There is a price to Becoming that we don’t talk about very often.
You develop the ability to see things differently, to recognise what you might previously have overlooked, and to make more strategic choices about your life.
Sounds good, doesn’t it?
Well, here is the problem. Once you see, you cannot unsee. And once you’re awake, it’s difficult to become ‘unwake’.
You become, in a sense, doomed to live your life consciously.
You begin looking at situations differently. Where am I now? Where do I want to be? What is standing between me and that future? And what must I do to close the gap?
That becomes the framework for the choices you make, particularly when there is something you want to achieve.
Sounds like hard work?
Perhaps. But consider the alternative.
You can always go with the flow, even when the flow is taking you downhill or absolutely nowhere. Or you can continue sleepwalking through life.
If you’re not quite sure what I mean by sleepwalking, consider this.
Suppose you decide that instead of going directly home after work, as you usually do, you’re going to stop at the mall.
You leave work with every intention of going to the mall. But somewhere along the way, your car, apparently of its own volition, takes the exit towards home.
And when do you realise what has happened?
When you press the remote to open your gate!
Of course, the car didn’t make that decision. You did. Or, more accurately, your habitual thinking took over. You were so accustomed to going home that you followed your usual route without even noticing.
Now, that little adventure may not be the end of the world. You can always turn around and go back to the mall.
But what happens when the same thing occurs in your career, your business or your life?
What if you have been conditioned to believe that you are not good enough? That success is for other people? Or that whenever you attempt something ambitious, you are likely to fail?
Where does that leave you?
You may genuinely want to succeed, but if your habitual thinking keeps telling you that you will fail, what do you suppose will influence your decisions?
You might avoid opportunities, abandon promising ideas, or settle for less than you are capable of achieving. And you may not even recognise that your own thinking is helping to produce the very outcome you fear.
Just like that trip to the mall, you have a destination in mind, but your conditioning keeps taking you somewhere else.
This is why strategic choice requires awareness.
You have to recognise where you are, identify what you want, decide whether you are going after it, and begin structuring your thoughts, decisions and actions around its attainment.
Otherwise, you may be leaving way too much of your future to luck, chance and whatever your default happens to be.
And your default may have absolutely nothing to do with the future you say you want.
Look at your current situation. Right now.
It provides evidence of the choices you have made, the habits you have followed, and the circumstances within which you have been operating.
You are the one to determine whether those choices were intentional or simply the ones you usually made. And whether you are happy with the results.
But none of this is likely to change if you continue thinking about your life as though it were Lotto, with the outcome determined by luck and chance.
Or, perhaps worse, if you believe somebody else is making the decisions for you and you have no choice but to go along.
Then, of course, if things don’t work out, at least you know who to blame.
But has it ever occurred to you that if other people control your outcomes, you may never actually achieve what you want unless they agree?
And why would they agree?
What’s in it for them?
That is the price of Becoming.
You begin to recognise how much of your life may have been directed by conditioning, habitual thinking and choices you never really examined.
And once you recognise that, you have another choice to make.
You can continue as you have always done, or you can begin deliberately choosing the future you want.
The question is whether you are prepared to pay the price.
Reflect & Apply
What destination have you set for yourself, and what habitual thinking might be taking you somewhere else?
In Be the Person You Dream of Becoming, I wrote:
“Every day you are choosing. Choosing which picture to dwell on. Choosing which direction to give your attention. Choosing whether to live by default, or to become by design.”
If you are ready to examine the thinking behind your choices and the results they produce, Be the Person You Dream of Becoming is available on Amazon, at RIK Bookstores, or directly through me.
Keep becoming.
Monica Rogers-Fletcher
Listen to BECOMING HAS A PRICE