By Linda Harkcom,
Certified Comprehensive Coach

Whether you believe in a higher power that guides us, that our destiny is written in the stars or that our lives our total free will without any predetermination or help one thing is for sure, how we choose to live is up to us.

Yes how we live our lives is a choice. Each and everyday we wake up it starts with a choice. “Am I going to have a good day or a bad day?” If you choose to have a bad day, guess what, you are going to have a bad day. Right now you are thinking who the heck does that? Who wakes up and says, “I’m going to have a bad day?” You would be surprised. Many people do it subconsciously. They are trapped in such a negative state that they just wake up thinking that everyday is going to be bad and eventually it becomes ingrained in their psyche to the point that it doesn’t even reach their conscious awareness anymore. They wake up expecting a bad day and that is what they get, they immediately obliterate hope for a good day because even if something good does happen they will down play it in their mind and focus on every other little thing that went wrong.

Now I’m not about to tell you that if you make this one choice first thing in the morning and you choose to have a good day that the rest of your day and everyday after will be all hearts and flowers. Because making the choice to have a good day is just the first step in the right direction. It sets your intention for the day.

So you’ve set your intention that you are going to have a good day, you get showered, dressed and head downstairs to start your day and on the way you step in a mess the cat made when dealing with a hairball. UGH! You stop to clean up the mess and then go to make coffee but it is out, you forgot to get some at the store last night. You head out the door to your first appointment and when you get in the car you realize you are almost out of gas and stopping for some is going to make you late. As you curse out loud, you think so much for my good day!

We have all had one of those mornings and here is where you power of choice comes in. You can let these three small events in the course of a half an hour ruin the next 15 hours of your day. You can brood over it for hours and recount it to each and every person you meet. At the end of the day when you look back, even though nothing else “bad” or “negative” happened, you say, “What a bad day.” You let that one half an hour dictate the other 15.

Or you can make a choice to take a deep breath, let the frustration go, center yourself and go forward in your day with optimism. Using the example above of the same day, you go on with your day with a positive attitude and at the end, you look back and overall you label it as a pretty good day. Do you see how choosing to not dwell on an imperfect morning can make the difference between a good day and a bad day? The only factor in the equation that changed was choice.

Now I’m not saying if you follow this philosophy you will have nothing but good days, but I will guarantee that if you choose to stop sweating the small stuff, choose not to dwell on what is not going right and focus on what is going right, at the end of the day, you will have had a lot more good days than bad.

Don’t believe me? Try it for a month, keep a record at the end of the day, not of what went right and what went wrong, but your over all day and if you made positive choices or negative ones when you were faced with challenges. Think in terms of percentages if over say 8 hours of your day was good, over 50%, then you had a good day. At the end of the month see how many good days you had verses bad. Try it. What do you have to loose other than a bad day. If you take up my challenge I would love to hear from you. E-mail me at Linda@successcoachingservices.com.

Linda Harkcom offers one on one coaching, in person or via phone. She is also available for speaking engaements and offers private classes for groups of 5 or more. To register for a class or for more information please call 724-433-0444 or e-mail her at Linda@successcoachingservices.com.

Linda Harkcom is a Certified Comprehensive Coach and she is also a Certified Personal Coach Trainer, one of only 10 people in the world with this certification. She is a success coach who works with women and men seeking to bring balance, direction, and success into their lives. Linda has almost 30 years of marketing and public relations experience and has run her own marketing company, The Hark.com Marketing Company, for the past 20 years. She has combined her expertise in business, motherhood and marriage with specialized training from the Coach Institute to offer individual and group coaching sessions in which clients learn how to unlock their own possibilities and live a successful and balanced life. To schedule a free Conditional Consultation or to suggest a topic you would like Linda to write about contact her at 724-433-0444 or e-mail her at Linda@SuccessCoachingServices.com

What is Life Coaching?
Professional Life coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients activate the possibilities in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives by helping the client change success inhibiting beliefs, patterns, actions, etc. into ones that will make a positive change in their life.