Writing my newsletter, I include choosing to choose as one aspect of demonstrating resilience in hard times:

Choosing the way we view the current recession is just one aspect of choosing to choose. Whilst some people look outside of themselves for change – looking to other people to make changes or for a change in circumstances – others focus on the choices they can make themselves.

Psychologist Julian B. Rotter coined the now familiar term internal locus of control to describe the way some people make choices. He noticed that those people who have an internal locus of control believe that events result primarily from their own actions and behaviour. They tend to develop a better mastery of their own behaviour and to assume their efforts will be successful. Rotter also noted that people with a high internal locus of control are more likely than others to seek information and knowledge about their situation and to engage in political behaviour.

In the world of coaching, choosing to choose has become known as being at choice or even being at cause. Over time, the habit of choosing to choose is like building a muscle. Whilst some people are unaware of the extent to which their life is determined by their own choices, Carl knows that life is the sum of all his choices: the more he builds the muscle of choosing to choose, the more he becomes “match fit” and ready to thrive no matter what.

What if you want to test the extent to which you are choosing to choose? What if you want to build your choosing to choose muscle? I offer the following exercise, which I have adapted from an exercise Marshall Rosenberg shares in his CD set Nonviolent Communication: Create Your Life, Your Relationships and Your World in Harmony With Your Values. It has four simple steps:

• Step 1: Write a list of all the things you do because you believe you have to. Keep writing for as long as it takes to identify everything you do from a sense of obligation or duty;
• Step 2: Replace the language “I have to” with “I choose to” at the beginning of every sentence. To do this may stimulate some discomfort in you! At the same time, if you want to choose to choose, this step will help you to recognise that you are already choosing;
• Step 3: Take time to review this list, asking yourself what needs of yours you are meeting by choosing to do those things that are on your list. You can expect different actions to meet different needs. At the same time, you may find patterns that are worth noticing;
• Step 4: For each action on your list, make a new choice that fully meets your needs. In some cases, this may be a case of choosing the same action from a renewed sense of your reason for doing it. In these cases, you can expect to feel better about taking your chosen action because you understand how it meets your needs. In some cases, you may decide not to do something you were doing because it doesn’t meet your needs. In this case you can feel better about making a choice that works for you – though you may have to accept that other people may not enjoy your choices.

Owning our choices presents all sorts of challenges. Sometimes, it’s easier to assign responsibility for our actions to another person, to “duty” or to some impersonal force rather than to own them as our own. Equally, you can be sure that choosing not to do some of the things you currently do because you “have to” will have profound implications for you.

What did you learn from doing this exercise? I’d love to see some examples of your new choices here on the blog. If you’d like to contribute, please post your comments here where other readers can benefit from them.