MSS #026: What choice do I have? – well lots frankly.

MSS #026: Notice the choices you have.

MSS #026: What choice do I have? – well lots frankly.

8 July, 2023

Read time: 9.3 minutes

In a hurry? Read from the beginning and stop when you get to Examples of choices to help you. - reduced read time 4.3 minutes.

The level of control we have in life, directly links to our wellbeing. The less control we think we have, the more insecure and trapped we feel.

This week I will show you how you can radically change how you feel, by informing your mind you have more control than you think.

These techniques can be used by anybody, in any circumstances.

You will feel a lot better after reading this and better still when you try some of the simple techniques.

Many people sadly get stuck in a spiral of not feeling they have much control in their lives, resulting in very uncomfortable feelings.

Let’s get cracking.

Control is the key to well-being.

Although there are extremes. Most of us have a strong need to feel like we have some level of control in our lives. When we think rationally, we know there is a balance between what is and is not in our control.

Sometimes that balance goes. One or two things happen that unnerve us or rock us, then we become convinced we have little or no control. That’s were despair starts to creep in.

When this happens, we get distressed with implications as our stress system, fight, freeze or flight, kicks in. Most noticeably for this newsletter, our rationally thinking gets compromised, we lose 10-15 points of IQ. Our short and long term memory gets compromised, our brain focusses on remembering when we were last in this situation (a safety system to help us fend of learnt danger). The impact being our memory now confirms this “keeps happening to me”.

I thought so.

There is a part of our ancient brain (evolutionary speaking) that sits at the base of the brain, called the Reticular Activating System (RAS). This tightly bunched set of neurons acts like a filter, it takes all the data from four of our senses (smell goes elsewhere) and all our past memories. Whatever we place our attention on = an instruction for our RAS that we want to focus on this.

This is excellent when we focus on what we want to achieve. But when we focus on what we fear, trying to avoid or negative things – our RAS takes this as an “instruction” to seek more of the same and find ways of making this happen.

It becomes a virtuous circle.

If we focus on positive things, our RAS will find lots of examples and “proof” positive things exists, reinforcing what we thought about.

Of course, if we think about negative things or that we have little or no control in life, our RAS will obligingly prove us correct.

This is very much the origin of the phrase “Be careful what you wish for”.

Choice is the key to feeling in control.

Choice is what I called Vitamin C for the mind. The more choices we think are available to us, the more convinced we have a high level of control in our lives.

Thinks about it, when someone uses the phrase,

 “I had no choice.”

They are stating that all control was lost, only one option was available. Sometimes this is a genuine belief, other times it is an excuse to avoid accountability.

Choice is the key, the more choices you can observe, courtesy of your RAS, the more choices you will notice. When you have more choices, you have more control in life – a far more comfortable place to be.

Use your RAS to ramp things up 

If we use RAS to helps us feel more in control, it goes like this.

The virtuous circle is simply,

• Thought – By being aware of choices and actively making choices, your attention and thinking around choice in fact “instructs” the part of your brain that filters information, the Reticular Activating System (RAS). By continually operating like you have more choices, by consciously looking for choices to specific situations, you will “program” your RAS.

• Evidence – Now your RAS and your conscious mind is more tuned to being aware of choices, your RAS will automatically start pointing our more choices to you and presenting choices to you.

If ever you have thought about changing your car or mobile phone, suddenly you start noticing more of the model of phone or car you are considering buying. Strange, isn’t it? Not really, your RAS has been “instructed” by the thoughts and images you have given it by looking at reviews and picture of the car or phone of your choice, your RAS now starts filtering every time it sees that phone or car model and brings it to your attention. Effectively bringing you evidence of where your attention has been going.

By being aware of the choices you have, you are now giving your self-evidence more choices exist than you at first may have thought.

• Proof – Now you have a mounting number of observations of how much choice you have, this gives you “proof” that you were you placed your attention and thoughts was in fact correct. Your theory that you have choices was correct.

• Beliefs – this in turn strengthens your beliefs about your view on choices. If you now believe you have more choices than you thought previously, you now feel less trapped and more in control than before. A virtuous circle.

4 ways to start noticing choice.

The aim is simple. Purely to start noticing more opportunities for choice. Do this and your RAS will help “amplify” this by noticing more choices you have. When you have more choice, you feel more in control of life and your well-being improves. This is the core of this approach.

