Make The Choice You Value Most

I was talking to a friend and member of the Best Life Community about her goals, and she apologized for missing a night of doing her personal performance tracking. 

Any time someone has an intention to do something, or said they were going to do something and didn’t, I always ask the same question: “Why?”

It’s so easy to jump to criticism, judgment, and trying to fix the problem… But first it’s important to know the context before making any recommendations. We’re already hard enough on ourselves, so inviting curiosity to understand things without judgment is a critical first step we need to take consciously.

So she told me. Recently she had a loss in the family and she stayed up late talking to a family member who needed someone that would listen. It ran her night late and she chose to get to bed, exhausted, instead of completing her tracking routine.

Understanding the situation, there’s nothing my friend would have wanted to do any differently. The best choice she could make, that represents the life she wants to live, is to be there for a family member going through a difficult time. 

Does that mean she had to compromise something else she values? Yes. And that’s the tricky part. The truth is, and this is an unpopular opinion, we can’t get exactly what we want. There are things out of our control that determine the options we have, the tradeoffs at hand, and that means we can’t have it all.

What is in our control is how we play the cards we’re dealt. We can choose exactly what we want within the conditions we have. That’s what taking ownership, and having agency is all about.

Someone with a life-long illness can’t have perfect health, but they can maximize their wellness amid their diagnosis. Someone that wants to create stability for their family has to forfeit their dream of living abroad, but they can plan high-impact trips to still scratch that itch.

It’s easier said than done, but rather than being the victim of the situation, be the creator of what comes of it. 

And when it comes to your goals and habits, don’t be so rigid you’re not available to do other things that are important to you. Be flexible and accommodating to the unpredictability of life so that you can show up how you want, whatever that looks like in any given moment.

‍