Avocados are in season and plentiful at the moment and I love, love, love them mashed up, spread on toast and sprinkled with a little salt.
I also love plopping their big seeds in water and watching them germinate. I have a few growing in pots at the moment and look forward to planting them in deeper soil so that they can grow into the big, luscious and fruitful trees that they are meant to be.
I hope to plant them in a location that gives them the very best conditions under which they can grow. But what if I don’t have access to ‘the perfect’ location? Sure, the plants may grow, but maybe the less-than-perfect conditions will mean that the trees won’t be able to grow into their best versions.
The thing is, a tree will be stuck where I plant it. It will do it’s best, but it may not be able to grow into its full potential.
In some ways, we are like trees. Sometimes, where we are planted doesn’t provide the perfect conditions for us to grow into our potential. The difference between us and a tree however, is that we don’t have to stay where we are planted.
As human beings, we have choices. We can move. We can change friends. We can leave relationships. We can change jobs. We can change the decisions we make out of habit every day. We can change our priorities.
So many people say “I can’t…”, but those words are a cop-out and a very convenient way to step away from owning the results they experience in life and handing that power over to their circumstances.
It’s far more convenient to blame something or someone else when things aren’t going the way we want them to, isn’t it? If you have someone to blame, it lets you off the hook for taking action and creating different results.
But choosing to allow circumstances to define your results is still a choice, and that choice will always have consequences.
It comes down to this: It isn’t a matter of “can’t”; What you really mean is “I’m not willing to…”
“I can’t change jobs”. You can. You are making a decision about your willingness to change jobs. That’s a choice.
“I can’t exercise.” You can. You are just not willing to. That’s a choice.
“I can’t leave my partner.” Well, you can. You just aren’t willing to do what you need to do to separate. That’s a choice.
Whatever the situation, that choice is yours.
And don’t be fooled. What seems to be a slight change in wording creates a big shift in power. The power of circumstance versus the power of ownership.
“I’m not willing…” puts you in the driver’s seat. It puts you in a powerful position where you own the decision and you own the results of that decision because remember, every decision has a consequence.
Some of the things we make choices on are small, seemingly insignificant. Other things – well, they are the big-ticket items that will have a profound impact on our lives. They are really big decisions, really big choices. But they ARE choices.
Just because you have found yourself planted somewhere you aren’t happy, you don’t have to stay there.
“If you don’t like where you are in life, move. You aren’t a tree”. ~ Jim Rohn
