Here we are, on the other side of Thanksgiving.  Hopefully you weathered the holidays with minimal disruption to health goals.

I did cut myself some slack.  Rather than look at choices as “good” or “bad” I just look at them as what they are; choices.  This “good” and “bad” thing can be false rewarding and/or self defeating in our goals.  So, accept them as they are; choices that either bring you closer to or further away from goals.   Rather than give credit to a piece of information that you read, the personal trainer that “kicked your butt”, give credit to yourself for being open to hear those messages and implement them into your “plan”.  Rather than beat yourself up (God knows we have enough of THAT language) for whatever choice you made in getting off track, just simply recognize that for a day or two you got off track.

One of the goals should be to make a collection of good choices that become habit.  In the beginning it can be mentally exhausting to be adding just more choices to your day.  One article I read claims that  “Making choices can be difficult and taxing, and there is a personal price to choosing.”  Well, if the personal price to pay is more energy, prevention of short term and long term disease and healthier life then let’s start making the deposit into the “health bank”.

Speaking of banks, let’s talk the next time about ROI; Return on Investment with your health.

I love this little blurb from Deepak Chopra’s THE BOOK OF SECRETS…………. Sit down for a few minutes and reassess some of the important choices you’ve made over the years.

Take a piece of paper and make two columns labeled “Good Choice” and “Bad Choice.” Under each column, list at least five choices relating to those moments you consider the most memorable and decisive in your life so far–but be sure to include private choices that no one knows about except you.

Think of at least one good thing that came out of the bad choices and one bad thing that came out of the good choices.

This is an exercise in breaking down the labels, getting more in touch with how flexible reality really is. If you pay attention, you may be able to see that not one but many good things came from your bad decisions while many bad ones are tangled up in your good decisions.

No single decision you ever made has led in a straight line to where you find yourself now. You peeked down some roads and took a few steps before turning back. You followed some roads that came to a dead end and others that got lost at too many intersections.

Ultimately, all roads are connected to all other roads. So break out of the mindset that your life consists of good and bad choices that set your destiny on an unswerving course. Your life is the product of your awareness. Every choice follows from that, and so does every step of growth.

You’ve got a lot of choices.  If getting out of bed in the morning is a chore and you’re not smiling on a regular basis, try another choice.  ~Steven D. Woodhull   J