Choices In Your Life

Posted November 7, 2019

This weekend I decided to do an hour of restorative yoga based on the encouragement from my coach, and it reminded me that it is possible to slow down in order to speed up. It also made me think about the power of choosing and that everything in your life is a choice, even if it doesn’t feel like it. It is so important to know that everything is up to you. And when you know you have a choice, you will be empowered and able to think more about what it is that you want.

Topics in this episode

The choice to not choose
Examples of when we think we don’t have a choice, but we actually do
Getting curious
Finding the choice when it feels like there isn’t one
Breaking free from our negative habits
Dealing with the feelings that result from a choice

This is the work I do with my clients to help them figure out what they want, and help them get it. If you are ready and want to do this work privately with me, I want to help. Contact me at https://michellebourquecoaching.com/work-with-me/ or email me at
contact@michellebourquecoaching.com.

Transcript

Hello hello hello
What’s going on today?
I am so happy you are here.
We turned the clocks back this weekend-
It gets soo dark now
I really love the sunshine – what about you guys?
Do you know what else happened this weekend?
I did restorative yoga for 60 minutes
You guys – that was crazy for me
If you recall – I was just talking about doing restorative for like 20 minutes and thought that was a lot
Because listen –
If you are anything like me you like to be going going going
Getting things done
And restorative is like doing nothing – in my opinion
My coach suggested I do it
And I trust her
So I tried it
And do you know what happened?
I actually felt MORE energetic that I ever would’ve expected
I was shocked
And I want to suggest it fo you
I would say just start out with a small amount if you think I’m doing crazy talk right now
Because what I found was
– it is totally possible to have slow down
In order to speed up
What?
Isn’t it also funny – at least for me – I’d be curious for you

If I was going out on an hour run
it seems more ..
Productive in my mind
But an hour is an hour so pay attention to that
Be curious about your thoughts around why one might seem more
“worthy” than the other
Ok – so that’s what I wanted to say about that –
you get to choose how to spend the hour –
try it out
And so this leads me into today’s topic
Everything in your life is a choice –
Even if it doesn’t feel like it
This was one of the very ﬁrst quotes I heard –
In fact it was on my name plate
When I went to The Life Coach School
For my coach training certiﬁcation
Everything in your life is a choice
Even if it doesn’t always feel like that
One place where I feel like I don’t have any idea of the choice is
The ice cream aisle..lol..
Have you ever been to the ice cream aisle recently?
Omg
I sometimes get stuck there for what feels like 10 minutes
have been there looking back and forth
NOt exactly sure what I might want
Can’t ﬁgure out what to choose
And sometimes I have just left

Because I can’t seem to make a choice
But you know what –
Not picking a ﬂavor is a choice
The choice to not choose –
Is a choice
Now listen this is about more than just ice cream ﬂavors
I’ve witnessed myself telling stories of not having certain choices in life –
And I see it all the time with my clients
I want to share some examples with you today
So you can get curious with yourself –
Start questioning where you might see if for you
And the reason I want you to become on to yourself
Is because you will become so much more powerful when you step into
Knowing you always have a choice
The other places I see it show up –

Times when you tell yourself you don’t want to go to that dinner meeting
Or you don’t want to go to the work function
I’m talking about when you tell yourself this
And you still go
So you are at the dinner meeting –
And you are telling yourself how much you don’t want to be there
But you do
Because you are there
Now stay with me
Because you might be like –
No – I don’t want to be there

What is the upside of thinking that?
If you really didn’t want to be there you could quit your job
You do want to be there
because at some level its how you get paid for work
Do you see what I’m saying?
When we tell ourselves we have to –
Work requires it
we don’t have a choice
It feels terrible
And you leave yourself in such victim mentality
When you own that you are choosing to keep your job
You are choosing to do what needs to be done in order to get a paycheck
It feels so much more powerful
Do you see the diﬀerence here?
Where else do you see this showing up?
Sometimes I see a similar version of this – the idea of not being in control of something – like it’s against your will
When it comes to eating and drinking
Sometimes clients will tell me things like –
I had no choice –
I had to eat the food –
everyone from work was doing it
But then my client feels terrible –
both physically and mentally
because they are now beating
themselves up over it
There is a choice in that situation
Here’s the thing

You have to choose to actually pick up the food and put it in your mouth
The other option is to not eat any of it
Which by the way –
isn’t it so crazy to think about it
But losing weight is actually easy –
you don’t put the food in your mouth
But the hard part
is dealing with all the feelings that come up when you don’t
So maybe you tell yourself you have no choice –
you have to have the food or the other people will think…
insert whatever you tell yourself
But that is a choice
You could choose to not have it
and be uncomfortable
because you are not doing what everyone else thinks you should
Why is their opinion of what you should do
more important than your opinion of what you should do?
That is the work my friend
What you think of yourself
Being able to own the choices you are making
The other place I see it –
When my clients want to cut back on wine
Again – I’ll hear things like –
It feels like I am drinking against my will
Sometimes it feels like that because it’s a habit that we’ve created
But you are the one that has to choose to get up and go pour the glass of wine
It’s very similar to the eating scenario –

it’s easier to not get up and get it –
but then you have to deal with feeling..
Maybe anxious
Or restless
Whatever it is for you –
What I encourage you to think about is how each of these situations is YOUR choice
And can I tell you the biggest one for me?
For years I used to tell myself I had no choice in what do to with my time
That work ran my life
That I had no control of my schedule
That I had to do all these diﬀerent activities
That I had to follow everyone else’s time
Oh – and That I had to do it all myself
I mean – how many times do we tell ourselves if we want something done right we have to do it ourselves
And I hung on to that story for a long time my friend
And now I have clients that tell me the same thing
I love it
Because I know its not true
I know it doesn’t serve you to continue to think that
See – we think it does in the moment
Because like I said at the start of the podcast
We like to get things done
We like to go go go
And then we feel terrible because we tell ourselves we have no time to do what we want
I want you to pay attention to that
Get curious about all of it

Why would you choose to keep telling yourself that story
You do want to work
So you can provide for your family
You do want to take on that project
Because you want to be a role model to your daughter
You do want to stay for the evening event
So you can have the time oﬀ later in the week
You do want to do it –
Because you are doing it
Telling yourself you don’t want to –
is simply not useful in ﬁnding a sense of balance in your life
When you are able to see how you make all the choices in your life
you become so much more empowered
to decide on purpose what it is you want to do
Do you see the diﬀerence?
You come from a much more powerful place
when you know you always have a choice
When you know this
you will be more likely to think about what it is you want
And start going after that from an empowered standpoint –
Not from a place where you feel stuck in your life because you have no choice in what is going on around you
Sit with that
It’s exactly what I do with my private clients –
help them see what they want – and then get it
It is so much fun
You are not a victim
You get to decide

What is it you want?
Think about that –
Don’t just let life happen to you
Choose to live your best life
You guys –
It is a privilege we have
Let’s make it matter
And listen – if you are ready and want to choose doing this work privately with me I want to help
You know for me I love the ripple eﬀect the work has on the lives of everyone around you
Just send me a message- contact@michellebourquecoaching.com –
the link will be in the notes .
Let me know you are ready
I always have a quick conversations with people to make sure it seems like a good ﬁt
so we get on a call and take it from there
Ok – that ’s what I have for you today
Let’s circle back next week
But for now – make it a great day – that for sure is your choice
take care