Our choices shape our future. Not knowledge, financial status, genetic make-up, or intelligence. Just because one is intelligent, does not necessarily mean that one will lead a healthy life. Consciously making choices aligned with a healthy lifestyle lead to a healthy lifestyle.

This applies to success. At the root of any story of success (or failure) is a series of choices.

The more I investigate the lives of various successful men and women, the more I realize just how strategic their choices were in helping them attain their success.

This simple and obvious fact isn’t given the attention it deserves by many who seek to accomplish significant goals.

We make choices every single day that bring us closer or keep us further from the success we desire. And it isn’t just the conscious choices, but the unconscious ones as well.

Conscious choices are usually made after somewhat intense or very focused thought. For instance, when we wake up, we probably think about our goals for the day. Depending on how we may have planned our day, we would probably figure out the next most important task to complete then proceed to do it. Some thought is required before the choice is made.

As you can imagine, the choice to do the task affects our future in some significant way.

Unconscious choices are those that don’t have too much thought behind them. For instance, eating anything available during lunchtime while at work. How many times have you spent serious thought on a daily basis about what you would like to have for lunch? Especially if there are more pressing matters that need your attention?

Now, would you say that even this would have a significant impact on one’s future? The choice of foods at lunch?

Hold that thought.

I realized that when we look at certain successful people who seem to have done exceptionally well for themselves, one of the habits we have as admirers is to attribute their success to talent or genius.

And here’s another thing I realized – we don’t typically call people talented or genius out of our understanding of who or what they do… but from our lack of understanding. They are not like us, we are not like them… They know more about the subject, we know little about the subject… They have done extremely well for themselves… Conclusion? They are geniuses.

Well, probably not entirely in this way, but I’m generalizing to make a point.

Also, I’m not trying to deprive them of their hard-earned success. Yes, they could in fact be geniuses as far as intelligence and related measures are concerned. But this isn’t about them. This is about how we see or don’t see them. As people keen to attain success for ourselves, this is key.

I have learned that if you want to accomplish significant goals or realize your dream, you owe it to yourself to investigate how others did so in your or similar fields. We shouldn’t immediately isolate the people we look up to by merely calling them geniuses or talented.

Behind every action that is responsible for success is a thought. Between the action and the thought… is a choice.

You think about an action… After which, you choose to do it or not to do it.

Could this not be key in helping us understand how we ourselves could succeed through not only the right thoughts but the right choices that lead to the right actions?

Could we then attribute a great degree of a person’s success… to his or her choices?

I strongly believe we can.

What separates those who succeed, from those who don’t, is nothing more than a series of choices that compound into a life or lifestyle.

He who wakes up early to go train on the football field for at least 3 hours every morning… He who keenly keeps up with football news both local and international… He who makes the effort to find a football coach to develop his skills… He who ensures that he maintains healthy eating habits… He who does all this and more consistently for years and years without fail…

… stands a greater chance of succeeding at becoming a pro footballer than the person who doesn’t.

It is all because the person chose to while the other chose not to.

Every single day of our waking lives we are presented with choices that could help us get closer to the lives we want.

And we are always making choices whether we think we are making them or not. There is no such thing as ‘no choice’.

Not long ago, I got into business for myself. One of the things you usually end up doing when you get into business for yourself is selling.

I had very little experience in it. But like most in my situation, I desired to be the best at it for my business’ sake.

In retrospect, it is said to have gone through months of trial and error trying to sell what I was offering without adequate preparation. There I was expecting to master the art of selling without devoting a good portion of my off-duty time to learn more about it and not just work on improving the commodity I had to offer.

But I’m glad that later on, I picked up a handy book that taught me much about selling that is still helping me get better at it. The Psychology Of Selling – Brian Tracey.

I can honestly attribute the success of acquiring a particular customer to the choice I made to study the subject of selling.

As dreamers or those with grand goals to accomplish, I find it crazy how we dismiss content that could ACTUALLY HELP US get closer to what we desire most at an alarmingly faster rate than we could have ever hoped to do with our own limited knowledge.

Crazy still, is how we INSTEAD use the time on activities unrelated to helping us move forward while we claim to have the desire to succeed in life.

Once upon a time, there was no internet. One of the only ways a person could get access to knowledge and skill development needed to help him or her master a skill (such as managing a business) was through establishing connections with those who already had these skills or by trying their luck on their own (probably by using their imagination).

I guess you can imagine that of the two… it was way better if you were connected to someone who was already doing well that could save you years of trial and error. You know… sort of like you being the son or daughter of the wealthiest businessperson in town.

Then books came along. Inside them, years of experience summarized and organized by industry elites… for the man or woman eager to explore any field they found interesting. However, not everyone realized the value of the content that was within them. Still, the trend of only the wealthy and well-connected could only succeed in life, was slowly beginning to change.

Then came the internet…

We transitioned into the computer and/or information age a while back. Unfortunately, we still haven’t all completely realized how this can positively impact our lives.

Particularly the dreamers.

The devices we walk around with can at any one time connect us to whoever we desire that is living or has passed. The knowledge, information, strategies, and tactics we seek to better our lives are mere inches away… in our pockets. The qualified industry experts who we seek to be like are less than a URL away.

And yet, for countless struggling dreamers on the verge of giving up… choose to not realize this.

Instead, to those same dreamers, these devices have no productive function. Entertainment? Sure. Might help me overcome a current obstacle? No.

This is but one of many choices we can make every single day to move closer to the lives we desire.

Allow me to remind you of one very important truth. We have 100% control of our minds. Without our minds, our bodies would not move. But our bodies move every single day… powered by no external force. Controlled only by our minds. It is this that proves the fact that we are the masters of our own destinies.

If you destroy the mind, the body doesn’t become useful to the person that possesses it. If you build and enrich the mind, not only does your body prove useful… but also the bodies of those which your mind influences.

It is this that explains the fact that anyone with the right mindset can attain great levels of success. You can be poor, have little education, be physically handicapped but still realize your dreams… if you choose to.

I do not need to mention here the many people who overcame adversity to become success stories. You probably know a good number already.

If you desire change, then align your choices to this desire. I have merely scratched the surface of this topic just to bring awareness of its importance. I recommend reading the book The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy. There is a whole chapter dedicated to understanding and making the kind of choices that lead to the life you want.

The person in search of success is molded by the choices he or she makes that are in harmony with that success they seek.

A person that possesses an attractive and healthy body can be read very easily. You can already assume by appearance, the choice of habits, and general lifestyle.

The same can be said about one without a healthy body.

The person that is seen to make steady progress towards a dream that many calls impossible or impractical can be read very easily. You can tell from the progress what kind of work ethic, associations, and habits they possess.

The same can be said about one not making progress.

So can it not be concluded that success itself… is nothing but a choice?

makeProgressNotExcuses