Mount Vernon High School

What's Driving Your Decisions? Hall of Fame basketball coach John Wooden is famous for a simple quote he shared on the power of our decisions. “There is a choice you make in everything you do,” he said, "so keep in mind that in the end, the choice you make, makes you.” That’s true. Our choices create our habits, and our habits form our identity. We are what we repeatedly do. That's why our decisions are so important, because our decisions determine our destiny. But that simple formula for success is hard to execute. The problem isn't usually that we don't know what to do. In almost any situation, if I asked you, “what would a champion do?” you could probably come up with a pretty good answer. The problem is that for most us, a desire to win isn't the only thing driving our decisions. It’s important to recognize what’s driving your decisions, and whether the choices you’re making each day - including here today - are moving you closer to your desired destination…or further from it. For many people, their decisions are often driven by their feelings. Feelings can of course be powerful and convincing, but feelings can also be impulsive and unreliable. For that reason, it’s important to see that if we really want to win, our feelings are not a great driver of our decisions. All too often, what we feel like doing and what winning requires us to do are not in alignment. Handing the keys over to our feelings and allowing them to drive our decisions is not an effective game plan for success. That’s why discipline is so important. Discipline is the ability to do what winning requires you to do, regardless of and maybe even in spite of how it feels. It’s the ability to put your feelings in their place so you can do what needs to be done. Do your feelings matter? Of course they do. They are an important part of your experience, and they are welcome to come along for the ride. But if you really want to win, you’ve got to be able to put your feelings in the backseat, and allow your discipline to do the driving. People driven by discipline make the difficult decisions winning requires them to make, and in doing so earn the success they say they’re after. The good news is that discipline isn't a quality that's been programmed into your DNA. It’s a skill you can cultivate and develop. Doing that important work starts with recognizing that you have perhaps given your feelings more authority than they deserve. Because your feelings and your discipline are fighting to occupy the same space - the driver’s seat of your decisions - they can't coexist. Many people have given their feelings so much power and authority that they're conditioned to immediately hand the keys over at the first inkling of their existence. So putting discipline in the driver's seat starts with a willingness to fight that initial impulse you feel - to press pause and create some intention behind what you’re choosing to do and why. By doing that - by putting your feelings in their place - you can clarify the decisions winning requires you to make, and you can more effectively do what needs to be done. John Wooden was right. The choices you make, make you. So it’s worth taking a minute today to stop and evaluate how much power and authority you've given to your feelings, and whether that strategy is moving you closer to your desired destination…or further from it. Putting your feelings in their place isn't easy, but it is important. It's the first step to developing more discipline, and using it to drive decisions that win. -Travis