30 Days of Choice - 10 Years On

This was a challenging activity during My Year of TED - it proved to be a bit confronting to reflect on as well. The activity on Choice was based on three TED Talks by Barry Schwartz (again), Alain de Botton and Sheena Iyengar - links to their talks are included in activity outline. It was really Barry and Alain’s talks that formed the basis of the activity and the more difficult realisations.

How has this evolved

This activity hit me pretty hard at the time - it’s a bit shocking to realise how passive you have been in the major decisions of your life! I’ve reflected on that pretty significantly at the time, so I won’t repeat it here. It was also interesting digging into my statements of success and realising some of the less helpful ideas I was holding that really were not mine.

Since the activity, I had a wonderful chat with Barry Schwartz back in 2014 that was mainly focused on choices and what I got from his talk for the activity. I included some of that in a post at the time. I have also read his book, The Paradox of Choice, to gain greater understanding about all this.

Overall, this is one of the activities that had a lasting impact on how I function in the world. It fundamentally changed how I viewed decision making and helped me become a lot kinder to myself about my career and the things I want to achieve. Of course, I still envy people sometimes and I still let some decisions pass by me. But this was content that was absorbed into who I am and how I approach my life now. So, my reflection isn’t surprising at all, but it is a good reminder that I haven’t updated my success statements in a while.