The back row, it’s where I always sit. It’s a great way to be invisible, and the best seat for observing the drama of human behavior. At a recent workshop, on day one, my team was assigned my favored spot…back row.  On day two, not so lucky, we were seated in the front.

Front row seating makes me slightly uncomfortable. I am no longer invisible, which makes me feel very exposed. Best behavior is required, focusing on the speaker, listening intently to their presentation.  No doodling and day dreaming, no checking for emails. The pressure is on.

But to my surprise, I was engaged and energized. I felt like I was a part of the action, not just observing it.  I was inspired, even motivated.  By the end of the day, I was a convert. I couldn’t believe what I had been missing!

As I drove in for day 3 of the conference, the words of Bruce Schneider, PhD, the founder of my coaching alma mater IPEC popped into my head.   “How you come to anything in life, is how you come to everything.”

I had a sudden flash of insight. I was Front Wanda, in the Back Row. What a metaphor for my life! For years I always defaulted to back row seating, a decision that served the insecure me so well. Now I was a confident woman, making major life changes without a safety net, certainly that classifies as Front Row behavior! This was impacting my life in many ways. It was time to rethink my seat selection, as well as other default settings.

I shared this with a close friend, a successful businesswoman, who surprisingly said “I always run to the door and hold it open for everyone else to enter, and then I walk in last.”

When I analyzed it; I realized that most of our defaults begin with “I always……  They served us at one point in our life. Then they became default settings, like brushing our teeth, we never think about them again.  They become an invisible, automatic pattern in our life.

It’s time to re-examine those default settings. They impact the way we approach everything in life, and may no longer serve us. What do you “always do”? What are your defaults? Is it time to reset them?

Delighted to share that this post was picked up for content on Yahoo! Voices website:

http://voices.yahoo.com/whats-default-come-anything-life-11990788.html?cat=72