Start Your New Week With 5 Daily Choices the Smartest People Make

5 Daily Choices the Smartest People Make

Decisions, decisions, decisions. What comes first? Well, we need to simplify things into a workable plan that you can incorporate into your daily life. The strategy is to keep you from making dumb choices, right? Focus daily on these five choice areas and success will be just around the corner.

1.   Choose to stop feeling sorry for yourself.

If life threw you a fastball when you were expecting a curve, and you struck out on an important decision, stop getting up every morning (or going to bed every night) thinking, obsessing, questioning, second-guessing, and psychoanalyzing every "what if" scenario.

As you recover and heal from whatever pain was inflicted on you, having a mindset of putting "the past in the past" releases you from the chains of guilt and analysis paralysis. Face it--your mistake cannot be undone. But you can choose to learn from it and move on.

2.   Choose to surround yourself with positive people.

Want to know the instant solution to being a positive person that attracts others to you? Simple: Stop hanging around negative people. Like an unwanted disease, they will contaminate the work environment by spreading their negativity virus.

Do yourself a favor: Next time you are around your colleagues, listen to their natural dialogue. Are they seeing the glass as half empty and dwelling heavily on the worst possible outcome? Do they sound like this? If so, it is inherent of who they are at their core.

Switch tribes by being around people who are passionate, motivated, optimistic, reliable, supportive, resilient, and lift you up instead of dragging you down.

3.    Choose to take initiative.

Ultra-successful people will not sit on decisions waiting for urgency to come knocking. They take risks and create urgency with intent and purpose, driving themselves closer toward their goals or personal mission.

However, if you are in a leadership role, a fair warning: Don't confuse "drive" and "initiative" with a top-down approach of wielding your power and control full speed ahead. A controlling and impulsive leader that steamrolls ahead with his or her own agenda without soliciting feedback before deciding will only hurt the team or company.

The right approach is to take initiative with fierce resolve but coupled with humility — the "Level 5 Leader" way. You should be driven and take action to get results, but not at the expense of people. Level 5 Leaders balance personal will and commitment with the best interest of their tribe members in mind.

4.   Choose to communicate with your mouth and ears.

The best way to strengthen relationships at work is through more communication, especially with your ears. Intentionally spend time with your colleagues and boss to learn more about them--their personal lives, what they are working on, what their interests and strengths are. This takes the skillful art and science of active listening.

You do so by listening intently, with the other person's needs in mind. You listen to the other person's story, searching conversations for depth, meaning, and understanding. The upside for you? You may identify opportunities for deeper connections, business or personal pursuits aligned with mutual interests, and if you are a manager, opportunities where your employees could contribute more to other projects.

5.   Choose every opportunity to experience joy.

Ever been around people who are positive and happy all the time? For your average mood-swinger, they can be annoying as heck! But here is what you can learn from the ones that are genuinely expressing joy: They choose every opportunity to share in their happiness — quotes, funny pictures, uplifting or hilarious stories, jokes, positive books, blogs, and good news to pick us up and add color to our lives.

It is contagious and, as it turns out, what was once annoying you now understand as authenticity that is wired into them; they choose to enjoy life to the fullest.