The choices we make in business lead to alternative results. Stopping ourselves in our tracks of bad habits and installing new ones can be the result to losing or winning the game.
It’s exam time in the Hemming household, and I’ve been having some interesting coaching conversations with my 12 year old about choices. Weeknights are invariably busy with clubs, guitar lessons and the like, and when the weekend arrives, after the trauma of a hard week at school, the lure of the X Box is almost too much to resist! This means that exam revision is neither appealing nor high on his to do list, as of course he needs to “chill out”. This got me thinking about this weeks business tips.
So we’ve had a conversation about discipline, and choices. I’ve set it up with him to think about it in these terms:
The choices we make today affect the outcome we want to achieve…but probably not today. What I mean by that is, that it can sometimes be easier to choose a Mars bar a day instead of an apple – it can be more pleasurable. But if we choose the Mars bar consistently, then chances are that at some point in the future, we’ll regret the choices we’ve made.
Conversely, the apple a day option might be less pleasurable, but will have more positive consequences in the long term. After all, it’s “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”, not “a Mars bar a day…”
So we’ve labelled the exam revision the apple, and the other choices the Mars bar. For the first week or so, I simply asked him if he’d chosen the apple or the Mars bar today. Since then, I’ve not had to – every night, and at the weekend, he’s tucked himself away in his room and revised – and chosen the apple.
I’m proud of him for that. But it made me think how easy it is to choose the Mars bar option, not realising, or being in denial about the consequences that will manifest at some point in the future.
Where do you need to make the choice to take an apple a day instead of a Mars bar in your life and business?
