The Choice Is Yours, Always

Photo Credit: Juliana Biondo – Half Moon Bay, California 2022

Especially in our deeply complex, often overburdened, highly demanding leadership roles, it's easy to feel imposed upon and as though we "have to" get things done. What if we shifted our thinking to acknowledge that it's all a choice? Notwithstanding that being a leader is sometimes laden with opportunities to be our best it's also true that some days we just don't feel like it. Here's where the power that comes from choice kicks in.

See the excerpt below as it relates to school-aged children and see if it resonates for you in your role as a leader. Beginning today, consider activating more choice around how you move through your work and interactions with colleagues, friends and family! Drop us a line to describe the magic that you experience when practicing this approach…

According to Choice Theory, all behavior is made up of four components:

• acting

• feeling

• thinking

• physiology

All behavior is chosen, and the only person whose behavior we can control is our own. We only have direct control over our actions and thoughts. We can control our feelings and physiology through how we choose to act and think.

We control ourselves. None of what we do is caused by any situation or person outside of ourselves. No thing, event, or person “makes” us do anything. We do not do what we are told unless doing so satisfies us more than anything else we believe we can do at the time. We are responsible for fulfilling our own needs. Some of our basic needs that can be fulfilled in school are belonging, fun, and power. We behave the way we do to best satisfy our needs.

(excerpted from article - University of Connecticut NRC/GT)