Why small decisions are more important than big ones

So you want to change your life?

What is the lifestyle you want?  Do you want to be healthier, richer or have more friends?  You’ve  looked at your life now and determined to change something. You think that making this big decision will make the change happen but it’s not so easy. The big decision sets a goal for you and gives you a vision or target for the change but important as this big decision is, it won’t make any difference unless it is supported by many small decisions. The power of changing your life is in the small decisions you make each day.

Life is a choice or more accurately a series of choices. Your lifestyle is a reflection of the choices you have made up to now. Some of th

ose choices are major ones but most of them are just small decisions. Those small decisions don’t seem important but over time the small ones can make more difference in your life than the big ones. Sometimes those small decisions can effect the big ones in ways that you hardly ever recognize.  Lifestyle design is more than making a big decision about how you want your life to be.  You have to manage all the small decisions along the way.

For example, choosing a life partner is a major decision. Ideally you would select your partner from a pool of qualified candidates. You would consider all the factors that would make your choice the ideal complement for you and your life goals. (Alright, maybe you don’t select your partner is such an analytical fashion even though it might work out better in the long run.) In reality, small decisions limit the people that are in your life. The small decisions limit your associations and your possible choices of a life partner. You may never meet your ideal partner because of decisions you made that take you away from the ‘right’ choices.

The role of a parent is to control and manage choices before children are mature enough to make their own. Parents want to associate their children with positive influences and keep them on course while they develop judgment and maturity. Parents act as a compass for their children, helping them make the right choices in the small decisions of their life and preparing them to take charge and make the big decisions later on.

The difficulty with the small decisions is that people don’t see the consequences of the small decisions as significant. They see each decision as an independent action without consequence. Having a second helping at dinner once in a while won’t make you fat. Skipping the gym sometimes won’t make you flabby. Spending an hour playing video games instead of reading won’t make you dull. What will make a difference is a consistent pattern of those actions over the long term. Once those patterns build into a routine, they limit your options. The choices for a fit and engaged person are different than those of an overweight, sluggish gamer. The consequences of being careless about making small decisions are great as they accumulate over time.

So what about your life.  What small decisions have made a big difference in your life either for good or bad? Are you dealing with the consequences of a pattern of small decisions that now limits your options?   Pay attention to the small decisions and the big ones will take care of themselves.