Creating better defaults

How to create healthier, intentional pillars that better support your life

Photo by Sinziana Susa on Unsplash

One of the dangers of living without intention is living our lives by default. With each decision, each response, each choice, the danger of living by default lurks.

Default:

• a preselected option adopted when no alternative is specified.

• something that is usual or standard.

• in the absence of

In the absence of intention, the default emerges.

Default in our culture looks a number of ways but none of them are rooted in living well (with health, joy, and peace). Doing what everyone in your circle does, living above your means, working every Monday through Friday in a career you don’t like, have, for many, become living by default.

By default, when you are stressed or upset you seek solace in something (or someone) that is not good for you—social media, gossip, foods or beverages that leave you feeling worse, insert your own defaults here.

I believe that we can create better defaults for our lives.

The first step in creating better defaults is recognizing our own default behavior.

What are your defaults that do not aid you or your life? Do you pick up your phone to doom scroll which leads you feeling worse than when you began, beat yourself up when something doesn’t go the way you planned, judge yourself based on how “productive” you are in a day, skip exercising if you don’t have the perfect set up or amount of time you originally hoped for, fall asleep in your clothes and get into bed late then complain when it’s time to wake up each morning, fail to proactively prepare yourself for the next day and begin each day feeling rushed and hurried?

Take some time and think about your own default behaviors and then keep a watchful eye over the next 48 hours and begin making note of your defaults.

Remember, default behavior isn’t always about the behavior being “bad¹.” Default behavior can be something that isn’t “bad” but also isn’t for your good. Read that sentence again.

Default behavior could be something that isn’t “bad” but also isn’t for your good.

The neutral things in life are sometimes just as dangerous and debilitating as the “bad.” Ever find yourself saying, “doing ____ doesn’t hurt anybody.” But does it help? Does it aid in your joy, health, or peace? Being okay with the things that prevent us from being and doing our best is often default living.

But, there’s good news! We can pre-select choices and options that work for us, not against us. We can train our brain to let go of the old defaults (because the brain is going to want to repeat what it has always done) for something better.