12 Choices to Transform Your Life

“Life is a matter of choices, and every choice you make makes you.”

—John C. Maxwell

Over the years I have come to believe that life is about choices. These choices have the power to transform your life. The decisions you make will shape your day, shape your views, shape your experiences, shape your thoughts and shape your life.

There are some life choices over which you have no control or which others will make for you – like when and where you are born, the family you are born to, your life during childhood, the school you went to, etc.

Beyond that, there are several other important choices that you make in life. In this post, I have articulated the most significant choices which have the potential for personal transformation.

1. The Choice to Learn

Learning is a choice that you make consciously or unconsciously. This could be through formal college education (Graduation, Post-Graduation, etc.) or self-learning through reading and books, observation, online tutorials, meaningful discussions, pursuit of hobbies, human interactions, personal experiences, reflections, self-realizations, etc.

In the long run, the importance you personally associate with learning and how disciplined you are in your learning efforts can potentially transform your life.

2. The Choices in and of Relationships

The closeness or distance you choose to maintain with family (immediate and beyond) affects your life. In addition, the friends you choose to make and how you choose to nurture these bonds over a period of time impact your life.

More importantly, the choice of your life partner has a significant bearing on how your life will eventually turn out. And lastly, the choice of how you build and nurture other relationships in your personal and professional life makes a difference.

3. The Choice of the importance you associate with your Personal Health

Your overall health is a function of many things – the key determinants being the diet you consume and the nature of exercise you ensure on a regular basis. Of course, the pre-requisite is that you need to be aware of these two aspects of your everyday life and knowledgeable on how they affect your life.

Beyond this, you need to ensure that you invest the required time and effort to eat wisely and exercise regularly.

4. The Choice of the Place you Reside

The place you live affects every dimension of your life, whether or not you acknowledge it. And place includes every dimension of your immediate environment – encompassing the milieu at home, to the exact location in terms of geographic co-ordinates – the latitude and longitude, to the weather, to the people living in your vicinity, to the community life, to the availability of resources, etc.

All these affect your daily routine, your lifestyle, your social networks, your productivity, your outlook on life, your opinions, your views, your judgments, your energy, your creativity, and your thoughts.

5. The Choice with respect to your Personal Finances

Your choices on the importance you give to personal finance will eventually determine the quality of your life. Beginning from how much time and effort you put into understanding personal finances, to how much financial planning you do, to how much you earn, to how much you save, to how much you invest, and most importantly to how frequently you review your finances and make the required course corrections.

6. The Choice to bear Children & how you decide to raise them

Children mark the beginning of a new phase in your life – one which changes almost every dimension of your life. And once you have children, you need to make choices in their upbringing – both minor and major. And all the choices you make for them will eventually determine how they grow and evolve! After all, children of today are the grown-ups of tomorrow. And how you nurture your children will ultimately reflect in what they make of themselves and the mark they leave in the world – and this will be part of your legacy.

7. The Choice of your Life Priorities

At some time in the journey of life, you have to be clear and decide on your life priorities and also rank them in ascending order. There’s no right or wrong here – it’s just a personal choice. It’s vital to be cognizant that for every priority you choose, there are implications – both big and small, both positive and negative, both in how they will affect your life today and several years from now.

8. The Choice of your Vocation and Organization

The vocation you choose affects many dimensions of your life – from what your daily routine is, to how happy you are, to how much you earn, to the kind of people you interact with, to the kind of impact you can make in your sphere of influence… and based on the choice of your vocation, you also make a choice on the kind of organization that you work for – be it self-employed or as an employee.

9. The Choice of how you Value Time – both Yours and Others

Time is one of the most valuable personal assets for any individual. And the respect, importance, and value you associate with your time and others’ time will reflect in how you conduct yourself, how you interact with others, and how others will respond to you. One of the direct implications of this choice is how you choose to react and respond in any given situation or circumstance in life.

10. The Choice of your Spiritual Journey

One of the most important choices you make in life is connected to your spiritual awareness, growth, and journey. And what’s significant is the significance you associate with this journey and the personal commitment you make to progress and advance in this journey.

11. The Choice of how you Value Yourself

This choice of how you value yourself can create a metamorphosis in your life. And this one single choice has the potential to change your acuity of yourself, your self-confidence, your dreams, your goals, your successes, and also the perceptions others have of you. It is one of the most noteworthy and transformational choices anyone can make in life.

12. The Choice not to Choose

Last and most importantly, the choice not to make a choice in any of the above or any other key aspect of your life is again a choice that has the potential to transform your life…

My ending words of wisdom – make your choices wisely today!

This post is dedicated to my parents. Thank You Amma & Nana for making the right choices for me & for providing unconditional support in all the life choices that I have made!