How Do You Determine Your Deal Breakers?

In life we all have boundaries we choose to live by. Sometimes those boundaries are based on family tradition, some boundaries are based on experiences we've had or those around us have had, some boundaries we accept because someone meaningful to us had those boundaries and yet others are imposed on us by laws and the powers of others.
An elder friend told me that he had three questions to determine if his boundaries when facing a decision had any "Deal Breakers" among the choices. He said he had lived by them over sixty years and they had served him well:

• Would the decision line up with his moral beliefs?
• Would the decision advance him at the cost of someone else?
• Would the decision be a short term answer that would need revisiting or provide a long term solution? (was he picking the easy route that would cost him more in the long run)
  
  When we adopt our own "Deal Breakers", our absolutes in what we will not do or accept done to us or others, we affirm what we believe to be right and true. Sometimes that belief alone will guide our decisions in ways that direct us to be the people we choose to be. What absolutes do you have in play in your life? Are you currently in a situation that is not honoring or breaking any of your own personal absolutes? What is the cost versus the benefits of absolutes in your own life? Do they produce peace, or cause strife?
  Perception to Ponder:
  What are my personal deal breakers? Do they have a bearing on the decisions I am facing currently? What weight do they have in the life choices I am making? Am I being faithful to choose what I believe is right and true in my life?
  
  To return to my website go to www.intentionaltransitions.net

What Do You Choose?

As we go through life, the chart notes that we keep from our daily life often include a tally of things that perhaps we hope to experience again and those that we hope indeed do not have to experience again. As more days pass by we often begin to choose paths that will enhance or prohibit experiences from happening to us....and at times we even begin to plan in advance the paths that will have the preferred outcome that we perceive to be the best choice for us. Sometimes those paths were shaped by those who raised us, other times from our own experiences, even other times by some perceived set of rules we adhered to....whether valid for us or not. After all, we actively choose what we participate and believe in don't we? The life rules we chose to live by are what can best define what is best for us aren't they? Or are they? Are we authentically choosing our lives or are we allowing choices to be made for us by not making different choices?
A band director once said to a class that an oboeist would never find the lovely songs that an oboe can produce unless he/she hears it played by someone who is gifted at what an oboe sounds like. I know in my own hands, the first sounds my oboe made were more like a dying duck than a beautiful song.....but true to his words, when I had a tape of what the same exact instrument sounded like in experienced hands, my perceptions of the sounds that could come out of such an instrument changed forever.....however even more importantly, when I chose my own instrument, it became apparent that while I had learned to play an oboe adeptly, my gift, my joy, my ability was truly in another area. While well meaning, my guides had chosen what they thought best for me, but my heart path was indeed not in what they had chosen for me. Only in daring to choose the path that was my own, did I escape the mediocrity of playing an instrument that was not me!
Our experiences are our own, but in this time of changing dynamics, economy, careers and lifestyles, what part of limiting our possible outcomes are defined by our very own limiting of what the possibilities are? Are the perceived outcomes of change so rigid as our mind creates them? Is change perceived as adding difficulty to our lives more often than adding joy or as a doorway to experiencing life from a different perspective? What cost is staying the same in our skilled routines, what cost is there in exploring new ways of perceiving our daily actions and life experiences?
What life experiences do you long for? What dreams and visions of who you'd like to be or become do you allow yourself to consider? What does your mind respond to such possibilites of trying?

Point to Ponder:

Do I limit my possible outcomes for my life choices because of my perceived costs of change? Do I allow that cost of change to be truly evaluated, or is simply the price tag perceived to be always out of reach? Is it allowable to pursue change simply because the life we have experience is no longer the life we wish to experience?

To return to my website go to www.intentionaltransitions.net

Shopping Life Choices.....

To everything there is a season and for everything there is a purpose. These are ideas that have been shared over the years. This week, however, the meaning took on a new understanding. For years I had looked at a certain SUV with awe and appreciation. On the highway, when one passed, it brought a smile to my face and a "what if" line of thinking on the things I'd do if I were in it. It wasn't that it wasn't attainable, or even available, it was simply something I considered "frivilous" on my long list of things to do. Before I even noticed, it was twelve years since I first desired such a automobile and the life it represented. It became the symbol of the success others seemed to easily achieve and enjoy,but that would be somehow unattainable for me.


Yesterday I had the opportunity to take one of those vehicles on the road. At the end of my drive I realized two things that were much more valuable than the drive itself. One, that life is entirely too short to impose rules that curtail or prevent simple, attainable pleasures from happening. Two, that it's really silly to place alot of value in anything you haven't driven yourself, lives included. You see it turned out that that particular SUV drove like a bucket of rocks, it wasn't fun, alluring, or even comfortable as I'd imagined, not even the newest version. I wouldn't have enjoyed it on road trips nor even kept it most likely for over 3 months. It made me really consider the imagined life the folks had in my assumptions of their lives. Later that day I drove a vehicle I hadn't considered to be as hip or as fun, and you guessed it, not only was it fabulously fun to drive, it was beyond comfortable.....and in a few hours I was experiencing something I had only dreamed about with my friends loaded up on a cold winter's drive to see Christmas lights as we trodged through the winter weather without a hitch.
I laughed at myself all the way home for truly, I had many years of "what ifs" built into that red SUV....I had bought into the "I can't/shouldn't have it" syndrome so many of us spend our time giving power to.....and the truth was I didn't even want the one I thought I did when reality crossed the fantasy. This is not always the case though, while the exact vehicle was indeed, not the fantasy one, it turned out through test driving several choices, the dream of loading friends up and rambling on together was indeed an attainable goal, and judging from last Friday, a life activity I waited entirely too long to experience first hand.....


Questions to Ponder:

What do you dream about having or being that you do not take actions to "try out" or plan to achieve? Are the reasons you feel you can not achieve those dreams valid, or simply out of your comfort zone? What dreams could you "test drive" if you only allowed yourself to?

To return to my website go to www.intentionaltransitions.net