Tag Archives: choice

Four Words That Make A Big Difference.

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Jerzy Gregorek is a Polish weightlifter who has won four World Weightlifting Championships and achieved a world record. Since retiring from competitive posing (sic) he has established a brand called ‘The Happy Body’ (https://thehappybody.com) serving his clientele in terms of the provision of nutritional and exercise advice.

But he is mentioned here because of a now famous quote attributed to him, which parallels the First Resolution, and which is the subject of today’s blog. The quote read:

“Hard Choices, Easy Life: Easy choices, Hard Life.” Four words, used twice, and an enormously powerful and profound truth that most of us try to avoid.

We know that eating nutritious food in sufficient quantities is good for us, but the easy choice leads us to the tasty stuff.

We know that exercise is good for us, but we park as close to the office entrance as we possibly can rather than use those dangly things hanging from our hips.

We know that doing an excellent job is the right thing to do, but if we can get away with it, we’ll do a ‘good’ job. But as Stephen Covey espoused and Jerzy agrees, the Good is the Enemy of the Best.

Hard Choices require a disciplined mental approach. They require that we look at our situation, the challenges presented, and consciously us the Gap between that stimulus and our yet-to-be-decided response and decide – what is the best thing to do, now?

Various alternatives will present themselves, and in that moment, the success or failure or ‘just get by’ is decided. To get the success – or at least the longer-term, substantial and irrevocable success – you have to make the Hard Choice.

That may only mean getting out of bed when you really want another five minutes, but that initial personal victory can have surprisingly powerful effect. It may not seem so in the gloom as you stumble for your slippers, but doing it once makes it easier to do again, and suddenly your time is being utilised better, your self-esteem expands, your results improve.

Which leads to the second truism. The Hard Choice rarely has an immediate payoff, whereas (psychologically) the easy choice provides exactly that, an outcome that doesn’t serve us at all. And you know that. You just needed reminding, like me.

What Hard Choices do you need to make, today? You’re already up so that’s one you can’t make again. But how about lunch – jacket potato, salad and beans, or a huge coronation chicken baguette? How about that difficult conversation? How about parking at the far end of the car park (unless it’s raining. I understand the practicalities of wet clothes in an office).

What can you start doing that’s better in the longer term? What can you stop doing that’s convenient but less conscientious? What are you doing that is already good, perhaps so good that you could do more of it?

Make the Hard Choice. It’s a heavy lift, but in the end you know it is the way to success in any area of life. Ask Jerzy.

For more on the subject, buy The Three Resolutions, available HERE at Amazon in paperback or Kindle format.

Or listen to this podcast

Add a (Little) Discipline…..

24 Thursday Jun 2021

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My recent absence from this site is explained by my going on holiday, and I before I went I elected to impose a new discipline upon myself. It wasn’t and isn’t intended to be a long term project, but it was just a ‘see if I could’ idea. The objective was to see if I could go for a 1 mile run as soon as I got out of bed for the 6 mornings away. Seems easy?

For some. For me, I haven’t run a meaningful distance since about 2016 because of recurring leg-related injuries that don’t lend themselves to pounding pavements, (I did a 3-miler a while ago to see if I could – I could, but it caused a week of limping.) added to my discovery of the ‘joys’ of road cycling as a means to exercise and control weight, meant that running is not pleasant. Nor is getting out of bed.

I did it. As soon as I rose each morning, I shaved, dressed and ran out of the door. One morning, because of that day’s plans, I was out by about 6.30AM.

It was hateful, painful even. Some mornings, particularly the latter ones after experiencing the pain from the earlier days, I lay there desperately trying to justify largesse. And, every morning, I remembered two pieces of input. One was that of speaker Mel Robbins, who advises the 5-second countdown to action – decide what to do, and then give yourself 5-4-3-2-1 GO. It can be quite effective.

The other input was my own. I have a mantra that I have discovered makes it easier to do the difficult. In a pre-2021 exercise developed by the late Jinny Ditzler, author of ‘Your Best Year Yet’ (see www.byypro.com) , I identified several ‘rules’ that related to past successes and behaviours that had served me. I recommend it, but use the book – the site, while excellent, is an expensive luxury.

The particular guideline I used to get out of bed and run was ‘I Make, and Act Upon, the Hard Choices.’* Just remembering it can get me going. It gets me going because I came up with it, and past experience tells me that it works. So lying there bemoaning the commitment, I recalled my own advice and got up. 10 paces in, it was all old news, anyway.

So here’s my advice.

