Choice
Author: Willie Horton

What kind of a day are you having today? Because, it
doesn't matter what day of the week it is - Monday or
Friday - it's a beautiful day. If you're not having your
perfect day today, then you're wasting the only opportunity
you have right now to be effortlessly happy and successful
- doesn't matter where you are, who you're with or
separated from, what you've got to do - it's you that makes
it a beautiful day. It's what's going on in your head - and
only in your head - that makes the moment what you think it
is.

If you're waiting for your beautiful day to happen -
waiting for better times around the corner - then you're
not fully living in the only time and place you have - here
and now - today. You have a choice - and it's a very
simple, moment to moment choice. Your first option is that
you can choose to allow your subconscious mind to pay
attention to the old self-doubts, the childhood "snapshots"
with which we were all programmed during our formative
years. You can decide to listen to what many of my clients
call the "voices in my head" - the one's that whisper "No,
you can't!" This first choice - of effectively letting your
mind run you - is the default choice for all normal people
- and, research shows, that there's a 96% probability that
you're normal. As a normal person, you may not realise that
you have this moment to moment choice, that it's something
that is being decided by you subconsciously, moment to
moment. But that's neither here nor there - you do have a
choice and it is a choice that, by default, you make
completely and utterly mindlessly. After all, otherwise,
you'd be aware that you're making the choice!

However, as a potentially responsible abnormal adult, you
have an alternative to the option that we've just explored.
You can choose to pay attention to what is actually going
on in the present moment, rather than paying attention to
the past. First of all, the past is long gone. Research
indicates that most of us live in our past - albeit
subconsciously. Rarely do we learn from our past and move
on to the only place and time we have - the here and now.
By the "here and now" I actually mean, quite simply, this
present moment - and this present moment, moment to moment.
The present includes what you are actually doing - or, more
to the point, supposed to be doing - just not. Normal
people only 1% do what they're supposed to be doing, whilst
99% of their mental capability pays attention to thoughts
like "I don't like this job!" "I'm bored!" "I wish I was
somewhere else!" or, at our deepest level, those voices
that I mentioned earlier.

Using your mind in this way is like trying to run the
hundred metre dash having deliberately, just before the
start, tied your shoe laces together. Not only are you
never going to win, you're going to fall flat on your face
before you even get going. Isn't that what normal people do
every day? Isn't that why normal people get fed up, worn
down? Isn't that why the normal life is "not so bad"?

But you and I have the chance to be abnormal - or to set
new norms for those of us who want to rise head and
shoulders out of the humdrum of everyday normal life. You
and I can choose - and deliberately choose - our second
option: Pay attention to NOW. If you don't, you'll continue
being normal, you'll continuing working to succeed, or,
indeed, working hard just to be not so bad. If you do take
control of your mind, by directing your attention to the
present moment, you suddenly change everything. Why?
Because, moment to moment, each decision we make takes us
down a particular path where we have further moment to
moment decisions to make. In other words, our daily lives
are full of thousands upon thousands of possibilities and
opportunities - all lost on the normal person, who trundles
from one mindless non-choice to the next.

Recent research indicates that your ability to be happy and
successful - to hit that "peak performance zone" - is
intimately correlated with whether or not you're paying
attention to the here and now. When we hit a natural high
as a result of an extraordinary life experience that "takes
our breath away", parts of our brain, never otherwise
activated, light up - because we engrossed in that moment.
Research proves that the process also works the other way
round - deliberately choose to engross yourself in the
moment and you will hit that natural high. That is the
secret to paying attention to Now - engross yourself in the
moment. Use all of your senses to experience the moment -
even if that moment is something that your silly, confused,
normal mind thinks you don't like. Just engross yourself.
In doing so, you become more effective - because you're
more "all there" - more efficient, because you're really
doing what you're doing - and you'll have presence - simply
because you will be more present. And, as you know,
presence is the hallmark of all highly, exceptionally or
abnormally successful people.


About the Author:

Willie Horton an ex-accountant and ex-senior banker, has
worked in "personal development" since 1996, enabling
business leaders, sports people and ordinary people
understand how state of mind creates success (or failure).
They describe the results as 'unbelievable' and
'life-changing'. Willie and his family moved from Ireland
to French Alps in 2002. More information at
http://www.gurdy.net