Every Choice Matters (How To Shape A Positive Future)

Every choice we make, no matter how seemingly insignificant, has the power to ripple through our lives and shape our future. It's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and overlook the long-term consequences of our decisions. However, recognizing that each choice carries weight is an empowering first step toward building the kind of future you desire.

This guide explores the profound link between decision-making and personal destiny. By understanding how your choices influence your path, you can begin to make more conscious decisions aligned with your values and goals. Whether big or small, the choices you make today lay the foundation for your future. Learn to harness this power and intentionally steer your life towards a positive and fulfilling tomorrow.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

We make a lot of choices throughout our life,

Even just throughout a normal day.

What am I going to have for breakfast?

What will I wear today?

How much will I study for my exam?

I need to ask for a promotion.

Will I ask for it today?

What about finding a partner?

Will I get on the dating apps and start looking for someone?

We make so many choices.

And do they have any effect on us?

Well,

What I want to talk about today is they all do.

When we make these choices,

We reflect on how our choice will impact our future and based on the outcome,

What we're going to do today.

But sometimes we just shoot from the hip and do what we feel like.

Both of them are choices.

Both of them have impacts.

But one has a lot different impact than the other.

Nearby where I live,

There was a man who was at a bar and drinking a little bit,

Perhaps more than he should have,

Or at least he should have if he's going to drive his car,

But he thought he was okay.

And as he was driving home,

There was a group of bikers,

Three women,

Riding in the bike lane.

And he ended up swerving over into the lane,

Hitting all three of them,

Killing one.

And the other two have been paralyzed for the rest of their lives.

It was a choice.

It was a simple choice,

But it was a choice that have reverberations in his life and many other people's lives included.

I think we all understand these types of choices and how they have incredible impacts on our lives.

Even though the decision was made quickly without much forethought about what could happen if something went awry.

We all know these stories,

But how about the little decisions that we make throughout the day?

For example,

When we don't say goodbye to our loved ones because we're in a hurry and we have a lot to do,

Or when we are at the store and someone seems to be taking a little bit longer than we think they should and we scowl at them or perhaps mutter under our breath and say something hurtful.

Or when we come home and watch television shows or watch videos that have a lot of negative images on them and we laugh and we think they're interesting and funny.

But do they have an impact on us and perhaps even the people in our lives?

You probably heard of the butterfly effect.

That's where a small butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon can lead to a hurricane in Texas three months later.

But have you ever heard of the butterfly effect of choices?

It really is based on the same concept.

It's seemingly how small choices that we make throughout the day can have far-reaching consequences in our future or in someone else's too.

And they don't have to be necessarily negative,

But what seemingly seems like a small choice ends up having a big consequence in the future.

I remember once years ago I was on vacation and one of my best friend's mother lived in the state that I was on vacation on.

I thought it'd be nice to go say hello to her.

I knew her a little bit.

I didn't know her well,

But I'd met her a couple times and I thought I'd go visit her.

So I did and I spent,

I think,

A few hours with her and then I left and I never gave it any thought afterwards.

It was a choice I made that had some consequences,

Very small ones.

I just couldn't do as much sightseeing as I wanted to do that day.

But like I said,

I didn't really think about it ever again.

And then years later,

I learned after she passed that that short visit I did with her had such a big impact on her life that she felt closest to me than she had felt towards almost anyone her entire life.

It really helped her navigate the last years of her life.

I was truly flabbergasted by that,

But also glad and realized that little choices that we make can have big impacts on others and ourselves.

And we need to think about every choice that we make.

Are we doing things to make our lives and perhaps the people around us better each and every day?

Are we doing things to perhaps cause suffering or deterioration in our lives or the people around us?

The little things that we do throughout the day matter.

I know for all of us,

Relationships matter,

But sometimes they end.

And sometimes we need to end them,

But sometimes we cause relationships to end.

Just by thoughtless little gestures that we don't think about are that big a deal.

