Mindset Monday - The Power of Choice

This is episode 251 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome. Welcome to Mindset Monday. Today I'm bringing you a topic that will affect every part of your life.

Every day and many, many, many times a day.

And this topic today is called the Power of Choice. And I bring this to you because I found it to be so profound for my clients and the businesses that I work with, as well as in my life, personally and in business. So the power of choice. So as a definition, choice is an act of selecting or making a decision when faced with two or more possibilities. And I find this really interesting because the amount of possibilities that we have in front of us makes a big difference. And there's research behind this as well. And anyone who's in sales knows this because they don't offer a customer more than just a small number of options. And I'll tell you some of the reasons why. But before we do this, I'm going to share with you a little bit about choice when it comes to children. And the reason that I am is because sometimes, if we can treat ourselves this way, we can get a lot of success when it comes to our decisions and outcomes that we want to have happen. So here's what happens as kids. If we give children, young children choice, here's what happens in psychology research. What it does for children is it builds respect, it strengthens the community that those children are in, it invites cooperation, it develops problem solving skills, and it capitalizes on this child's need, this normal human need for the child for power and control. So this is really interesting. And the reason I point this out for children is because I want to remind all of us that this is where we came from. This is naturally part of us. This is what we always have wanted. From the time we've become aware of desiring something, we want to be able to have it and we want to be able to choose. And we want the decision making power. So when we deal with children, we don't want to overwhelm them. We want to give young children the choice between two things. We only want to give them two things. We also want to be consistent. We don't want to give that choice one day in that one circumstance and then take it away the next day. We also want to create rituals around choices. So for instance, every Friday they get to pick between these two movies or we also want to ask them to help fix things. So can I put you in charge of this or this? It would really help me out. And they love that. And then we also at the most important part of this process is to thank and reinforce and acknowledge them. Now, this podcast is not a parenting podcast. This is a podcast about self mastery for leaders. And the reason I bring this back to Choice for Children first is that sometimes we need to break it down to its simplest form and treat it this way for ourselves, for our businesses, and for the choices that we have in our life. So here's what happens in the real world. If I have a client or a business that I'm working with, they are inundated with so many things that the problem is not having a choice or not. The problem is that there are so many choices that there's overwhelm. They're in a state of having too much to do, too much coming at them, and there's simply so much overwhelm. And this is where the power of choice comes in, in a way that's very impactful. Because the very thing that we desire as humans, the ability to have a lot of choices, becomes the very thing that paralyzes us. It's an illusion. We believe that if we have a lot of choice, then we have a lot of abundance, things will be better, things will be great. And then when we have it, what we have instead is overwhelm. We have paralysis by analysis. We are stuck. We can't make a decision. So what this looks like, this paradox of choice is an observation of having many options to choose from. And rather than making people happy and ensuring they get what they want, it can cause them stress and problematized decision making. That's the definition of the paradox of choice. It's an observation that having many options to choose from, and rather than making people happy and ensuring they get what they want, it can cause them stress and problematize decision making. So what's happening here is that we want to have all the choices, yet that simply leads to overwhelm. And not making any choice at all or making the choice becomes a real challenge and a process that's longer than we want because we have so many choices. So take the example of ice cream. If we went to an ice cream shop and they only had one ice cream or two ice creams, we'd be disappointed because we'd want so many flavors to choose from. Now, some of us might have favorite ice creams. We know we're only getting that certain one and we don't care about any of the other ones. That's me. But most of us want to go to an ice cream shop that has multiple choices. But here's what the research shows when people are presented. This was one study done where they took jams in a grocery store. So jars of jam. And when there were 24 jars of jam in the grocery store versus six jars of jam, meaning different flavors of jam in each jar, the 24 jars of jam had people overwhelmed with choice. The six jars of jam had people. 30%. 