Decide upon a short-term imposition o yourself that requires self-discipline. Even if it’s not intended to last it will firm up your discipline ‘muscle’ for those things that will require more effort. It could be ‘drink only water for 7 days’, or ‘no chocolate for a week’, or it could be more ambitious depending on your situation and your particular need. If you’re already slim, cutting out things you rarely use anyway is hardly a stretch. Be bold.

Find something you don’t enjoy, something in respect of which doing it will serve you, even for a short period. And carry out that commitment.

It is yours, after all.

*I’ve used that for a lot of hard decisions, lately.

For more on self-discipline, get the book The Three Resolutions from Amazon HERE – only £9.80 for 300 pages…..

Who are you? Really?

29 Sunday May 2016

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“An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which a person faces and uses his experience.” James Baldwin

There is an exemplar phrase in NLP which goes, “I can’t do that, here.” The sentence illustrates several ‘excuses’ why people don’t do things.

“I can’t do that here” – Emphasis on the beliefs and values level: What keeps me away from doing the task? Who told me that I am not made for to do that?

“I can’t do that here” – Emphasis on the capability level: Do I need additional skills, techniques or methods to proceed?

“I can’t do that here” – Emphasis on the behavior level: What kind of actions can I do? Does the task have a positive intention? Is it in accordance with my personal development?

“I can’t do that here” – Emphasis on the environment level: Where, when, with whom could I take action? What is my ideal working environment? What time of the day will be best?

(Copied from Ansus Consulting Blog.)

The astute will notice that I haven’t opened with the ‘I’ part, which goes to the crux of this article. What is it about ‘I’ that can either stop us doing something – or actually enable us?

Our identity is more than our name. As Baldwin suggests, it is an encyclopaedia containing every experience, lesson and unifying principle to which we have been exposed. Some have been imposed, some have been chosen – hopefully by the time you’ve read some of my blogs you’d certainly have chosen the latter.

But Identity is not something set, once baked. (Or half-baked.) Identity is something fluid, which changes as experience changes, as lessons and understanding change, and as we choose to change. That last one – choice – is something we must do for ourselves. Better still, it is something we can do for ourselves. If we want to, that is.

Ever heard someone say ‘that’s just not me?’ If you have, and if you were unenlightened at that time, you probably scoffed, but the truth is that when someone uses that expression – it is the truth.

But what is also true is that the individual can choose to make ‘that’ part of them; they can choose to learn the new skill, to accept the new value, and to change their way of thinking. They can do it in the moment, or over time.

At YB12 Best Year Ever© one of the first exercises that we encourage our clients to undergo is for them to conduct an exercise in Self-Analysis, to discover what’s important to them, what’s stopping them, and to decide whether they want to do something about it. The objective is not necessarily change, but a ‘subjectively objective’ process to explore, and then decide whether they are content with who they are. The rationale is as much to derive contentment in who they are as much as discontent. So many people ‘strive’ for something they think they want, only to find that it wasn’t them who wanted it – it was their family, their friends or their society. The gap between ‘who they are’ and ‘what they’re encouraged to want’ is identified, and the choice then made in terms of which to pursue.

All of those choices are what makes a HUGE part of who we are – our Identity.

And once we know, explore or even change who we are – we can decide what we CAN do, and where we can do it. Properly.

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“You offended me?” No – you chose to be offended.

15 Thursday Jan 2015

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“In the gap between stimulus and response, there is a gap. In that gap lies our freedom to choose our response. In that choice lies our happiness and out freedom.” Stephen R Covey.

This is his most often quoted saying, which he stated he read in a Hawaiian library, in a book he could never find again. Intriguingly, the failure of anyone to later identify the book suggests to me – he thunk it up himself. Like ‘Ben’, a proactive colleague where he worked – can’t help wondering if ‘Ben’ was ‘Steve’.

Anyway, back to the quote. It goes without saying that some atrocities have been perpetrated recently in the name of a peaceful religion, on the basis that this religion’s prophet has been lampooned by the free press – the people who answer to no one but their customers. I’m not going to go into that.

But to be offended, you have to choose to be offended. You have to decide, “I’m offended.”

No problems there. I get offended, quite often. I’m paradoxically happy that way.

But. Even if you choose to be offended – and that’s natural – you can also choose what to do about it.

I’ll make my point quickly.

Ghandi had every reason to be offended by violent racism in S Africa and violent inequality and British Rule in India, but chose peaceful means and freed millions. Some people are choosing to kill – and are only creating hate, death and – well, sod all else.

Choose wisely, and act positively