But what they do is they add up.

And then they add up.

And with time,

The other person just is done.

And they move on.

And the relationship ends.

The little things we do towards others matter.

But perhaps the most important thing that we do is what we do with ourselves throughout the day.

Our daily decisions have power over the outcome of our lives.

It's not just major events that shape us.

It's the little things like our habits,

Our routines,

Our everyday choices that accumulate over time.

And what we can do is,

If we want to shape and have a good outcome,

Is identify what's important to us.

And we use this to guide our choices because our values help give a compass to how we make decisions throughout the day.

For example,

If it's important for us to be kind and we like that value,

Then we ask ourselves two questions throughout the day as we're making choices.

Is this a kind decision I'm making towards others?

And more importantly,

Or at least equally important,

Am I being kind in this choice that I'm making towards myself?

So let's say we make kindness as our goal.

We want to be a kinder person towards ourselves and others.

As you may know,

If you listen to this podcast for a while,

This is one of the highest values that I think we should have,

Or at least it's one I really work towards myself to have in my life.

So whatever the goal we may have,

We ask ourselves,

Is it a SMART goal?

And let me explain what that means.

SMART is an acronym that stands for,

Is it specific for the S?

Is it measurable for the M?

Is it attainable for the A?

Is it relevant for the R?

And is it time-bound for the T?

Because we're realizing today that every choice we make matters and there are ways in which we want to improve our lives.

And realizing this,

We set up SMART goals to help us obtain these changes in our behavior because we want to keep improving our lives.

So what we have to be careful of is to avoid impulsive or reactive choices because these are often the ones that get us in the most trouble.

Instead,

If we can think about the potential consequences,

Both positive and negative,

Of the choices we make throughout the day and asking ourselves,

Is this going against my values and my goals?

Or is this working towards my values and our goals?

Then it's going to be easier to make decisions.

For example,

If we want to become more disciplined so that we can perhaps go back to school and earn more degrees or learn a skill that we don't know very well,

But we have a tendency to be impulsive when it comes to something electronic like playing a video game or watching YouTube videos,

When we have that impulse that kicks in,

We can say,

Okay,

Is this fitting my goals?

And if it isn't,

Then we make choices that do fit our goals.

And if we do that,

What we'll find is that accomplishing and changing our behavior,

Because we now realize that every choice we make has consequences,

Whether good or bad,

Will make choices that move us in the direction of obtaining things that we're working towards.

Now,

Of course,

Along the way,

We're going to make mistakes.

But what we do here is we see them as learning opportunities.

We reframe bad choices as growth experiences.

We emphasize the importance of reflection and course correction.

For example,

Let's say again,

We really want to work on getting an A in a Spanish course we're taking,

But that takes study time in order to get that A.

And we come home after our class.

And instead of getting right on the Spanish course homework,

We sit down with the intention of only playing the video game for a few minutes.

And that turns into 10 hours.

And we didn't get any Spanish studying done.

So we look at it and say,

Okay,

What can I learn from this?

And how can I change this next time?

Perhaps what I can do is when I come home is put the electronic things away and get right to the Spanish and perhaps limit myself to an hour when I do play the video game,

But only after I get my homework done.

There's a lot of ways we can learn from our mistakes,

But we have to have goals that we're working towards and realizing that every choice we make has a consequence to it.

Every choice.

So the choices we're making,

Are they having good consequences for us,

Bad consequences for us,

Or neutral?

For example,

Let's say we go to a restaurant and we get there and we decide if we're going to have shrimp for dinner or if we're going to have salmon for dinner.

They're both fairly neutral choices and they don't really have any impact on us in the long run.

But then we decide if we're going to have a salad with our meal or not a salad with our meal and having a salad may be a good choice.

And then it comes to decide if we want to have dessert or not,

But we're trying to lose some weight right now because that's our goal.

So having a choice of dessert would be a bad choice,

So we choose not to have it.

