decision Archives - The Goalden Lady

Make A Commitment or Hope For A Coincidence?

Your level of commitment has a lot to do with how far you’ll go with your goals. If you never promise yourself to remain determined and unbothered, you’ll be in the same place, year after year.

What about those people who seem to be lucky – the ones who are born into money or who have numerous assets passed down to them? Is it fair to say it was merely a coincidence of life?

Commitment Is A Great Start

There’s this thing you want to do. It’s going to change your life and take away all of your worries and stress. Within that moment, you decide to commit to making it happen.

Committing to a goal is a huge part of the success foundation. Things don’t just happen out of the blue or fall into your lap – there must be an idea, an action and a result.

How do you develop an idea into a result? By commitment. Committing yourself to the journey that is supposed to create a better version of yourself is part of what it takes.

Some of us will commit in the beginning and fall off, mainly because the result isn’t coming fast enough. Yes, it becomes challenging and the obstacles can be overwhelming at times, but by making the commitment, you should have the desire to see it through.

People say motivation is a scam or it doesn’t work, but everything starts with a thought. Nine times out of ten, motivation sparked your decision to commit in the first place. Your greatness may not happen in a week, but it surely won’t happen if you give up.

This is what separates the average from the extraordinary.

Coincidence

Granted, there are some people who will never have to start their life from the bottom or know what it feels like to struggle. We all are dealt a different hand, but don’t let that get in the way. Stop comparing and get to work.

It does no good to be jealous of your friend’s massive inheritance or their family passing on a job to them. Are you just going to pout and speak badly upon their “luck” to make yourself feel better?

That’s what most people do. It’s easy to complain and blame someone else for your shortcomings. It’s not a coincidence that they were born with more advantages. Stop thinking you got the short end of the stick and become the person to create an inheritance to pass to your family.

We fail to see that this is what happened to the “lucky” ones. Someone started, prepared and made the commitment to build their empire. This doesn’t happen out of the blue – someone was determined, consistent and did the work.

Advantages don’t happen by coincidence. It started somewhere, with someone who was forward-thinking. It’s not that someone wished hard enough, but someone took action hard enough and it happened.

Call it a coincidence if you want to, but at some point, someone had to get the ball rolling and it created a benefit for others. That’s how coincidence works.

Will You Wish Or Work?

Your grandparents may not have had a million dollars for you to inherit, but you can make the commitment and begin creating opportunities that will assist the ones you love. Life isn’t always fair, but you do have the ability to do something about it.

For one, you can take advantage of the internet. There are limitless videos, pdf’s and other sources you can look into. Commit to investing in yourself and improving your circumstances. The access is available for everyone, but you must not become distracted by the noise and use it to your best interest.

Also, mind your own business. Everyone is living their own lives – they don’t need a commentator or someone to talk about what they’re doing wrong. Discussing someone else’s downfall might make you feel good, but you’re only slowing down your own progress – its’ a waste of energy. Instead, use that energy to train your mind to focus on you and what you’re going to accomplish.

Overall, pick your poison – are you going to compare yourself to others, blame it on coincidence and complain, or are you going to roll up your sleeves and decide to commit to the betterment of your future?

#TBT: Distractions That Work Against Your Attention

We all encounter distractions and nonsense on a daily basis. Whether it’s at work, on TV or on social media, it’s always there, fighting for our attention.

As a result, we’ve become immune to it. It’s doesn’t present a challenge to us any more because we’re so used to it. Becoming used to it has given us permission to just deal with it and to allow it into our minds.

Where Is Your Attention Going?

Here are a few ways you’re working against yourself and how you can work towards doing better.

You have your notifications on. When you’re working, your attention is supposed to be focused on what’s in front of you, 100%. As soon as you hear a ‘ting’, you look up to see who or what it’s about. Someone just posted another funny cat video. Now, your attention is broken and it will take a considerable amount of time to get it back. Turn off those notifications! It can wait until you’re done.
You overindulge yourself with information. Yes, it is critical to do research and collect information for what you’re doing, but sometimes, it can be too much. If you want to learn how to sew, do enough research to start. You don’t have to watch 50 videos and read 50 websites to take action. Look up the necessary information and go out and do it! Getting caught up in being a professional researcher only allows for procrastination and when you procrastinate, you don’t start!
You leave your mind open to anything. Your mindset is the most important asset you own. It’s good to have an open mind, but determine what is useful and what needs to go. Stop letting garbage enter your mind. It could be in the form of gossip, reality TV, social media, etc. Control what goes into your mind. If you plant good seeds, they will grow. If you plant bad seeds, they will also grow (weeds), but which would you prefer? It affects your attitude and your day when you consume garbage. Take in some motivational videos, get around good people and have meaningful conversations.
You hit snooze every morning. Just wake up. Why do we fight waking up every single morning? That’s the first struggle of many throughout the day. Whenever you hit the snooze button, you never get more sleep. Figure out whether an earlier bedtime would help, a cold shower or a cleaner diet, but whatever it is, see how you can avoid that daily battle. It sets the tone for the rest of the day and it allows for a stressful start. It’s easier said than done, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. Develop a better routine to greeting your day.

It’s Your Decision

Not only will these things cause you to work against yourself, they cause anxiety, as well. You can blame it on other factors, but you have power over what you do and how you do it. Even if you’re unable to control your environment, you can still make adjustments. Don’t just sit there and take it.