4 easy ways to notice choices

1. Obvious ones – that we take for granted.

2. Our response – to situations and events.

3. Your list – make a list of choices you notice.

4. Master list – a list of other opportunities you can look for.

1. Obvious ones – that we take for granted.

Start noticing the really obvious choices that you might normally ignore. For example,

• What you chose to eat for a meal

• What clothes you choose to wear

• What thoughts you chose to have

• What you choose to do when you finish work

Simply start noticing these “free” simple choices we take for granted, to “switch” your RAS on.

2. Our response – to situations and events

This is a big topic. If ever you have read any of Viktor Frankl’s work, you will be familiar with the concept that one choice we always have is how we respond to a situation or event.

Viktor Frankl practiced then when in a concentration camp in World War 2, realising his response to the brutality around him, was the only this he truly had a choice over, giving him a sense of control.

Start noticing this and exercising your choice of response to a situation or event. For example, someone is unpleasant to you, most of us will react according to our established habit, what if you now become more aware you can choose your response. Perhaps you choose to laugh inside rather than the old response of feeling hurt or being angry.

I will cover this in next week’s newsletter.

3. Your list – make a list of choices you notice

Same time everyday, make a list of the choices you noticed today.

Either start a fresh list each day or keep adding to the same list.

The act of simply noticing and recording will switch your awareness up many notches.

4. Master list – a list of other opportunities you can look for

I will share with you a list of examples of choices we have. Pick one or two each day from the list and simply start noticing these choices.

Examples of choices to help you.

Here is a list I quickly came up with, you can add more of your own. Most are self-explanatory. At this stage I just wanted to open your mind up to the range of choices we have available to us, to start practicing being more aware of choice.

I would suggest you only pick a maximum of two choices at first, to be aware.

In the first instance just be aware of the choices you make in one or two areas you select from the list of ideas. Then start questioning your choices. This either confirms you had the most suitable choice for you, or you change it, look at the chapter on embedding new habits to help you.

1. Posture

What is your posture like? Do you stand up straight or slouch? How does that make you feel? Do you sit down in a slouched way or upright with purpose? Do you stare at the ground when walking, or up to the sky? Studies have shown our posture effects how we feel and equally how we feel affects our posture. We can change how we feel by simply choosing a different posture.

2. Who surrounds you?

The people that surround you in life have a big impact on how you feel. Choose who you surround yourself with.

3. Gratitude

Gratitude is the simple acknowledgement of the good things in your life, most often those that have little or no financial value. Having a healthy approach to gratitude is a simple choice to embed in daily routines and can have a big impact on mental wellness and resilience. Having gratitude is an easy choice to make, fully in our control.

4. Comparititus

It is not uncommon to compare ourselves to others either favourably or normally unpleasantly. The result is we are giving our unconscious minds an instruction and a green light to give ourselves permission not to perform at our best.

Far better to compare ourselves against the best version of ourselves. Therefore, choose not to compare yourself with others, catch your thoughts if you start doing this.

5. Mindset

Mindset is something we can choose, it may take a little practice to embed, but you can choose it. An often-said expression is “he/she woke up the wrong side of the bed this morning”, which is a reference to what has been pre-occupying our thoughts and therefore how we feel, we have the ability to change that.

Every morning I use touching the fridge door handle as my trigger to decide how I will turn up that day. For example, I might say to myself,

“I choose to be happy today.”

“I choose to be determined today.”

“I choose to be calm today.”

I decide a mindset that is suitable for that day. I sometimes go further and reflect on a past occasion I showed up that way to remind myself of what that feels, looks and sounds like.

6. How kind to yourself are you?

How we treat ourselves, affects our physiology and strangely reflects back as to how others treat us. Work on choosing to be kinder to yourself.

Choose kinder more supportive or nurturing language.

7. The language you use

The words we use outwardly and within our own self-talk make a significant difference, even with a small change of words. Words can change your intent.

Reducing the impact of absolutes. Change words like always, everyone, all the time, should, must, to sometimes, occasionally, could and might. Absolutes are seldom accurate and are exaggerations, using different words changes the scale of impact.

8. What music you listen to

Do you consciously listen to your favourite songs or your most up lifting music? Music has a powerful effect on us and is virtually free to attain and listen to.

