Belief-Based Choosing vs. Historical Deciding

This article describes the differences between deciding and choosing which will allow one to gain a new perspective about beliefs. We also delve into the foundational concepts behind the development of our Beliefs and Choices Methodology (BCM).

(Note) This was originally published at Benninghofen Company on June 29, 2016.

Background

We argue that believe-based choosing vs. historical deciding is easy to understand because most people make decisions instead of making choices. While this may seem absurd to you, it is anything but. We further this argument by defining decisions based in the past, while choices are based in the present.

Choosing can be complex - it doesn't have to be…

We wish to have people make choices instead of decisions, believing wholeheartedly this interesting distinction as a concrete way to impact the lives of everyone.

Background

We believe that our lives are made up of all the selections we have made to date.

To continue that thought, we contend the life that you lead is consistent with all the decisions you have made: all that you are, all that you have, and all that exists inside your world occurred because of your selections. You have made tens to hundreds of thousands of them. Your life, as you know it may be high or not so pretty either, but it is just what you decided was necessary.

Decisions

Since we are defining a decision based in the past, we will give you some ideas to support this contention. We firmly believe that decisions are a result of accepting some experiences as true or real – they may or may not be, but our perception tells us so. We took on decisions from someone we trusted, something that we experienced ourselves, and also thought that the experiences would guide us in the right direction.

A simple example of a decision could be using the criteria of fear, least cost, the best value, most effective, pro and con based, family-tested, or you can pull from your historical trove of such ideas to broaden these examples. Typically, these decisions are based in repetition, which has become rote and probably has served us pretty well. Unfortunately, we make selections in this manner most often, and they don’t always prove useful. Just look at your current career, your job, the city in which you live, your partner, etc. as evidence of the success of your decisions. Yes, No, Maybe?

Choices

Choices are exercised in the present but with one significant difference: the choices must be connected to a belief to be effective. The distinction is that once a belief is defined, it must also have a related outcome or result associated with the belief. In essence, the outcome must always be measurable in some way. Each belief can have multiple choices, but the choices have associated actions with producing the outcome. Specific paired coices and actions produce the desired results.

We call these evidence-based beliefs/choices results in manifested faith.

Foundation Beliefs

We were raised with foundation beliefs, mostly given by our families, friends, church, and from others we respected. We operate from these beliefs, but we have a hard time telling whether we are making decisions or choices: most of us don’t make the distinction. The distinction occurs because we don’t usually measure a belief’s outcome, even though they exist for us. Most of the time, we don’t realize the belief has an associated outcome. Take as an example, your favorite sports figure. In essence, we suggest the person has reached that pinnacle of success because they had great discipline through practicing, worked hard to get where they are, and believed in themselves and those traditional ideas (i.e.beliefs). Maybe they even set outcomes in their practice to hit a thousand balls in two days or shoot five hundred free throws daily. Do you see the connection between belief, choice, and measure?

For most of us, we don’t make the connection.

A Choice Movement

Disconnection is why we created Choice Awareness Management: to teach people how to do this for themselves and then pass it along to everyone. While we perceive Choice Awareness Management as a brand, we also perceive this as an educational movement where people can live their lives inside their beliefs and gain what they aspire.

Why pair Choice and Awareness?

The most important reason that we can think of relates to gaining a deeper and broader perspective of how you make choices. We believe that once you start down this pathway, you will ride a wave of understanding that you otherwise would not have perceived.

Insights

The delivery of awareness comes in a couple of ways: 1) by measuring the outcome you gain insights about your choices and paired actions; and 2) manifested faith comes present when your outcomes exceed a 9.0 on a 0 to 10 scale. This awareness allows you to focus attention on the choices and paired actions you defined for our belief. Actually, you may also have defined the belief in such a way that the outcome is not possible. These circumstances will have you inspect what works and what doesn’t.

We’re not talking about the belief that the world is flat or round: it was proved a long time ago. We are speaking of beliefs that you use to guide your life.

An Example
Let’s assume that we have defined a belief of motivation and further set an outcome of inspiration.

We also say that motivation is working for us when we measure inspiration at 9.0 or better. In this example, motivation will be driven by the attainment of inspiration – see our blog, which goes into a deeper description of this belief.

An Idea Worthy of Consideration

This particular article is intended to have one ponder why beliefs play such an essential role in our lives. It is a starting point for you to begin thinking about your current views and how they serve you or not. We believe that you can do better.