Fighting against yourself and being counterproductive is all on you. Decide what goes into your mind, decide to take action and decide to work fully focused. You can control all of these things. All it takes is a present mindset and intentional action. You can do it!

#BeGoalden

#TBT: Make The Decision To Believe In Yourself

If you are the type of person who has no problem with believing in yourself, you’ve pretty much already won at life. For those of us who have a bit more trouble…

Are you aware of this massive power that you have in your possession? Everyday when you wake up, you can decide to be as courageous or as cowardly as you want to be.

Some of us allow outside influences to make that decision for us, so we just go with the flow. Whatever happens, happens.

There are others of us who make that decision every single day and we choose to be as happy and confident as we want to be. Nothing’s going to bring us down — we can handle it!

Why can’t we all be that way?

We are all born into different environments. Some grew up in a loving, forward-thinking home and others grew up in a negative, stagnant way of thinking home.

When your surroundings are positive and motivating, it’s easy to believe in yourself. Everyone is always rooting for you and they acknowledge your efforts.

When your surroundings are negative, there is no acknowledgement for anything. Everyone is stuck in the same place, with the ‘it’s always been like this,’ mentality. The possibility of doing any better is nonexistent.

Although your environment doesn’t determine your outcome 100%, it does play a major part.

It’s hard to go against the grain in a bad environment. The easy way out would be to accept what everyone else is doing and continue to ‘go with it.’

The harder thing to do is be proactive. Even when people say negative things to you 20 times a day, you find a way to turn it around.

“I won’t give in.”
“I can break the cycle.”
“I can do better than this.”
“I don’t want to end up like them.”

This is what pushes you ahead. Although they keep telling you that you’re no better than them, you believe that you are and you can do better.

On the other hand, some people believe in themselves so much, they abuse it and think they can do whatever they want.

When you become used to things turning out in your favor, your efforts can become lazy. You don’t stop after success happens — you have to put in even more effort to keep it going.

As you can see, your environment can work for you or against you. Some people want to break out of their negative environment so bad, they do the total opposite of what’s around them.

Others come from such a positive environment, they expect people to believe in them everywhere they go. When they come across a set of people who really don’t care, they become depressed and fall into a trap of believing what others say about them.

These scenarios don’t happen with everyone, but again, the environment does have an effect on a person’s self-belief.

Let’s teach our children to believe in themselves, no matter what others say or think about them. Teach them that everyone is not going to be encouraging of everything they do. Some people will tease them just to get under their skin.

Most of all, teach them that their self worth is not determined by what others think. Believing in yourself can be difficult, but with the right foundation and mindset, we can push ourselves farther than our thoughts can take us.

Just make that decision every morning. I am courageous. I am beautiful. I am helpful. I am worthy. I am powerful.

Don’t wait for permission (you don’t need it) or for somebody else to tell you (you know it better than they know it). Believe it!

If You Can Make A Decision, You Can Be Unstoppable

If You Can Make A Decision, Then You Can Be Unstoppable

If you can make a decision, you can be unstoppable. Most times, what keeps us stuck is being indecisive and being indecisive will take years off of your life.

What are you afraid of? What holds you back from discovering your potential? If ‘bad’ decisions wasn’t a factor, what would you do?

Make The Decision Simple

Whether it’s an easy decision, or a difficult decision, you must learn to be at peace with what you decide. We often torture ourselves mentally by trying to come up with the ‘right’ answer.

If you look at a situation as black or white, yes or no, left or right, it should be easy, but this is where some of us get stuck.

When making a decision, make it as simple as possible. Yes, something may happen that you didn’t want to happen as a result, but don’t beat yourself up over it. Learn the lesson and move on.

Don’t Let It Become A Distraction

Some decisions may call for deep thought, but even then, it should be made simple and plain. Know that whatever you decide is okay and it’s not the end of the world.

You are making the best choice possible. If something happens unexpectedly as a result, all you can do is turn around and do it better the next time.

Don’t get hung up on how you should’ve known better, or how you didn’t have all the facts – justifying a bad decision won’t change the outcome. Being hard on yourself doesn’t enhance your decision-making skills.

Get used to narrowing down your options. Too many details can cloud your thinking and cause further confusion. Focus on what’s important and how it will affect you.

You’ll Make The Wrong Decision

Our decisions are not perfect. All of the choices we make won’t lead us in the right direction, but nevertheless, you should learn from it.

If you make the wrong decision, don’t be hard on yourself – it happens to everyone. See it as an opportunity to learn what to do next time.

Sometimes, the wrong decision can lead you on an unexpected adventure. Things could possibly turn out better than if you would’ve made the right decision. Either way, accept it and make the best of it.

The Responsibility Is Yours

When things don’t turn out the way we want them to, our first instinct is to blame someone or something else.

Blaming others only makes things worse, because now, the focus has been shifted to pointing the finger at someone else. It becomes difficult to move on when everyone is trying to find the right person to blame.

When you claim responsibility, it gives the situation closure and it gives direction. You may not want to accept the blame, but sometimes, it’s just necessary in order for everyone to move forward.

Instead of worrying about making the right decision, just make a decision. Don’t waste time thinking about it for too long, or else you’ll look up and it’ll be next week.

Trust yourself and know that you have your best interest at heart. Even if it’s not what you expected, take responsibility for it and do better the next time around.