A nine-year journey is coming to fruition with what I am calling – THE YEAR OF THE HARD CHOICE. Tomorrow I turn 43 years old, and so I have decided to make this THE YEAR OF THE HARD CHOICE. This journey all began in 2009 when I found out I was expecting twin daughters. I was scared to death and felt unprepared to be a father, especially a father of two girls. I became laser-focused on giving my daughters the skills they would need to be successful. I didn’t want to fail them, so I started a list of all of the traits I believed my girls might need to thrive in this world. My self-created list had things like empathy, determination, kindness, resourcefulness, caring, discipline, grit, resilience, forgiveness, trust, and so on. The index of traits topped out at 63 characteristics. I quickly realized that creating a purposeful system to instill these 63 items would be nearly impossible.
With some wise perspective from my wife, I eventually realized that there was one common factor shared by all 63 traits. All of these traits hinged upon a decision (or series of decisions). Her council provided the eureka moment I needed. I committed to purposefully giving my girls a decision-making process that could enable any trait the world required of them.
I quickly realized that the academic decision-making systems were to slow and required an absence of emotion. These process-based decision-making systems were most suitable for strategic decisions primarily occurring in the business world. These systems lacked the flexibility and nimbleness required to support decision-maker in a fast pace, stimulus fueled modern world.
I began to study behavioral economics and realized the human brain was amazingly adaptable. The brain can rewire itself to function at a higher, more efficient level. All of my research confirmed that the brain can be trained. I also realized that any system I came up with had to be fast, simple, and can be broadly applied to a wide range of decisions. These requirements pushed me to research binary decision structures. These types of decisions are the most simple of decision making structures, and as I researched I found that so much of our world hinges upon binary decisions. Technology, biology, and many tenets of the world’s most popular religions rely on binary structures. Evolution has fought complexity with simplicity to help humans function in a complex, chaotic environment with every changing factors.
Very few of our daily decisions present themselves in a binary state. We inhabit a complex world filled with decisions that have exponential options. However, if we purposefully evaluate decisions in a reduced state, then we can apply consistent principles that help to improve outcomes. In essence, simple binary decision rules allow us to pre-determine our actions before the choice even presents itself. This allows the human brain to allocate as much possible energy on ACTING and not wasting it on DECIDING.
The foundational rule of any binary decision rule is EASY or HARD. I was amazed to find that the most successful people have unconsciously used this rule to achieve great outcomes. These success mavens have trained their decision muscle to embrace the strain caused by HARD decisions. They are comfortable in discomfort and have figured out that only through HARD choices can their be greatness. It is this rule that has inspired my YEAR OF THE HARD CHOICE.
I am on a mission to make six intentionally, HARDER decisions each day and note how my life changes. I hope this intentionality leaks over to help me make many more than six, but every journey starts with a single step. So, my first step is six harder decisions. In conjunction with my six HARD decisions, I am committed to capturing these actions on a weekly blog. In the process, I hope to inspire each of you to make a higher number of HARD decisions. If you do choose to give this a try, please reach out and tell me how it is going at blake@thehardchoicehabits.com. I would love to hear how HARD decisions are improving your life.
Day 1 - Here are my six HARD decisions.
1. Woke up 30 minutes early to meditate. I have tried meditation before. My lizard brain is hard to quiet. I did pretty well this morning. I focused on 10 minutes of meditation, a gratefulness exercise, and then my normal prayer routine. I was surprised at how fast the time went.
2. Didn’t have the extra piece of toast for breakfast. Damn I love a starchy carb to start my day! Shit, the buttery goodness, maybe with some strawberry jam on top - - - damn you carbs, why can’t I quit you.
3. Let my kid fail. I think there is an intrinsic quality that all parents have in that they want to limit the pain, sadness, and disappointment for their children. I think this goal comes from a good place and is most often a positive. But in the quiet moments of self-reflection, I catch myself preparing the road for my child and not preparing my child for the road. I can’t prepare enough miles of road to safely get my kid from one part of life to the next. So, today I let them fail. I knew I could have gotten involved and eased the pain, but I let it happen. It was the hardest of my hard things.
4. Forgave a person who had wronged me. So, the first step has been for me to offer forgiveness to them internally – meaning, forgiving them in my own mind. I once asked a mentor of mine how did you know you had forgiven someone. This wise life guide said that if you mentally picture yourself giving the person a hug and there is no anger, sadness, blame – then you have forgiven them. The step to forgive them in my mind was hard in its own right. Now, the harder thing will be to have a conversation with them and make my forgiveness acknowledged to the person who wronged me. Not quite there on this one.
5. Sent a note of encouragement to a friend going through a rough time. I have been trying to do this every day, but I find myself embarrassed to randomly reach out to people (usually through Facebook) to offer some kind words. I am afraid they will think I am corny, or stupid, or getting in their business.
Made public the YEAR OF THE HARD CHOICE.I have been avoiding this step for the past 12 months. I have spent countless hours in solitude exploring, searching, writing, thinking. Yet, for the past year, I have been crippled by fear.I question what if people think this is dumb, what if no one cares, what if I waste my time by blogging weekly – what’s the point?!?Recently, at my place of worship we have been focused on the story of when Jesus walked on water.(John 6:16-24)Peter is the only disciple with the faith to get out of the boat, and because of his boldness he became the only man in the history of the world to defy the laws of nature and walk on water.As silly as this may sound, this is me getting out of the boat.Sink or swim, I am leaving the safety of the boat to pursue something of purpose.Here we go.