Life's Most Important Choices

Dear One,

“When it comes down to it, it isn’t the major choices we make in life – career, marriage, etc. – that count the most. It is the everyday, minor decisions that make life work for us.” –Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D.

Have you ever stopped to think about the impact your choices have had, or are having, on your life? When I was thinking about a topic for the next blog post and the word “choices” came to mind. Occasionally I hear people say, “I have/had no choice.” And I couldn’t understand why they felt that way. See, they had a choice, they just didn’t like the choices. I guess you can say it was a choice between the “lesser of two evils.” Or they felt they were not able to make the choice they really wanted.

Well my feeling was….if you can’t do it now, then plan for it so you can do it at some future date. Just come up with a plan, take action, and stick to it until you achieve whatever it is you want. Nobody said it would be easy, however, it can be done.

In his book “Choices,” Dr. Shad Helmstetter came up with a list of the 100 Most Important Choices in your life. Before we get to the list, here’s a little of what Shad Helmstetter had to say about making choices:

“When we begin to take a careful look at the choices we make, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that the most important choices are the choices that guide and direct the major areas of our life.

It is easy to think that if we make good choices about our career, marriage, education, income, family, etc., we should be able to do just fine. But what about the other choices – the thousands of almost unnoticed choices that all of us make (or do not make), day in and day out? How important are those “little” choices?

They are exceptionally important. It may be the big choices in life that set the direction for where we’re going, but it is the little choices that get us there.

Here is a list of 100 odd choices. Some of them seem important; others seem so insignificant that we might wonder how they could be important at all. But each of them makes up some part of what we call “life.”

As you read through this list, notice that any one of the choices, no matter how seemingly insignificant, affects something about us; what we do, how we spend our time, what we think and how we think, how we feel, what we like or dislike, what works for us and what does not.

Your 100 Most Important Choices:

1 – Who you spend most of your time with
2 – How you comb your hair
3 – What your favorite foods are
4 – What you eat most often
5 – How often you call home
6 – The books you read
7 – Your posture
8 – How much or how little you smile
9 – What you watch on television and how much you watch
10 – Your hobbies
11 – How much you exercise
12 – Whether you argue more than you should
13 – The style and color clothes you wear
14 – Who you invite to a party
15 – Whether you write letters
16 – Which telephone calls you return
17 – The appearance of your home
18 – How long something stays broken before you fix it
19 – How late you stay up at night
20 – What time you get up in the morning
21 – How well you listen to others
22 – Whether you smoke
23 – Whether you gossip
24 – How well you are able to concentrate
25 – The political candidates you vote for
26 – Whether you like or fear computers
27 – How fast you drive
28 – How much risk you are willing to take
29 – Whether you save money
30 – Whether you are a leader or a follower
31 – The amount of time you spend with your kids
32 – How organized you are
33 – Whether you go to church
34 – Whether you belong to a social or service organization
35 – How often you change shoes
36 – Who you admire most
37 – How often you are late for something
38 – What you do about a traffic ticket
39 – Who pays the bills in your household
40 – Who decides what to have for dinner
41 – How much time you give yourself to get ready in the morning
42 – What you do at the end of the day
43 – What you drink, if, and how much
44 – Where you buy your groceries, and why
45 – How calm you are
46 – Whose opinions you ask for
47 – How you handle problems at work
48 – Whether you attend concerts or cultural events
49 – How often you eat out
50 – How interested you are in other people
51 – How you show your emotions
52 – What newspapers or magazines you read
53 – Whether you give free advice
54 – What kind of car you drive, and what shape it’s in
55 – How you react to negative attitudes or opinions from others
56 – What sports you participate in
57 – How you spend your holidays
58 – How important it is for you to follow the trend
59 – How much time you spend talking to your spouse or mate
60 – How important you feel you are
61 – How you use credit cards
62 – How you look at problems in the past
63– How you treat or relate to members of the opposite sex
64 – How often you feel sorry for yourself
65 – Who upsets you the most
66 – Whether you like a challenge
67 – Who controls the conversation
68 – How you feel about world problems
69 – What you think about while you’re getting ready in the morning
70 – How much you worry
71 – How much patience you have
72 – How many compliments you give
73 – What gets you angry
74 – How often you almost run out of gas in the car
75 – What you do when you don’t get your way
76 – How much you spend, and on what
77 – How often you criticize
78– How happy you are
79 – How you feel about what other people think of you
80 – How often you do not tell the truth, and why
81 – How you take care of yourself
82 – How much you respect yourself
83 – How often you complain
84 – How often you have to be reminded of something
85 – Who you talk to when you have a problem
86 – How you leave your desk or work space at the end of the day
87 – What movies you attend
88 – How often you get a haircut
89 – How often you have friends visit
90 – How much encouragement you give to others
91 – How polite you are
92 – When you do your Christmas shopping
93 – What you think about, when you have time to think
94 – How much time you take to sell your ideas
95 – Whether you eat breakfast
96 – How you feel when you come home from work
97 – What you do when you’ve made a mistake
98 – What you do when someone else has made a mistake
99 – How you react to being stuck in a traffic jam
100 – What you think about just before you go to sleep at night

Choices affect the quality of your life and it's varied outcomes. So choose wisely!

For further reading you may refer to Dr. Shad Helmstetter’s website : http://www.shadhelmstetter.com

Peace in oneself. Peace in the world.