Choose Your Own Adventure
At every turn, it seems like there are countless options to move forward.
Where to post your content…
What software to use…
Even what ketchup to buy at the store!...
And the many options we have, with even the simplest choices we have to make every day, only seem to be increasing – there’s no end in sight. It reminds me of those choose your own adventure books I loved when I was a kid. Remember those?
Every few pages you would be left with several choices, each leading to one of many different possible endings. Certainly, the decisions and actions taken on the multitude of choices we face everyday are analogous to the results we get at the end of each day, week, month or year..
But there’s a catch.
Whenever I was faced with a choice, reading those books as a kid—at a turning point in the story—I kept my finger on that spot in the book, so if I didn’t like where I ended up, I could always go back. How many choices a day do you use a similar approach? Telling yourself that you can always redo a post, change the software you’re using, return that ketchup. Leaving as many options open as humanly possible…
To be clear, you can do that, but at what cost? The ironic thing I found when I was reading those books as a kid, was that I rarely finished any of them. After a few chapters, keeping tabs on how to backtrack my choices became so unwieldy and confusing as I tried to keep track of all my non-decisions that I just threw in the towel. There were just too many options!
It’s the same in our day-to-day lives. “When you fail to commit to a path, indecision becomes your decision.” I’ve heard this from nearly every coach I’ve ever had. You obviously can’t put down your life, business and situation as easily as a book, but all those non-decisions become confusing, hard to keep track of, and eventually it’s very hard to move forward. Hence, most people hang around the status quo. I’ve heard this fear of choosing a direction framed as “keeping options open,” but having too many options is more likely to lead to feeling overwhelmed and oftentimes, paralysis sets in thwarting our ability to accurately clarify a situation, take action and get the results you want.
I’m not saying it’s easy. That’s one of the reasons we’ve built the #NoMatterWhat Community as a Facebook group. It’s a place where you can share what you’re up against, weigh options and maybe even choose a direction with the support of the group. It may not make the choice or commitment to a certain direction easier, but it does help.
Now good news.
We’re not subject to whatever the next chapter brings, we’re right there after we make every decision and can keep choosing new paths – even if you end up someplace you’d rather not be once in a while. It turns out that we are all living out our own choose your own adventure book – the key though is that you have to really choose.