What songs will you choose to listen to more often. Perhaps a song for a specific occasion. When will you listen to it?

Perhaps play a song in your head for specific occasion, just feel uplifted or to put you in your chosen mindset before a key meeting.

9. How happy you choose to be

This might seem really counter intuitive, but we can choose to be happy, regardless of events around us.

A simple nudge mantra can be really effective here. When you notice your self feeling unhappy, simply use the repetition of saying in your mind,

 “I choose happy.”

10. When you choose to smile

Another really simple choice. How often do you smile? By simply smiling more often we reduce the cortisol (chemical response to stress) in our bodies and we become more relaxed.

11. How often you laugh

This is a variation to choosing to smile more. No body and nothing can stop us from either spontaneously choosing to laugh more often or finding a stimulus to help us laugh like a You tube video.

12. To search for uplifting stories on the internet

Set a trigger each day at a specific time or event to simply watch a few funny videos, to change your outlook on life for that moment and also “programme” or teach your RAS to look for other amusing events.

Our minds are biased to look for negative news as part of our survival instinct to look out for what might harmless. So we need to work a little bit harder to overcome this natural instinct.

13. To celebrate success as opposed to failure

Many times, we choose to focus our attention more on times we perceive we have failed. This in turn trains our brain, through the RAS, to find more examples of when we have failed.

Choose instead each day to write a list of 3 things you achieved, just simple successes.

14. To acknowledge progress over absolute achievement

If you focus more on progress you will have more opportunities to feel good about yourself and situations. Progress can often be missed as it is gradual, whereas achievement is a digital outcome, it either did or did not happen.

Progress might be you have found three ways that did not work, that is progress.

15. Avoid making excuses

This can be quite a tricky one. Often, we make excuses simply to exonerate us from our responsibility. If we can somehow attach blame to some external events not in our control, then we can avoid taking accountability. Choose to avoid excuses. Acknowledge when something has not gone to plan and take ownership of it, not in an accusatory way, just accept it. When you accept something, it has less power over you, Because you stop thinking about it and analysing it. Then simply ask yourself what can you learn from this, will you do differently next time?

16. To search for funny videos on the internet

Set a trigger each day at a specific time or event to simply watch a few funny videos, to change your outlook on life for that moment and also “programme” or teach your RAS to look for other amusing events. This is simple entertainment through humour.

17. To play your favourite uplifting song(s) every day out loud or in your head

Such as simple choice in life.

18. Your chosen waking thought

Decide when you go to bed, what you want to focus your mind on as you wake in the morning. Make a conscious choice of this the night before.

19. Choose your vision / purpose and how often and when you visualise and feel this

Summary

Quick recap.

• When we think we have a higher level of control in life, we feel in a better place.

• Our sense of how much control we have is directly linked to how many choices we think we have.

• Our RAS can help us “find” more choices, we just need to prime it with a few examples and then set it free.

• 4 easy ways to start noticing choices.

  1. Obvious little choices – like what clothes we choose to wear.

  2. Our response – to situations and events.

  3. Your list – make a list of choices you notice.

  4. Master list – a list of other opportunities you can look for.

   

  We discussed other types of choice we can practice.

   

  1. Posture

  2. Who surrounds you

  3. Gratitude

  4. Comparititus

  5. Best version of yourself

  6. Mindset

  7. How kind to yourself are you?

  8. The language you use

  9. What music you listen to

  10. How happy you choose to be

  11. When you choose to smile

  12. How often you laugh

  13. To celebrate success rather than failure

  14. To acknowledge progress over absolute success

  15. Choosing when to laugh

  16. Choosing to avoid making excuses

  17. To search for funny videos on the internet

  18. To search for uplifting stories on the internet

  19. To play your favourite uplifting song(s) every day out loud or in your head

   

  “I choose…………..” is a great mantra to practice. For example, “I choose happy” practiced regularly can make a big impact on well being.

Want more? 

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Nuclear Powered Resilience – learn one golden habit that gives incredible inner strength, comfort and support, that keeps growing by instilling Unconditional Love in your mind.

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Vitamin C for the mind – how to feel and have more control in life, with simple techniques built into a habit.

Happy habits – simple habits to make you feel happier everyday.

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading, really hope this helped. Contact me if you think I can help you further at [email protected].

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Happy thinking.