And perhaps a really bad choice would be after we're done eating,

We sit there for an hour and have a couple bottles of wine and instead of ordering a taxi or Uber home,

We get in our car and drive home.

That could be a very bad choice.

So what we learn is every choice we make matters.

Some of them are big choices and have big consequences,

Good or bad.

Some of them are just daily choices and accumulate having perhaps good,

Bad or neutral outcomes.

And some seem so insignificant that we don't know if there's any consequences to it.

And perhaps then we learn years later it had a huge consequence that we were totally unaware of at the time.

But most likely we're listening to this podcast right now because we want to shape a positive outcome for our future.

It's just so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day and overlook the long-term consequences of our decisions.

But by recognizing that each choice carries a weight that can potentially empower us towards a better future.

And we do that through awareness,

Realizing that every choice we make matters.

And so we begin to make choices that move us in the direction of where we want to be,

Who we want to become,

And how we want to make an influence and impact on the world around us.

One example of this in my life is when I was in high school.

My high school had a program where instead of taking classes,

You could actually do internships at various places and get experience in those fields,

Seeing if you might want to do that as a career in the future.

A lot of people use it to get out of school,

But I use it because I was very curious about what I wanted to do in university.

And I worked at a lot of different professions.

At the time,

One of the things I was strongly thinking of becoming was a CPA accountant.

I was good at math.

I enjoyed math.

I knew it was a decent job,

So it seemed like a pretty good fit for me.

Well,

I worked three weeks for an accountant,

A CPA,

Just a couple hours a day.

But during that short stint,

I was able to clearly determine that being a CPA was not for me.

And I'm so glad I made those choices.

And most people,

Like I said,

Didn't in my high school.

The few that did just didn't want to be at school.

But I wanted to try things out and see what the professional world looked like.

And I did it,

And it changed my life.

And it was such a simple,

Innocuous decision that didn't seem like it would make any difference,

But it totally changed my life.

We make decisions like this all the time.

And if we're conscious of them,

And if we're aware,

And we utilize them to improve our lives,

That's what's going to happen.

If we just wander through life and let life unfold the way it's going to unfold,

Who knows where we're going to end up.

It's similar to this.

I live in Southern California,

And not too far away,

At least by plane,

Are the Hawaii Islands.

I think it takes about six hours to get there.

Well,

You can also take a boat there if you didn't know,

And people do.

And you can aim your boat directly at the Hawaii Islands,

Saying,

I'm going to go to the Hawaii Islands.

And if you don't make course corrections all along the way,

You may end up in South Africa or Japan.

If you don't end up making course corrections along the way,

Who knows where you'll end up.

And it's much like that in life,

Because things are constantly battering against us,

The wind,

The waves,

The currents.

Life is like that.

But with positive,

Healthy goals,

We can end up exactly where we want to be,

Or at least pretty close.

And yes,

Sometimes we have to make some major course corrections along the way,

And it may not be exactly where we want it to be.

But two things will happen.

One,

Because we're aware,

We're going to make choices that move us in the direction that we want to go.

And I think we'll find that positive.

And two,

Because we put effort and awareness towards going to where we want to go,

We're going to end up somewhere that's going to make our hearts happy.

We're going to enjoy the journey of getting there.

And we're going to like where we ended up.

So every choice in life we make does matter.

And we can have such a positive outcome in our lives if we're aware of that.

And with goals,

We work towards them.

And with life,

We enjoy our lives.

And what we'll find is all along the way,

And wherever we end up,

It was a good life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

I always enjoy your podcast Dr Puff! Thank you for sharing!

Always a pleasure listening to your messages. I admire your perspective and will utilize this mindset in my own life. Thank you! 😊

The butterfly 🦋 effect is an excellent reminder. Thank you 😊

So wise. Love the ending words…accept what is, love what is.
No regrets. Choices make the difference. Thank you 🧡

Thank you so much!