The waiter asks you what we want from the menu. You call the service line and if you’re lucky enough to get a human within half an hour they will ask you how they can help.
You stand slack jawed in the cereal aisle trying to decide whether it will be flakes or loops.
Consumerism is built on the appearance of choice.
What happens when we have too much?
Imagine for a moment that I put pictures of 83 different cars in front of you. Each car is available in 17 different trim packages and 163 colors. How quickly would you choose the car you wanted? At one time I did have a car that was black currant with grey leather interior. But I digress.
If your real estate agent showed you 481 different houses, how closer would you be to calling the moving van? Crown moulding is not that compelling but the Catskill green granite counter top in the bathroom is fantastic.
What About Your Career?
On the surface, a free society fights to have career path choice. It’s obvious, right?
You want to choose what do for a living – don’t you? You don’t want to feel stuck, you want a wide open menu filled with hundreds of delicious items.
Depending on the study however, most say that close to 80% are unhappy with their career path - why is that?
We can site family obligations, financial concerns, educational limitations but are those just excuses? Most of us have them; they are nice comfy memes to keep us from stepping too far out on the ledge.
Why don’t we make more choices? It’s common to feel stuck, have self-doubt or limited with your ability to move. Imagine how that looks across an organization with hundreds of people feeling the same way. It may not appear to be related to your personal or business strategic objectives but it has everything to do with them.
In the free world during tight economic times you can try the - ’cause I said so - approach for a little while but it is a highly damaging long term plan.
Your most talented stakeholders will simply leave.
Some say that there are three reasons we do anything: to make money, to make a name for ourselves or to make a difference.
What is differentiates high achievers from the rest?
It begins with their ability to answer one simply question:
What Do I Want?
@knealemann
Helping you create your best business,
marketing and social media strategy.
You can choose a ready guide in some celestial voice.
If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.
Rush - Freewill
image credits: gallup.com | corbisimages.com
