One small choice can change your life.

I have some pretty major decisions to make in the coming months. I am going to put my house on the market because my last child is going to be going off to college at the end of the summer. I know that I would like to move to an easier to manage house and away from the noisy college crowd that is near me now. But it is hard! I do love my room and the way I decorated the house. What if I can’t find that in my next place? It would be so much easier to stay right where I am. For a start I wouldn’t have to spend money fixing up my house to sell. I wouldn’t have to crawl around under the house and in the garage clearing out stuff that I thought I couldn’t live without when I put it there 7 years ago….never to look at it again. I wouldn’t have to gather all my kids’ many possessions that they have left with me and figure out where to store them to make my house look pristine to a buyer. Most of all, I wouldn’t have to actually make a decision about where I’m going to go and live! Also what will these choices mean for my life over the next few years?

This really started me thinking about the smaller decisions that we all have to make every day and the major effect that they can have on our lives.

The decision to wake up at an earlier time every day. That can mean that you have time to exercise or meditate, which might mean that you don’t have the time or inclination to scroll through all the social media that morning. A bad habit that many of us fall in to and one which can cause you to have a pretty rotten feeling as you start the day depending on what you see there.  By letting go of the bad habit and replacing it with the positive feeling you get instead from a good one, you’re feeling so energised, you might opt for a healthy breakfast instead of skipping it or grabbing a donut at the drive thru. And so on throughout your day. One small conscious and intentional change after another making a chain that leads to a huge difference in your life.

Starting the day off on such a positive note can only lead to more good feelings about yourself and where you are heading. Anxiety, self judgement and doubt are pushed further away.

Yes, there have definitely been things that have happened in life that you have had absolutely no choice about. Things that have caused you emotional or physical pain- or both. Your choice now is to stay stagnant in the role that these things have cast you in, or to take what you have learned from them and use that to help you move on to the life that you would want to live. As with my decision to move, it can be scary looking into a future that you are unsure about. What if it isn’t what you thought it would be? What if I make a mistake in choosing this path? What if other people think I’m doing something wrong? It is so much easier to stay where you are and convince yourself that this is good enough, or all that you can envision.

Instead of feeling the overwhelm of huge decisions to break out of this rut that you are in, remember those little choices that you can make every day.  Whether it be ditching the donut for a smoothie or having the courage to walk into a Meet- Up group to find new friends, each one of these choices is going to signal to yourself that YOU are worth the effort and that you can move forward towards your goals. You are not going to let the past define you, rather it is going to show you who you want to be now and how to get there.

So now I’m curious. Having read this, what would be just one small thing that you could choose to do in this coming week that will make an impact on the way that you live life? If you want to take that further, expand it and think carefully about what that choice will lead to down the line. – and why is this important to you. I’d love if you would share these in the comments, or shoot me an email:  fiona@findfabulouswithfiona.com

Remember that each time we share our victories, no matter how small they seem to us, we are inspiring someone else to make a brave choice also.