  If we've had a long history of failed attempts at losing weight, it's easy to believe that our dieting history determines our future.  Here's a quote that challenges this kind of thinking:

"It's not what is happening to you now or what has happened in the past that determines who you become.  Rather, it's your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you're going to do with them that will determine your ultimate destiny." ~ Anthony Robbins

The decisions we made in the past had a significant impact on where we are today, and many of those decisions became habits over time.  But habits are still decisions, even if we aren't acutely aware that we're deciding each and every time.  The reason I know these are really decisions is because we have the ability to change them if we choose to do so.  We can get rid of unhealthy habits that don't serve us and we can develop an entirely new set of habits that put us on a new path - if we want to.

Going back to Robbins' quote, "your decisions about what to focus on, what things mean to you, and what you're going to do with them" - infused in each of these statements is choice.  We choose what we're going to focus on, whether it be past failures or current frustrations or future hopes and dreams that include being at a healthy weight.  If we look up and focus on the sky, we can't focus on the ground.  If we fix our gaze on the ground, we can't see the sky.  Where we choose to focus is critical, and it is a decision we have to make every day.

Robbins says that we decide "what things mean" to us - we attach a value and that value determines what we do with things.  Because the focus of this blog is about making healthy choices, let me apply this to the food choices we make.  If we value being healthy - if we've made a fundamental choice to get to a healthy weight - then that value will determine the food choices that we make.  If we value immediate gratification more than being healthy, that value will lead us to make different choices.

The choices of what we're going to focus on, what things mean to us and what we're going to do with them WILL, in large part, determine the future of our health.  That future may seem a long way away, but we're getting there one day and one choice at a time.  Choose wisely :-)