As you look back over the last ten years, were there times when a different decision would have made your life radically different from today, either for better or for worse? Maybe, for example, you made a career decision that changed your life. Or maybe you failed to make one. Maybe you decided during the last ten years to get married—or divorced. You might have purchased a tape, a book, or attended a seminar and, as a result, changed your beliefs and actions. Maybe you decided to have children, or to put it off in pursuit of a career. Perhaps you decided to invest in a home or a business. Maybe you decided to start exercising, or to give it up. It could be that you decided to stop smoking. Maybe you decided to move to another part of the country, or to take a trip around the world. How have these decisions brought you to this point in your life?
Did you experience emotions of tragedy and frustration, injustice or hopelessness during the last decade of your life? I know I certainly did. If so, what did you decide to do about them? Did you push beyond your limits, or did you just give up? How have these decisions shaped your current life path?
More than anything else, I believe it’s our decisions, not the conditions of our lives, that determine our destiny. You and I both know that there are people who were born with advantages: they’ve had genetic advantages, environmental advantages, family advantages, or relationship advantages. Yet you and I also know that we constantly meet, read, and hear about people who against all odds have exploded beyond the limitations of their conditions by making new decisions about what to do with their lives. They’ve become examples of the unlimited power of the human spirit.
If we decide to, you and I can make our lives one of these inspiring examples. How? Simply by making decisions today about how we’re going to live in this decade and beyond. If you don’t make decisions about how you’re going to live, then you’ve already made a decision, haven’t you? You’re making a decision to be directed by the environment instead of shaping your own destiny. My whole life changed in just one day—the day I determined not just what I’d like to have in my life or what I wanted to become, but when I decided who and what I was committed to having and being in my life. That’s a simple distinction, but a critical one.
- - Tony Robbins (Re-awaken the Giant Within - free ebook)
No comments:
Post a Comment