30% of those people purchased jam, whereas only 3% of the people with the 24 choices purchased jam. So this is a situation where people can take action when they've got fewer choices versus feeling overwhelmed and then not making any choice at all and walking away with only 3% of the people making a purchase when there were 24 options. So this is what we have in our lives. We're in a situation that we complain when we have too many options. We hate not having any options. Yet we miss the power to choose that we always have. We always have the power to choose. We always have the power of choice. And yet sometimes we can't see that we still have the power to choose. I have a client who was faced with all kinds of challenges. A challenge of losing multiple employees, a challenge of then hiring, then a challenge of a lawsuit against the company, and some financial challenges along with that, with still a year of more sales than they'd ever had. And I was so profoundly impressed by this client who would say to me, I am so lucky to have the problems that I have. Consider this. I am so lucky to have the problems that I have. So that particular thought was a choice. That thought, despite losing employees, despite having a lawsuit and financial problems, despite the navigation of all the new problems that bringing in more revenue brought, they still chose to think, I am so lucky to have the problems that I have. So we as humans, we get caught up in feeling like if something's taken away from us, then we have no choice and we don't like it. We want that thing back with us, whether we are choosing to give up alcohol, whether we are choosing to go to the gym and exercise. The thing that is so profound is that even in situations where we feel like our options have been removed, even in desperate situations where there's been maybe family challenge or death or an illness, even in those scenarios, we still have so much choice. We can choose exactly what to think. We can choose exactly what we want to believe. That's within our Power of choice. And that's the choice that we forget about. That's the choice that's usually left under the rug, on the table. And we're looking at all the other things. We're not seeing the thing right in front of us, or we've swept it under the rug and just don't think it's even an option. But it is the choice to think a certain way is a powerful, powerful choice. And it's the thing that takes us to a state that serves us. So consider the person who's got all these problems in their business, and yet they choose to think, I'm so lucky to have the problems that I have. And I've been faced with many a client and many a situation where there are people who are so fortunate in the world. They might have a business, they might have a home in the mountains and a home on the lake and a plane and an island and a. They might have all these things in their life. They might have the most wonderful family. And yet they will still have the problems and still choose to focus on those problems more than focusing on some of the incredible blessings that they have in their lives. And that's who we are as humans. This is what we tend to do. We tend to overlook that we have a choice to minimize some problems and to emphasize what we would rather focus on. And sometimes it's simply a habit. So this message is here simply to remind all of us, myself included, to remind us that we have choice. This is why, in the most bizarre scenarios, I remind myself how fortunate I am to have my health, how fortunate I am to have the ability to choose to do something like go to the gym. I get to go to the gym. I get to choose to do that. Nobody's making me. I don't need to. Nobody has to do anything. If I choose to make a business decision that's going to cost me a lot of money, I get to make that choice. I get to put that money towards that direction. That's the choice I get to make. If I choose to give up sugar, I think the first time I ever did that, I felt so deprived, and this was so awful. How was I going to make it through it? And now, twice a year, for a whole month, each time I give up sugar. And it's my choice. And I love that choice because I love how it makes me feel by the end of it. And there are certain things that come with that choice that I really don't enjoy, but I chose that, so I take responsibility for it. And I'm like, ah, this was my choice and it's so worth it. And when I choose those thoughts and when I choose that responsibility, it makes it easy, so much easier than when I used to choose to believe how hard it was. I used to choose to think that I didn't know if I'd get through it. I used to choose to focus on how challenging it really was. So we get to decide. And that's the power of choice. And the thing that we tend to forget is we get to choose what we can think, we get to choose what to believe. Choice is power. We know from the time that we have the awareness to even desire something, that toddler, that child, we know that we want to choose. It's within us as humans. Yet we forget that every moment that we have is a choice. Every moment we have, we get to decide what to think about that moment. We get to decide what to notice, we get to decide what to focus on. We have so much choice. So I invite you to create your life based on choosing what to think, what to focus on, and then what to actually decide and take action on. There's a quote by Tony Robbins that I really enjoy. It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. It is in your moments of decision that your destiny is shaped. So I invite you in those times that you think you have so much overwhelm that you can't make a choice, you really can. And it starts with focusing on having this wonderful ability to make a choice. And I invite you in those times where you feel like you have absolutely no choice and you are so limited and there's so little available to you that you actually have the power of choosing how to think about that situation that you don't have to believe that you're limited. So on this Monday, step into it, step into your week, make your choices, your power and go out there and be your best. Have a wonderful day everyone. And if it suits you and your choices, then please leave us a rating and review of we would love a five star rating on itunes and we're on Spotify too. So please share it with your friends and have a wonderful rest of your week. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered.

Team podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching.

And accountability program where we provide the.

Tools, skills and connections community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered team group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.ca.empowered. learn more. That's www.thempowered.ca empowered. Learn more. We can't wait for you to join us.

Let's go.