Every day, you face many decisions. In each decision, you have a choice to do what is right, or to do what is wrong.
Left to your own accord, you will often make the wrong decision.
When alone, you decide to shove the last piece of dessert into your mouth and ruin your diet commitments. You decide it is quicker to litter on the ground than to look for a garbage can. You decide to end your workout 15 minutes early, because your favorite TV show is about to start.
When you reflect on your decisions, you reach the same conclusion every time - you are better than this.
It is in these small, seemingly meaningless decisions, that add up to mean everything. I repeat…everything.
Because you were alone when you made a decision, nobody else knows. Nobody else cares. Nobody will form a negative opinion about you. But you forget that the most important person in the world is watching, judging, and all the while cringing at all choices you make… That person is you. You see it all happening. It’s on the front page of your internal newspaper.
Why do you act differently when you are alone?
What if at the time of your decision, you found yourself standing beside someone that you admire? Would you act differently?
Would you think twice about taking advantage of an elderly person if your beloved grandfather stood by and watched?
Would you still choose to belittle and ridicule your employees if your CEO was standing in the room?
Would you still use the same profanity-laced words in your vocabulary if you were standing in a kindergarten class?
This is all food for thought.
Humans are powerful beings who overtook the animal kingdom and became rulers of the world. What do humans have that differentiates us from other animals? Humans have an imagination.
Using your imagination, you can imagine the people you respect and admire watching you while you make a decision. If they are watching, what decision should you make?
Using this exercise over time, you will start tip the scale towards doing more of what is right and less of what is wrong.
And the more right decisions you make, the more good you will end up doing in your life. The more good you end up doing, the more you become a person that others will respect and admire.
It’s the circle of life.