“When it comes down to it, it isn’t the major choices we make in life – career, marriage, etc. – that count the most. It is the everyday, minor decisions that make life work for us.” –Shad Helmstetter, Ph.D.
Have you ever stopped to think about the impact your choices have had, or are having, on your life? When I was thinking about a topic for the next blog post the word “choices” came to mind. Occasionally I hear people say, “I have/had no choice.” And I couldn’t understand why they felt that way. See, they had a choice, they just didn’t like the choices. I guess you can say it was a choice between the “lesser of two evils.” Or they felt they were not able to make the choice they really wanted. Well my feeling was….if you can’t do it now, then plan for it so you can do it at some future date. Just come up with a plan, take action, and stick to it until you achieve whatever it is you want. Nobody said it would be easy, however, it can be done. That’s just my two cents worth.
In his book “Choices,” Dr. Shad Helmstetter came up with a list of the 100 Most Important Choices in your life. Before we get to the list, here’s a little of what Shad Helmstetter had to say about making choices:
“When we begin to take a careful look at the choices we make, it’s easy to come to the conclusion that the most important choices are the choices that guide and direct the major areas of our life.
It is easy to think that if we make good choices about our career, marriage, education, income, family, etc., we should be able to do just fine.
But what about the other choices – the thousands of almost unnoticed choices that all of us make (or do not make), day in and day out? How important are those “little” choices?
They are exceptionally important. It may be the big choices in life that set the direction for where we’re going, but it is the little choices that get us there.
Our loftiest goals become nothing more than unfulfilled dreams in life that fall by the wayside if we do not just as carefully make, and act on the smaller choices along the way. What do the little choices look like? I’ll give you some examples.
Here is a list of 100 choices. Some of them seem important; others seem so insignificant that we might wonder how they could be important at all. But each of them makes up some part of what we call “life.”
As you read through this list, notice that any one of the choices, no matter how seemingly insignificant, affects something about us; what we do, how we spend our time, what we think and how we think, how we feel, what we like or dislike, what works for us and what does not.
Each of us makes tens of thousands of choices in a lifetime.” A few of them are mentioned below. This book looks like it was written in 1989, so keep that in mind when wondering why you don’t see references to email, computer games, the internet, or social networking sites. Remember, these are just some choices. Emphasis on the word some.
Your 100 Most Important Choices:
1 – Who you spend most of your time with
2 – How you comb your hair
3 – What your favorite foods are
4 – What you eat most often
5 – How often you call home
6 – The books you read
7 – Your posture
8 – How much or how little you smile
9 – What you watch on television and how much you watch
10 – Your hobbies
11 – How much you exercise
12 – Whether you argue more than you should
13 – The style and color clothes you wear
14 – Who you invite to a party
15 – Whether you write letters
16 – Which telephone calls you return
17 – The appearance of your home
18 – How long something stays broken before you fix it
19 – How late you stay up at night
20 – What time you get up in the morning
21 – How well you listen to others
22 – Whether you smoke
23 – Whether you gossip
24 – How well you are able to concentrate
25 – The political candidates you vote for
26 – Whether you like or fear computers
27 – How fast you drive
28 – How much risk you are willing to take
29 – Whether you save money
30 – Whether you are a leader or a follower
31 – The amount of time you spend with your kids
32 – How organized you are
33 – Whether you go to church
34 – Whether you belong to a social or service organization
35 – How often you change shoes
36 – Who you admire most
37 – How often you are late for something
38 – What you do about a traffic ticket
39 – Who pays the bills in your household
40 – Who decides what to have for dinner
41 – How much time you give yourself to get ready in the morning
42 – What you do at the end of the day
43 – What you drink, if, and how much
44 – Where you buy your groceries, and why
45 – How calm you are
46 – Whose opinions you ask for
47 – How you handle problems at work
48 – Whether you attend concerts or cultural events
49 – How often you eat out
50 – How interested you are in other people
51 – How you show your emotions
52 – What newspapers or magazines you read
53 – Whether you give free advice
54 – What kind of car you drive, and what shape it’s in
55 – How you react to negative attitudes or opinions from others
56 – What sports you participate in
57 – How you spend your holidays
58 – How important it is for you to follow the trend
59 – How much time you spend talking to your spouse or mate
60 – How important you feel you are
61 – How you use credit cards
62 – How you look at problems in the past
63– How you treat or relate to members of the opposite sex
64 – How often you feel sorry for yourself
65 – Who upsets you the most
66 – Whether you like a challenge
67 – Who controls the conversation
68 – How you feel about world problems
69 – What you think about while you’re getting ready in the morning
70 – How much you worry
71 – How much patience you have
72 – How many compliments you give
73 – What gets you angry
74 – How often you almost run out of gas in the car
75 – What you do when you don’t get your way
76 – How much you spend, and on what
77 – How often you criticize
78– How happy you are
79 – How you feel about what other people think of you
80 – How often you do not tell the truth, and why
81 – How you take care of yourself
82 – How much you respect yourself
83 – How often you complain
84 – How often you have to be reminded of something
85 – Who you talk to when you have a problem
86 – How you leave your desk or work space at the end of the day
87 – What movies you attend
88 – How often you get a haircut
89 – How often you have friends visit
90 – How much encouragement you give to others
91 – How polite you are
92 – When you do your Christmas shopping
93 – What you think about, when you have time to think
94 – How much time you take to sell your ideas
95 – Whether you eat breakfast
96 – How you feel when you come home from work
97 – What you do when you’ve made a mistake
98 – What you do when someone else has made a mistake
99 – How you react to being stuck in a traffic jam
100 – What you think about just before you go to sleep at night
Dr. Shad Helmstetter’s website is: http://www.shadhelmstetter.com
You might also like: The 3 Decisions that Control Your Destiny
26 Quotes on Choices
Thanks for sharing the list. I completely agree that life is made up of a lot of little choices. Everything we do in life is a choice, and how we approach life, be it optimistically or pessimistically, is within our hands. I think, we sometimes forget that.
