As we move through our life, will the places we go, the accomplishments we achieve, and the legacy we leave behind – be by our design as we made choices, or by default as we didn’t make a choice?

For example, if we have two ships tied on the opposite sides of the pier in a harbor. One we will put a captain and a crew on board with a specific objective on the other side of the ocean. The other will have no one steering the ship. Both are set in motion. One will navigate the harbor and move out into the ocean. As the days go by, the one ship will make course corrections due to wind and the waves as it steers towards its objective. In time, the ship will dock having reached its destination. The ship with no captain or crew may, or may not, get out of the harbor. If it reaches the ocean, it will be pushed by the same wind and waves as the first ship. With no one to steer this ship, at some point it will end up on a reef or crashing into some shore. This ship had no destination; it just went where other forces pushed it until it finally ran aground.

As we each look at our own life, are we more like the ship with the captain and the crew, or the one without? Do we have a design or a plan as to where we wish to go, or do we just get out of bed each day to see what life has in store for us? If you would ask my father whether he wanted chocolate or vanilla ice cream, he would say either – but that decision really didn’t matter. Yet each day of his working life, he got out of bed to take care of the animals or the crops on his farm to provide for his family – he knew where he was going.

Most of our choices are not the chocolate or vanilla type, they actually make a tremendous difference in our life, and ultimately where we end up. Even worse than making an incorrect choice is making no choice. Through our mistakes we have an opportunity to learn, and in doing so, the opportunity to "fail forward". As we apply the lessons of past choices, both good ones and poor ones, we have the ability to control the direction in which we are moving to become closer and closer to our desired destination.

At times we may encounter unplanned obstacles in our life such as death of a spouse, job loss or an accident that changes how we function. My college roommate suffered an accident after his second year that left him a paraplegic. He could have folded his cards and threw in his hand, but he didn’t. We went on to earn a drafting certificate, married his nurse, adopted a son, and owned and managed a successful sporting goods business for years from a wheelchair. The original path in his life may have changed, but he changed with it. By his design he achieved a level of success others might only dream about. He didn’t stop there; currently he is working with a job placement program assisting others.

As you are faced with choices, analyze the various choices, the alternatives they offer, the upside and downside of each choice. Call upon your past experience and determine which alternative will keep you moving towards your desired objective. Sometimes it’s good to get another perspective as that person may have knowledge or experience you don’t have, or perhaps they can be just more objective than you given the circumstances. Once you have made your choice, move forward with that choice. Avoid second-guessing the direction you are taking. Others may wish to give you advice or attempt to change your focus from the decision you have just made. Commit to your choice and give your all to making that choice work for you. As you move forward, you can do so with the understanding it was by your design and choice, and not because something or someone is pushing you to go a particular direction and you altered a decision, or refused to make a decision at all. Design or default – we all get to pick how we handle the choices we face.