Recently I went to run after two weeks of being off. My right knee reminded me of the consequences of taking off one week let alone two. I’ve been a little off my exercise schedule since my daughter left for college. She and I had spent the summer working out together and now without her my workouts were boring and unexciting. I knew not working out wasn’t the best approach and since the weather was a nice 80 degrees in the Metro ATL area, I decided to take a break from my desk, put on my sneakers and hit the trail.

My daughter and I have a few running trails we picked out. Our choice in trails depend on our time allotment and how much pain we had already inflicted on each other. Today, I decided to run a course that incorporated all three of our trails together. As I ran and walked, I realized I had come to a fork in the road. Literally and figuratively a fork in the road. Whichever path I took I would end up at the same spot, but depending on the path chosen would determine whether you face the difficult part first or last. Usually when we got to this part of the run, my daughter would choose the path that made us confront a horrible hill right at the start. Today I decided against it and ran the other way. Not that I did not want to face a challenge at the start, but I knew my two week lay-off would be felt and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to push myself.

Did this make me a slacker? My first thought was “Oh yes Benae you are lazy and suck!- This is the consequence of taking off.” Then my reality set in. If you push yourself into taking the hill you might side line yourself with an injury. If I ran the hill slow, I would get to the top, but with less effort. Taking the alternative path did not allow me to escape the inevitable hill, I just faced it from a different perspective. I applied my knowledge of how to handle situations from an emotional intelligenceviewpoint rather than a quick decision. Instead of running up the hill, I would run down it. I still had to face inclines on the alternative path. I still had to exert myself to complete the overall task. I just choose to do it differently.

Our emotions, feelings, knowledge and perspectives do drive our decisions. They play a large part in the choices we make. Even though my decision to take one path over the other wasn’t purely an emotional decision, I did go through a variety of feelings and scenarios before making the final choice. We should also see how our everyday decisions impact us professionally and personally. Try to make the best choice when making decisions even though this isn’t always the easiest thing to do.  Use your emotions, feelings, knowledge and perspective to solidify your decision rather than just spark it.