“But until a person can say deeply and honestly, “I am what I am today because of the choices I made yesterday,” that person cannot say, “I choose otherwise.” – Stephen Covey
The word, ‘choice’ implies a range of options one can pick from. Once we wake up in the morning, everything we engage in is a result of the choices or decisions we make. In life, we all have to choose certain things each day. Life is a choice.
You choose to either go back to sleep or push through your day. You choose to be optimistic or pessimistic. You choose to give your job the best shot or complain and whine every chance you get. You choose which changes you would like to make. You choose to be responsible for your choices and actions or not. You even choose what to believe. Life is a choice!
“Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others” – Jonathan Swift
Having a vision for your life, and more specifically, work and relationships, helps create a certain framework within which you can push yourself. Arguably, there may be some exceptional individuals who achieve something or some things without an idea exactly where they’re headed. That’s a classic example that depicts the popular saying, “if there’s no destination in mind, anywhere is one”.
Vision, in this context, refers to a picture of what one would like to achieve or where one would like to be in the near or distant future. A vision is first seen with the mind’s eye so our imagination is in full play here. A vision can be carved out and achieved with knowledge, wisdom, perseverance, and guidance. This is how having a vision guides us in making the right choices and decisions. A bank employee who has set her sights on becoming an MD of a bank one day knows to take her work seriously and strategically maps out a course to follow, as much as it depends on her. With this vision in mind, and hopefully articulated with words or images in print, our bank employee – let’s call her Amanda- knows what to prioritise in her life in general and in her career, to be specific. It even helps with her time management because she’s working towards a goal. If we compare Amanda’s life trajectory to Sam, her colleague who may have a different vision to start off his law firm in the not-too-distant future, their paths will certainly be different. That is why one should not copy others blindly.
Our choices are an indication of where we’re headed!
While Amanda would probably aim to familiarise herself with bank operations in the different departments, Sam may spend the majority of his bank working years with the legal department.
Aim for the sun, and you’ll never miss the moon.
Action Steps Take a look at your vision if you have one. If you do not, you may want to consider crafting one and putting it up where you can see it all the time, maybe even carry it with you wherever you go on a smart device, for example.
Consistently looking at it will help you cut out stuff that may be important to others but not to you in a certain season of your life. It helps to know how to spend your resources like money and time, for example.
Please take a moment to reflect on these:-
1. What choices do I keep making?
2. Are they helpful to achieving my vision, long-term, medium-term, or short-term?
3. Does my vision need some refining?
4. Have I been distracted? Am I on track?
5. Is there anything I can do ethically to help me get to my goals quicker?
6. Do I need some guidance through coaching, mentoring, and discipleship?
7. What am I willing and able to sacrifice for what I desire?
The questions could go on and on. Open-ended questions help you dig a little deeper for some very insightful answers to help your journey. These questions are intended to bring up answer options you should carefully consider choosing from. No two people have the same conditions or factors in the varying seasons of life. That is the reason each of us must make certain decisions by ourselves and be responsible for them.
Know what you want and go for it. By all means, invest time knowing exactly what you want to achieve and putting in the work.
Remember, the choice is always yours.
Freda Abah-Dakou
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