We all make choices every day. In fact, one way to look at your life is to consider it as the sum total of all the choices you have made. It is easy to think about that in the big picture, think for example, about these choices:

-Whether to finish High School (or not) -Whether to go to college (or not) -Where to go to college -What job(s) to take -Who to date/marry -Where to live -Whether or when to have children

Certainly these are the "big choices" and the ones that anyone would say have an impact on who you are at a given point in your life. However, while these are important questions, I do not believe they are the most important ones we make. I believe the most important choices are the ones we make every day – in many cases subconsciously. There are two reasons why the daily decisions are more important:

Because you will keep making them. The big choices listed above have been made in the past. Yes, you can choose to go back to school, have children, etc. But for the most part, those decisions are a part of your past and cannot be altered from the past perspective. But there are thousands of decisions you will keep making every minute of every day of your life. Because you’ve made so many of them. The sheer volume of these decisions makes them important. If you buy my idea that daily decisions are important, then which of them are among the most important? Here are five I believe will have a tremendous impact on your future – meaning that your choice will impact your future results. This isn’t a complete list, and after reading these I am sure you will think of others that are especially important to you (I hope you will share those with me!). Here are my five important choices to get you started:

Listen more, talk less. Listening allows you to learn. Listening allows you to build relationships. And choosing to listen (rather than talk or do something else while someone is talking) is a choice we all make all day long. Need I say more?

Expect better (of yourself and others). Think about it, you tend to get what you expect – in terms of results, responses, and the performance of others. Expectations typically are based on experience, but all of that experience is in the past. In reality your expectations are a choice. If I told you that you could make a choice that would consistently improve your results, even if you "did" nothing more, would you be interested? Your expectations are exactly that. Choose to expect more, and more often than not you will welcome more in your life.

Trust others more. This could be considered a part of the last bullet point, but it is so important I’m separating it. If you want more trust in your life (at work, at home, anywhere), then choose to be more trusting. You can make this choice with every person you meet. Might that be a risk? Sure, but by making this decision a conscious one, you are improving the likelihood that you will have more trust and more trusting relationships in your life.

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