Tag Archives: Character

Decisions – What they tell about you!

At so many times we hit a cross road in our lives. A choice we need to make, or an important decisions that can alter the course of our future. Sometimes it is not as earth shattering in our opinion and consider as small or easy choices we make. But whether big or small, every choice has a trade-off. Now a trade-off is normally seen as the opportunity costs of a decision. So it relates to the choice you did NOT make, the options you did NOT choose or the opportunity you missed because you did not make such or such a choice. Very little of us reachoiceslly think about the trade-offs in the decisions we make, and if we do, they normally relate to only the big decisions and the direct implications of our choices. There are however plenty of indirect trade-offs’ to our decisions that affect our relationships with others and will follow us unknowingly.

A decision made provide clues to who you are, what your values/priorities are, what is at the core of your character and what you are willing to sacrifice. It provides a glimpse into the unspoken world of individuals and either lead to a confirmation or a changed view of character. It sheds the light on areas that we might not feel so proud of, or alternatively areas that we need to exploit more often. Whether positive or negative, the trade-offs normally have a ripple effect socially that is often ignored.

Does this now imply we need to be afraid to making a choice? No, it just means that when you choose, know that the choice you made gave a message to those around you and will be an unspoken witness to the person you really are. Therefore choose wisely.

Your life in a bottle

Pebbles in a bottleOk so all of us have heard the illustration of the professor that took a bottle and filled it with rocks. His question to the class was if the bottle was full to which they replied positively. So the next thing that went into the bottle was the smaller pebbles and again the question. Then the sand and later the water. Well the story would have had a very different turn if the professor started by filling the bottle with water. Nothing could have been added to it without causing an overflow. You see it was not so much about space and having the ability to always do more, than it was about the sequence of events. So often we start doing the unimportant things first as they are easy to do and procrastinate on the more difficult assignments. The reality is that there are ALWAYS unimportant things to do. If I paid myself for every time that I have picked up a document and decided to do something else, I would have been rich. Needless to say that prioritising the right things at the right time is quite important. Not only in the life of projects, but also in the world of being. When we get older we look back at our lives and wonder why certain things that currently looks so unimportant, was so overly important when we were young. But hind sight is an exact science, and so at that moment we did not know and we made the best decision with the information that we had, so our error is excusable. There is a lot of areas where we are misinformed however and where we do not get sufficient guidance. But for some it is just a matter of not listening to the wise words of the older generation. What do they know right? If your life could be represented by a bottle, what of all the things on your plate would you start to pack….and would you spare an ear to a few wise words by those that had to deal with the consequences of bad prioritisation?