The power of choice is a gift from God. But that power is often left untapped and we become reactors to our lives, to our circumstances.
Living a life of reaction leaves us powerless.
Life happens to everyone. Everyday we have choices. Recognizing and taking ownership of our choices is the pathway to real life, to thriving.
Although it’s a good thing to survive the difficult and painful stuff that happens in our lives, to go from survive to thrive is far better. It’s the powerful way to live.
You can own your power of choice in 5 ways.
It’s your life. You get to decide what to do with it. —Danielle Bernock
ONE – TAKE OWNERSHIP OF YOUR RESPONSE
Let’s talk about the difference between reacting and responding. Reacting is what happens without thought. Responding has intention.
It can feel like we have no control over reactions but we do. The key to responding is to pre-load our hearts and our minds.
I have witnessed how true the words of Jesus are. He said out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Sometimes I’ve been puzzled by my reactions, and other times I’ve been utterly shocked at what has come out of my mouth. Either way I’ve learned I can turn it into a lesson, and take ownership of my reactions.
When we say or do things we don’t like, it’s because those things have gotten into our hearts somehow. When we have good things loaded inside, that’s what comes out in our “reactions”.
Sometimes we have time to pause and respond. Other times we can train ourselves to pause and respond. But sometimes there is no time—so what is pre-loaded in our hearts is what we witness in our lives.
Our power lies in planning a response. It is preparing. That means pre-loading our hearts with what we want to come out of our mouths, and in our actions. Pre-loading is our key to a good response. We pre-load by feeding our hearts through reading, watching, meditating, and rehearsing what we want to see in our lives.
We can own our lives by owning our response – both the good and the bad.
TWO – OWN YOUR CHOICE TO RECOVER AND RISE
You are not perfect. Life is not perfect. Things go wrong. You’ll make mistakes. You’ll react in a way you don’t like. Things will happen that you don’t want to happen. Your heart might be loaded with all kinds of baggage or trauma like mine was.
But here is the beauty of owning your power of choice. Every hard and negative thing can become a lesson if you choose to turn it into one.
The line what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger is only true when you employ a warrior mindset. This takes the power of choice.
By implementing the power of owning your response, you can enable yourself to recover and rise up again.
Look up. Look for the hope. Look for a purpose. Lift your eyes and choose to build a new response from the ashes of your emotions or circumstances.
Being a victor or a victim all lies in the power of your choice to recover and rise, or not.
Only I can change my life. No one can do it for me. —Carol Burnett
THREE – OWN YOUR STORY
Up until now. The power of those 3 words was unveiled to me in the book Unhackable by Kary Oberbrunner. That book impacted me so much I became certified Unhackable coach.
Your story is just that – yours.
Up until now you’ve been living however you have been. You may have made excuses. You may have tried and failed. You may have gotten discouraged, felt like a victim, felt like giving up or any other countless painful ways to feel trapped in the status quo.
But up until now is powerful.
Those 3 words can empower you to start new today taking ownership of the past, and writing a new ending.
No matter how each day goes, every day you can start fresh with up until now and then declare the change you choose to make.
By taking ownership of your story you can let go the past and write a new ending.
FOUR – OWN YOUR OWN BUSINESS
No one likes a know it all. It’s irritating and belittling. This part of taking ownership is owning your own growth, and respecting others who may be making different choices.
Owning your own business means not pushing on others what you have learned, and what you think you know.
If you want to help others own their lives, model instead of tell, love instead of correct. Respect boundaries. Lead by example instead of talk. Talk can be cheap but love in action is priceless.
In situations where you can’t model you can always pray. God can do things we can’t.
By owning your own business you are demonstrating love for yourself and others.
You can’t change people but you can effect a change in them by your behavior. —Garrison Wynn
FIVE – OWN WHAT IS FOR YOUR BENEFIT WITH INTENTION
In the first way of owning your choice I mentioned intention as it corresponds to responding. To own what is for your benefit takes a different intention. It’s proactive.
What do you need? How do you want to live? What is for your benefit? Do you know the answer to these questions? If not, then you need to discover them because you can’t own what you don’t know. This is where you’d start.
When you know what you need, how you want to live, changes you desire, you can intentionally choose to take ownership of them.
The most powerful way own this type of change is to choose just one thing at a time to focus on. The reason being everyone can do one thing, but a big pile is overwhelming.
To live your best life choose what is for your benefit and take ownership of it.
OWN YOUR NEXT STEP – CHOOSE ONE OF THESE:
- Take ownership of your life one piece at a time – START HERE.
- Start owning your life with the help of a coach – LEARN MORE.
What a powerful read! Thank you Danielle Bernock for this incredible reminder of owning my story. My major takeaway “Take Ownership of your Response” will be intentional with this going forward #BecauseIMatter
That’s wonderful to hear. Thank you for sharing!
Love your hashtag too.