Kelly is a mother, runner, writer, designer and serial entrepreneur. She is also a reformed over-committer and believes that a busy life need not be a stressful life. She blogs about all this and more at A Life Less Frantic.
5 steps to help you make better choices
By
5 comments
Last week I made a bad choice. I chose to lash out and get angry at someone who didn’t deserve my wrath. The reaction this person got was unnecessarily harsh and in the end, the real victim of that choice ended up being me. I felt bad for days that I chose to let my anger get the better of me.
Every single day us human beings are making choices. They can be as banal as what time we’re going to crawl out of bed, or what we’re going to have for lunch. They can be as life-changing as deciding to fall pregnant or move houses. And then there is everything in-between.
The one thing that all our choices have in common is that they affect the energy we carry around with us on a daily basis. Bad choices give us bad energy and become a monster that feeds itself. It’s not always easy to make the best choices though. When we’re tired or cranky or irritable or just plain ‘over it’, making a choice that feeds bad energy is the path of least resistance.
Here are five things you can do to break this cycle:
1. Prioritise sleep If I am tired then I have no sense of humour. When my sense of humour deserts me I lose the ability to cope with even the smallest challenges a day can throw up. I know there are many mums have resigned themselves to the fact that they will never sleep again but I refuse to be one of them. I know I need good sleep to be a nice person so I will do anything to ensure I get it.
2. Exercise daily
Regular exercise is not just good for your heart and lungs – it has also been proven to decrease stress and improve mood (thank you endorphins). 30 minutes a day doing whatever kind of activity rows your boat is all that you need. Think you can’t find 30 minutes in a day? Then change it around and ask yourself this: Can I dedicate only 23.5 hours a day to sitting and lying down?
3. Take a deep breath
We’ve all been that person that has reacted first and regretted it later. Lashing out in anger feels great for a millisecond, but the negative effects kick in immediately after and stay with us for ages. If you find yourself on the verge of snapping, remove yourself from the situation either by walking out of the room or just closing your eyes and taking a deep breath.
4. Write but don’t send
If we’re honest, nothing beats a good rant. The problem with ranting to someone close to us is they will usually support us unconditionally in our anger. Having that support just fans the flames rather than calming us down so I am a big fan of putting rants on paper. The act of writing gets all the angst out of your mind and also forces you to think with more clarity. Once you’ve got some closure on those feelings of anger and frustration it’s easier to walk away from them.
5. Look past the reaction
You’ve probably heard the phrase ‘be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle’. People don’t generally act nastily because they are jerks, reactions are generally informed by things that go far back into the past. Whenever someone presents me with aggression or anger I do my best to remember this. It means that instead of reacting back to them angrily I think to myself ‘wow that reaction is a bit out of proportion, I wonder what’s behind it.’
The great thing about setting ourselves up to make the best choices we can is that they don’t just influence our own energy in a positive way, they also positively influence the energy of everyone we meet. And it all adds up to making our world a slightly better place!
How are you at making choices? Come talk in comments below
See also:
