Life is full of choices and opportunities. However, some choices will have a greater impact on your life than others. Let’s say you decided to eat a piece of cake today. Chances are it won’t really matter a year from now. However, there are a few choices that will dramatically impact the quality of your life no matter when you make that choice.

Friendships: If there is any area in life where you should choose wisely, it would be your friendships. Numerous studies have shown that you become a byproduct of the people you surround yourself with. If you surround yourself with a-holes, then you’re well on your way to becoming one. If you surround yourself with winners, then you’re on your way to becoming one. