It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are. ~ Roy Disney
Many years ago before I moved to Belize, I had made a decision to slow down and live my passion. Back then I had a business, worked long hours and hardly had time for myself, or my family. It always seemed that I was behind time on everything. I was always struggling to make choices between my heart and my logic mind.
Learning to listen to the wisdom of my heart took courage and strength. I had to tune out my inner critic that constantly dangled the fear of failure over my head. Once I started listening to my ‘gut feelings’ everything started to fall into place and the rest is history. We all have moments when we know we need to listen to our heart and turn off the chatter of the mind telling us what we should do.
It’s the moment when all evidence seems to lead to one way, but deep down you decide to make a different choice that what is expected. This choice often leads to joy and deeper meaning in life. Choosing from the heart brings joy, whereas choosing for logic does not always lead to joy. If you want more joy in your life here are some ways to connect to the wisdom of your heart to make better choices;
Observe: Next time you have a decision to make, observe the difference when you connect to your heart and when you connect to logic. Feel the difference and get familiar to how you respond on the inside to those choices. With practice you will be able to tap into your intuition ensuring that your heart is never left behind and you are on track with all your goals and desires.
Imagine: Visualize yourself as an old man or woman in the future assessing your life. What definition of success would you have achieved in the following areas: Financing, career, health, family, and relationships? Take a moment to review what your future would be now. Write out what you want and assess the time you think it will take to get there.
Create: Take responsibility of your own personal growth and success. You have to help yourself if you wish to make a difference. You are responsible for choosing your emotions, the people and the outcome in your life. When you think that you have no choice, you are actually choosing to stick to your existing set of old rules and beliefs.
Believe: Believe in choice itself; believe in the possibility of good choices with positive outcomes. I am not suggesting magical thinking, “just think it hard enough and it will come true,” as some current pop psychologies would suggest. This is a real set up for failure if not followed by thought out, responsible action. But, as Norman Vincent Peale put it so well many years ago, there is a lot of power in positive thinking.
Think Positive: Open the door enormously to making better choices with positive thinking. Are we going to continue to make mistakes? Absolutely. Embrace them, learn from them, and use them wisely in the future. Short of mistakes, they’re going to be many hard decisions, not necessarily labeled good or bad, which, unfortunately, involve sacrifice, pain and/or loss. But so is there much greater chance for real, sustainable and substantive joy and peace when we are willing to follow our heart enough to take risks, which are not completely logical, but also based on our faith, sense of values. Always expect good to come from heart choices, and be willing to attach responsible action behind it.
Only you can ultimately determine the value of your choices in your life and how they impact the world around you. The awareness of the wisdom of your heart is imperative for change that brings joy.
