Choice

Each of us live a day made up entirely of our choices. Some of these choices are automatic, we don't realize that we are choosing anything because we have chosen the same thing so often that it's become a habit. This works to our advantage when we have spent time making the same good choices again and again, but to our disadvantage when we have made neutral or negative choices repeatedly.

Common knowledge holds that it takes 21 days to break or build a habit. However, recent research suggests that our common knowledge stops too soon! This new information states that most of the time it actually took - at minimum - 60 to 80 days to break an old habit and form a replacement habit. Many of the people involved in the study took 120 to 180 days (4 to 6 months) to break habits like drinking, smoking, overeating, and swearing.

Habit is choice. This is good news because that means that every moment of every day we each have the option to make a different choice. It's probably not going to be easy. When I quit smoking and again when I quit excessively consuming sugar, I experienced weeks of great irritability (just ask my husband!) because I was constantly struggling against my desire to have what I was deciding to give up. Habits are like a thick rope. They are many, many choices made over and over again, twisted together, and tied around us to hold us to the action or result. And just like with a very thick rope, the only way to break it is to break one thread at a time, sawing away at its holding power.

How do you make your choices?

Many of us have a moral basis that helps us to make choices. We don't kill the coworker who is stressing us out because our moral basis says that is a wrong choice. We offer to help someone who has just dropped their grocery bags and spilled the contents in the parking lot because our moral basis says that is a right choice. Having a good, strong moral basis is important, because when a choice is clearly right or wrong it is easier to make the right choice.

The trouble comes in the grey areas. It's not morally wrong to eat 'fast food' every night. It's not morally wrong to go to sleep before you've cleared your mind and analyzed the day. It's not morally wrong to let a moment of anger control your attitude toward the barista who messed up your morning coffee. There's so many things that are unhealthy, but not morally wrong, and so it becomes easy to make a neutral or negative choice in these areas. This is where our goals have to come in.

By now I hope that you do have goals because you know where you want to end up as a result of this journey. You can't start a road trip with no destination because you'll end up driving in circles. Similarly you can't make significant improvement in your life without knowing where you want to be because of the improvement. Trying to improve your life without a definite and stated goal will leave you bouncing forward a few steps and sliding backward a few more.

Choices driven by goals are a beautiful thing. They're not easy at first. The first few times I turned down dessert were agonizing. In fact just last night I had some difficulty saying no to the chocolate cheesecake at an awards dinner for a friend of ours - and I've been skipping dessert for nearly six months! When you make choices for arbitrary reasons (such as thinking it's probably a good idea) you can't stick with them long enough to form positive habits. You have to have a desire backing the choice that is stronger than your desire for the wrong choice.

I really wanted that chocolate cheesecake, and because of the format of the evening it was sitting right in front of me the whole time. I swear I heard it calling my name. Nobody would have been upset with me for having that cheesecake, and nobody would have called me to task about whether that cheesecake was a good decision (except perhaps my husband). It wasn't morally wrong to eat the cheesecake. But I have a goal that is more important to me than that cheesecake. I want to lose 20 pounds this month.

Would the cheesecake last night have caused me to miss my goal completely - with a whole month ahead of me to still do what is right? No. But I also understand that if I had eaten that cheesecake, it would be harder to say no to whatever the next dessert opportunity is because the taste of the cheesecake so close in my memory would make my desire for dessert greater. I made a choice based on my goal, and on an understanding of what it will take to reach that goal.

And you know what? Today I'm pretty glad I didn't eat that piece of cheesecake. I feel a small sense of accomplishment because I made a choice that was consistent with the path to my goals.

Every day, every moment, you make a choice. Change happens only when you choose to change the choices that you are making. Today, think about the choices - especially those that are habits right now - that got you to where you are today. Are you overweight because you've been eating unhealthy foods? Are you disconnected from God because you've been skipping focused prayer? Are you in debt because you've been putting what you can't afford and don't really need on a credit card? Pick a habit that is negatively affecting you, and make a commitment to six months of choices that will change that habit. I think you'll really like who you are in December!