Choose wisely.

In my life, these two words serve as a reminder and a signpost.

I can make a thousand choices, and do every day. What I really want though is to choose in a way that connects my heart with my mind. I want to choose with intentionality and presence, not from a place of fear. It is one thing to choose. It is entirely another to choose wisely.

There was a time in my life when I didn’t choose wisely. I chose from fear and control and wanting to make sure that everything was buttoned up nice and tight and that life would be exactly how I thought it should be. There was no wisdom in it.

I also chose to gain 25 pounds, work with people that didn’t light me up, and spend a lot of sleepless nights overly concerned with how I would keep it all together. Yes, I was choosing, just not very wisely.

“Choose” is an action. It is a word that means we will be crossing out all other options; closing one door and opening another. Not only do I find this word to be one of the most powerful in my life, I also find it to be the one I most often forget. I forget that when I make a decision (or don’t make a decision) I am, in fact, choosing.

It has such strong implications for the future — choose what you really want, choose how you are going to create this next iteration of your life. This is going to require an expansive, creative mindset. The choices we make rarely take us down a straight, obvious path. And we often don’t have the luxury of choosing between only two options. Whether we like it or not, there are a million possibilities, and we must choose all of the ways we want to create our life–work life included.

It’s easy to forget that the way life shows up for us is evidence of what we are choosing, either intentionally or unintentionally. We are asked over and over again to choose.

This shows up at work with leadership teams, too. They too often lose sight of the reality that they are in the land of choice. That they can navigate the waters of business from a place of presence and creating, or from a place of reaction and victimhood.

It’s easy to forget the level of decision-rights that we have access to. We are making it all up, and therefore, we are choosing.

So choose wisely.