Harness The Power of Decision
Excerpt from Awaken the Giant Within
By Anthony Robbins
These are the six quick keys to help you harness the power of decision, the power that shapes your experience of life every moment that you live it:
1. Remember the true power of making decisions. It's a tool you can use in any moment to change your entire life. The minute you make a new decision, you set in motion a new cause, effect, direction, and destination for your life. You literally begin to change your life the moment you make a new decision. Remember that when you start feeling overwhelmed, or when you feel like you don't have a choice, of when things are happening "to" you, you can change it all if you just stop and decide to do so. Remember, a real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.
2. Realize that the hardest step in achieving anything is making a true commitment - a true decision. Carrying out your commitment is often much easier than the decision itself, so make your decisions intelligently, but make them quickly. Don't labor forever over the question of how or if you can do it. Studies have shown that the most successful people make decisions rapidly because they are clear on their values and what they really want for their lives. The same studies show that they are slow to change their decisions, if at all. On the other hand, people who fail usually make decisions slowly and change their minds quickly, always bouncing back and forth. Just decide!
Realize that decsion making is a kind of act in itself, so a good definition for a decision might be "information acted upon." You know you've truly made a decision when action flows from it. It becomes a cause set in motion. Often the effect of making a decision helps create the attainment of a larger goal. A critical rule I've made for myself is never to leave the scene of a decision without first taking a specific action towards its realization.
3. Make decisions often. The more decisions you make, the better you're going to become at making them. Muscles get stronger with use, and so it is with your decision-making muscles. Unleash you power right now by making some decision you've been putting off. You won't believe the energy and excitement it will create in your life!
4. Learn from your decisions. There's no way around it. At times, you're going to screw up, no matte what you do. And when the inevitable happens, instead of beating yourself to the ground, learn something. Ask yourself, "What's good about this? What can I learn from this?" This "failure" may be unbelievable gift in disguise if you use it to make better decisions in the future. Rather than focus on the short term setback, choose instead to learn lessons that can save you time, money, or pain, and that will give you the ability to succeed in the future.
5. Stay committed to your decisions, but stay flexible in your approach. One you've decided who you want to be as a person, for example, don't get stuck on the means of achieving it. It's the end you're dafter. Too often, in deciding what they want for their lives, people pick the best way they know at the time - they make a map - but then don't stay open to alternate routes. Don't become rigid in your approach. Cultivate the art of flexibility.
6. Enjoy making decisions. You must know that in any moment, a decision you make can change the course of your life forever: the very next person you stand behind in line or sit next to on an airplane, the very next phone call you make or receive, the very next movie you see or book you read or page you turn could be the one single thing that cause the floodgates to open, and all of the things that you've been waiting for to fall into place.
If you really want your life to be passionate, you need to live with this attitude of expectancy. Years ago, I made what seemed like a small decision, and it has powerfully shaped my life. I decided to do a seminar in Denver, Colorado. The decision has caused me to meet a lady named Becky. Her last name now is Robbins, and she is definitely one of the greatest gifts of my life. On that same trip, I decided to write my first book, which is now published in eleven languages around the world. A few days later, I decided to conduct a seminar in Texas, and after working for a week to fill my own program, the promoter didn't pay me for the event - he skipped town. The obvious person to talk to was the public relations agent he had hired, a woman who had similar woes. That woman became my literary agent and helped to get that first book published. As a result, I have the privilege of sharing this story with you today.
At one time, I also decided to take on a business partner. Choosing not to investigate his character in advance was a poor decision on my part. Within a year, he'd misappropriated a quarter of million dollars and had run my corporation $758,000 in debt while I spent my life on the road doing more than 200 seminars. Fortunately, though, I learned from my poor decision and made a better one. In spite of advice from all the experts around me that the only way I could survive would be to declare bankruptcy, I decided to find a way to turn things around, and I created one the greater successes of my life. I took my company to a whole new level, and what I learned from that experience not only created my long-term business success, but also provided many of the distinctions for the Neuro-Associative Conditioning and the Destiny Technologies that you'll be learning in this book.
"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."
- Helen Keller