Yes, I agree. Sometimes we don’t even realize the impact of the seemingly small choices we make. Thank you for taking the time to comment. I appreciate your visit and hope you will be back again. Take care, A.
Wow – what a great list! I am going to print it out and fill it in with the choices I made in these areas. I bet you I will find a lot of areas that need improvement, but that’s good. Learning what I need to change is always a good thing. Thanks for posting this list!
Thank you for the kind words. I’m tickled that you like it enough to print out. 😎 Putting together the post has made me think more about some of my choices too. Or should I say rethink, become more aware. Well it’s good to re-evaluate ourselves from time to time. Thank you for stopping by. Please visit again. Take care, A.
All good examples of choices we make in our life everyday, whether it’s 1989 or 2009, the choices are similar.
Each and every day is a small representation of our entire life. It’s like a tiny window into the evolution of our existence. The way I see it, a day is like a lifetime condensed within a 24 hour period. What we do during those 24 hours, ultimately dictates how our life unfolds. And the choices we make dictate how our life plays out. Thus the importance for making healthy, positive choices.
Great blog piece, thank you.
Embrace the day and all it has to offer.
So true. Thank you for adding your wisdom to this. You’ve summed it up nicely. I appreciate your kind words, and that you keep coming back to read this blog. Thank you. A.
Interesting. I think sometimes the major choices (or any choices that seem difficult) are difficult because neither option is significantly “better”. I had two job offers and obsessed about which to pick – but in the end, the decision was so difficult because neither choice would have been awful.
On the other hand, I don’t think some of the day-to-day choices on the list (like how you comb your hair) are not that important either.
Thank you for taking the time to comment. The list has even made me think about why I’ve made some choices. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read this long post. Take care, A.
Damn girl! Nice list! I’m gonna take it to the beach with me and mull it over.
You’re absolutely right we have the opportunity to make choices all the time…and it is our responsibility to own the choices we make!
Spoken by one who has many, many a time made the less healthy choice!
LOL! We have all made the less healthy choice. It’s all part of growing. Hope you’re enjoying the beach.
“Just come up with a plan, take action, and stick to it until you achieve whatever it is you want. Nobody said it would be easy, however, it can be done.”
Today, I wrote a post on practicing perfection. Many of us fail to come up with a plan or fall through on it because we are afraid of what we can accomplish. If everyone knew they would have to fail miserably first before breaking through a big success always — most people would quit before they are ahead.
The beauty of knowing planning is knowing in the back of your mind that no matter what you are doing it can be done, because it has been done before. Nothing under the sun is new …it is just improved.
I say..plan..take action..stick with it until you achieve it…Because You Can!
Sherita Searcy
http://www.sheritasearcy.com
Good info. Thanks for sharing. I saw your post and commented on your blog. Dear Readers, Sherita’s post is worth reading.
Cool blog , I agree i think sometimes when we think about the big things first or at least too much we neglect that it is the small things that make up the big thing.
A friend of mine did say.. inch by inch is a cinch yard by yard is hard. It takes 21 days to develop a habit .. so you can just see how the trickle down effect works.
I just started my blog and bumped into yours, hopefully eventually my blog will be as cool as yours.
Thanks for the compliment about the blog. I will be sure to visit yours. There is another saying…”How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: “One bite at a time.” Thanks for your comments and for stopping by. Please do come back to visit. Take care, A.
[…] post builds upon a previous post titled, “100 Most Important Life Choices” https://lifelessons4u.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/100-most-important-life-choices/. The following are 26 quotes from Dr. Shad Helmstetter’s book titled […]
So well it works. It has listed some very basic but most important. I though more efficiently from this piece of your blog! Thanks!
Y: I agree, it does make one stop and think about their choices. Thanks for visiting the blog. Hope you will stop by again. Take care, A.
Premium article, great looking weblog, added it to my favs!!
Thanks for the kind words!
[…] You might also like: Peaks and Valleys of Life 100 Most Important Life Choices […]
Great stuff you have touched because I wrote an essay about my daily choices and I did not figure out how much they play in making,describing to others and how I reflect on them but I have a couple of questions: how does the environment I invade inflence my choice making, how does the way I triggger my thoughts-like telling myself “I am good” to build confidence-affect my choice making?
I would really appreciate any answer that would lead me in the route I am in about choices and my mind.
i really don’t understand , how you got most of my choices here. really extraordinary…Thank you for the post
i think one of life’s most important choices is, what do you do when in spite of seemingly doing everything right everything goes wrong. also, what are you doing to become the person you would like to be. great list, all things people should put more thought into.
this list misses whethey you choose to have kids. If you are lucky enough that that choice is open to you
Superb