My husband, Patrick, is a Marvel/DC movie fanatic. I don’t think there’s a superhero movie released in the last 25 years he hasn’t seen. This means there aren’t many I haven’t seen either, what with my intention to be a supportive spouse. It’s certainly fun to entertain the idea of being invisible, or able to fly, or having the power of mind control, etc.
Yet even though none of us are superheroes in that respect, we all do indeed possess a superpower, perhaps the most powerful, yet underestimated and underutilized of them all.
Consider this. You use your superpower, often unconsciously, up to 35,000 times a day, almost 300 times when deciding food and drink alone…
Do I want coffee this morning? Black, cream, sugar? How much sugar? One cup? Two? What do I want for breakfast? Eggs? How many? Scrambled or over-easy? Salt and pepper on my eggs? How much? Toast with that? White or wheat? Butter? Jam?
You get the idea. In that brief example, over 20 decisions were made, likely in the course of several seconds, and likely without much thought at all. It’s an example of the habits we have that we don’t even think about.
Speaking of habits, it’s been estimated that we spend up to 95% of our day in habitual behavior, going through the motions on autopilot. Given that staggering statistic, imagine how many subconscious choices we are making without intent…choices that impact our results in ways that don’t serve us, choices that keep us stuck in a life lived by default, not design.
Yet they are choices, and choices have consequences, however unintended.
CHOICE is your SuperPower!®
Why choice?
Allow me to share a brief, powerful, but entirely true story. During World War II, there was a man named Viktor Frankl who was a highly respected psychiatrist in his native Austria before he was captured and taken to the Auschwitz prison camp. There he was subjected to repeated torture, taunting, and other unspeakable inhumane acts. Yet it was in this unimaginable circumstance that Frankl came to the awareness that, regardless of what the Nazis did to him physically, they could never control of his mind, his thoughts, his mindset. It was from this horror that he eventually made a decision resulting in his famous quote:
“In between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Most of us will never experience anything as nightmarish as what Frankl endured, yet we continually give up the gift of intentional choice as we go mindlessly about our existence day after day, subconsciously caught up in the habits of our life that keep us stuck.
Let’s go back to the Frankl quote. The genius is in his description of the space between stimulus and response…
The stimulus is anything happening in your awareness- something happening TO you or FROM you, including negative thoughts and opinions from others, and even more insidious, negative thoughts and opinions that surface from your beliefs.
When you become aware of the stimulus, and before you respond, stop, and savor that space. That space is objective, non-judgmental, observational. Be aware of that space, because this is where the application of your superpower becomes life changing.
“In between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our power to choose our response.”
CHOICE lies in that sacred space. You can be aware of the space, yet still make a poor decision. It’s the decisions you make that determine your outcome, and the consequences of those decisions follow.
So, while you are in the space where you have the power to choose your response, consider the following questions:
- What is my best option here?
- What choice serves me?
- What choice best serves other people?
- What choice moves me forward?
- What are the consequences if I react vs. respond?
- When I’ve made this same choice in the past, what was the result?
- What would my best self do here?
- If I think about where I’d like to be a year from now, five years from now, etc., what would that version of me do in this moment?
Choosing your response with intention vs. habit is a simple concept, yet a challenging discipline to develop, especially when emotions are in play. Practice being aware of the space between what happens to you and your response to it. Learn to pause when something is happening or has happened to you. Pause and leverage that objective space where you can exercise your superpower before you respond or react.
As you put this exercise into consistent practice, you’ll be amazed at how your life begins to transform.
I guarantee it.
