2007-12-27 11:47 PM

Path of Least Resistance

How have you gotten to where you are now? Did you make conscious decisions about every action you’ve ever taken? Or have you allowed circumstances to carry you hither and yon?

I would venture to guess that a large number of your choices were made by taking the “path of least resistance” and like water you are finding yourself in the marshy areas of life.

Examine for a moment a small habit. Pick one, any one.

Under what circumstances did you develop that habit? Or to ask the same question in a different way: when was this behavior useful to you? Is that behavior still useful to you? Is it useful every place you apply it now? Where are you not applying it now that it might be useful again?

After answering those questions you are likely to have some changes in mind. Now is the time to put the path of least resistance to work for you instead of against you. Like a child with a pile of pebbles we can redirect the stream of life onto the path we would prefer.

The “secret” is to make the behaviors you no longer want more difficult and the behaviors you want to replace them with less difficult. Artificial constraints, forcing functions, and necessary conditions are a few of the “pebbles” we can use to redirect our lives. Are you using them?
Where are you settling for “come what may”?
What would be an ideal outcome in those situations?
How will you make that outcome more likely and the status quo less likely?

Posted by Wayne Buckhanan No Comments »

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