Stop acting like you have an option!
Have you ever been in a situation that gives you no options? I bet you have.
How about when you have a due date in school and there was no option but to hand in your work? How about that time that you had to take medicine even if it didn’t taste so great if you wished to get better…? How about those times where you had to get up before your body felt fully rested because you had a plane to catch for vacations?
These are daily situations where we are obligated to do what we are supposed to do, with no option. Of course you always have the option to not hand in, to be sick and even get worse, or sleep in until fully rested. But are these options worth it in comparison to what is in Jeopardy?
Not every other option is an option for you
As said before, to fail your commitments (either they are to yourself or others) can be an option and frequently no one will die from you not handing your paper, you being sick, or you missing a flight.
The problem here are the effects that constant commitment failures have on you in a psychological manner, because it starts to be normal for you to become a person who doesn’t care, with a “nevermind attitude”.
On the other hand, your commitment quotient suffers, your hands-on attitude decreases, and your accountability + accomplishment personal scale pretty much goes to hell (kidding not kidding).
Too many options + unclear motivations = trouble
There is a huge root problem set of attitudes in terms of commitment:
People are constantly saying yes to things for not knowing how to say no, so eventually they do not commit, and act like it is an option. Then, having too many options affects the ability to decide or prioritize options which becomes an important problem. In a way, for people, the feeling of having options gives a sensation of calm and some weird sense of abundance, like there are spare options.
A lot of persons are not really aware of what their motivations are when it has to do with certain commitments (work, personal, self…), so there a lot of cases where people do want the money but certainly not the job to be done, so if there is a chance to get “easy money” the job becomes an option. There are endless examples, but for me it can be reduced to one idea: We don’t do what we want to do. We do what we think that pays the price for what we want.
Having no extra options makes us be more aware and careful
Imagine that you are in a shipwreck situation, how about Titanic-ish scenario? O.K., so the ship is going down and you want to save your life (motivation enough?)
Then there are wood pieces like the one Rose jumped in, there are canoes, motor boats, and they also have something like mini yatchs that even have heaters and a mini bar! What do you think most people would choose? It’s a no brainer, I think.
And people act like they always have all these options, but the problem is that they think they have them because they exist in life. The thing here is that evidence of their existence doesn’t mean they are available for them. Therefore, in many cases people let go actual opportunities because they hang on to the idea that new opportunities will come. Will they? And even more concerning, will these people continue to let them pass by with the idea of more opportunities coming around the corner?
Finally, on the Titanic scenario: Right, so Rose jumped into the wood piece and saved her life, and Jack had no option so he died. Then she loved him forever and even went back to the Titanic and released the billionaire jewelry piece, mourning forever on him. (Of course, the not having an option for him to be saved makes the whole story possible, otherwise it would have been something like How I Met Your Granny on the Titanic.) There can be a thousand logic reasons on why they didn’t even try anything else such as: they were too tired / weak / cold, they thought he wouldn’t freeze to death, they thought help would come faster, they thought they could find a boat or something nearby… Sorry-not-sorry, they thought wrong!
So, when you think there will be an option pretty much you become a dead Jack and a ever mourning Rose thinking: Was there an option? There answer is: Yes, you had the option to think and act like you didn’t have an option, figure it out at the very moment (this is why #CreativeProblemSolving as a daily-life skill matters so much), take advantage of the current opportunities you have (nevermind how big or small they are) and succeed on your challenge / vision.
