Most of us are prepared to give much thought to what we consider to be life's major decisions. We think long and hard before we choose a life mate, buy a home, buy a car, make financial investments, etc. as well we should.

The question, however, is what actually constitutes a major decision? Often the seemingly minor decisions we make on the spur of the moment, can be life changing. In most cases little thought is given to what we think of as the day to day decisions simply because they're considered to be unimportant. In fact, many of these decisions not only receive little thought; they receive no thought at all. What we're actually doing is deciding by rote. There are so many things that we do without thinking, without having to even consider how it's done and that can, in many instances mean trouble.

Hey, let's stop for a drink after work. Let's eat out tonight. Look at this great vacation package that just came in on the FAX. I'll buy two so I have one on hand. I won't stop for gas here; the station a few miles down the road has cleaner restrooms. I can begin to save money next year when I'm making more. I'll buy a new car now, while they're still on sale, even though I don't really need a new one. While all these things may seem of moderate importance, they have the capacity to trigger monumental results.

Whether to have a salad or a super-duper burger with everything on it can, for many reasons, have far-reaching consequences. That decision could result in the "Super-Duper Burger Habit" and that habit could add weight that you don't really want. If the S-DB happens to be the typical high-fat, minimal nutrition burger, it could impact negatively on your health.

Maybe there wouldn't be a major consequence but what happens six months or a year from now. After six or twelve months of burgers you aren't feeling too well so you go to the doctor and given the vague symptoms you describe, the doc writes a prescription for you which you have filled immediately and begin popping those little pills in the hope that they will cure whatever is wrong with you.

After taking the prescription (and still eating S-DBs for lunch each day you begin to feel worse so back to the doctor you go. The doc can see that you are worse and adds another prescription which you take religiously in the hope of a cure. This same scenario plays itself out over and over again and soon you're taking six or eight different prescriptions and becoming worse and worse. How many more prescriptions will you take?

The same sort of thing plays itself out over and over again in every area of our lives. You make a spur of the moment decision to buy a new suit. Surely you need new shoes to go with the suit and a new shirt and of course a tie…etc. etc. etc. If you're a woman it's even worse. Once you have the new suit you also need new shoes and a bag, new jewelry, and you get so many compliments on the new outfit that you need to get a few more. As great as you look, you surely need to treat yourself to a regular manicure and a new hair style would be nice, etc., etc., etc.

Next thing you know you're spending an inordinate amount of money on the wardrobe and maybe even going out more (spending more and more money on entertainment) maybe even engaging in more social drinking that usual. Then to use a sentence I use all too often, "The worse it get, the worse it gets."

I'm not going to bore you (and me) by laying out every possible scenario, but suffice it to say that making any decision without giving it even a few moments of thought and considering where that decision will take you is dangerous.

Is all this to suggest that you spend every waking moment thinking and re-thinking everything you do? Absolutely not! It is said that character is deciding in advance what you will do in any given situation. It means that you've thought these things through, made a decision on where you stand on the issue and you will stand by that decision no matter what.

It's all about taking personal responsibility for ourselves. When we're willing to do that, the result is a set of rules we have for ourselves, a set of rules that determine what we will do in any given situation. It's in our moments of decision that our future is determined and since we only have one life here on planet Earth (that we are sure of) why would we do anything other that make it the absolute best it can be? With that said, let me hasten to assure you that how "best" your life can be is entirely up to you.

We are the masters of our fate and can be and do anything we aspire to be and do. The key, however, to a truly successful life, be it personal or business, is personal responsibility which means that you decide now who and what you choose to be and do. Then when faced with making a decision you need only to go inside your mind and recall the decisions that have already been made.

It's important to realize that there is a tendency to make all decisions based on the thinking of others. While I have no doubt that you believe you're making you decisions completely on your own, you probably are not. First of all the average person makes many of his or her decisions after considering how that decision will look to others. You may ask yourself whether you should buy the basic model of this car or go for broke and get the top-of-the-line model… and order all the extras. Think how impressed the friends and neighbors will be if you best all of their cars. Think also about how you may have to live on macaroni and cheese, or worse, for about 4 - 6 years to pay for it.

While friends and neighbor's opinions do weigh heavily in our decision making process, there is another seriously overlooked factor in our decision making. As much as we don't want to admit it, we are thinking as our parents and/or caregivers do. If you'll stop screaming at the mere thought of that for just a few minutes, I'll explain. While there seems to be a built-in drive to NOT think as our parents did while we were growing up, from the time of our birth (maybe even before) everything we learned came from our parents. Sure, we rejected the ideas that got in our way. As kids we told ourselves that when we grew up and were on our own we'd never eat vegetables again, we'd have ice cream for breakfast, lunch and dinner, we'd stay up as late as we wanted to, we'd watch all the TV programs our parents won't let us watch. Those are the things that were important to us as children.

What rarely enters our thoughts, however, are all the things we learn from our parents to which we pay little or no attention. I call it "Original Faulty Programming." This isn't to make our parents wrong or bad. They, after all, received their "Original Faulty Programming" from their parents and they from their parents and on it goes, back in history. While each new generation has the potential to take from their parents all the forward thinking and potentially uplifting programming, it seems that it is difficult to, as children (during the years of serious programming), sort out what to take with us into adulthood or leave with our parents.

Example: As I write these words, millions of people across America are loosing their homes to foreclosure; you may even be one of them. Given that for most people our homes are the greatest investment we have, loosing them can be devastating. (It doesn't have to be and we'll deal with that in an upcoming later.) Anyway, those loosing their homes now will impart different things to their children, whether verbally or through their actions. It's possible that the children of people in this situation will lean to NEVER buy a home. As a result, we may wind up with a whole generation of renters. Those going through foreclosure will impart many other things to their children that will seriously impact their thinking.

We are NOT our parents and their reaction to their lives need NOT
color or even tint our approach to our lives as adults.
It's vitally important that we rethink our values and what we believe and in so doing assure ourselves that we are making our own decisions based on our lives. We need to be sure our decisions today serve our goals and aspirations rather than being merely a reaction to our "Original Faulty Programming" and our failure to break free of it and create for ourselves the life of our dreams…a life we truly want and love.

You were born for greatness and to contribute significantly to the planet on which you live. Just as the tiny acorn has within it a might oak, so have you within you the seeds of greatness. It is your job to nurture those seeds and become all you were intended to be.