Rule 7 for Flourishing: Control Your Decisions Rather than your Wishes

I’ve been a chef and a stockbroker, a non-profit director, and a bank vice president.  I am now a teacher and a writer.  For as long as I made decisions because I wished to please someone else, or wished to make more money, or wished to have more control, I was happy or satisfied in my life and career for as long as it took for me to realize that whoever I wished to please didn’t really care about my “gift” to them.

About 9 months ago I went through a program called Living Your Vision with wonderful facilitator and friend Eydie Watts.  In the course of a weekend with six wonderful colleagues, I realized that I was driving myself to insanity with too many commitments.  Each of my commitments was to or with someone or something I deeply cared about.  Yet I could not give my full energy and time to any of these because there were just too many of them.  I had two full-time jobs having upped my hours in one and accepted a core faculty position in the other.  I had two board positions in addition to these paid jobs.  And, I hesitate to say it, but I am no spring chicken.  I am in the wisdom years of my life acting like I’m building a career!

Thanks in large part to this program, I decided to make better decisions for myself.  What did I most want to do?  Who did I most want to be at this stage of my life?  Who is most important to me and how would these people know they are important to me?  On the basis of these questions, I shed one job and the two board positions.

I feel so much more peaceful.  I feel like I can give my full attention to both the work and the people who are important to me.  Oh, occasionally I wish I saw more of my colleagues at my other job.  But that is a wish and I know that if I decided to return to that job, all of the balance and joy I feel now would be diminished.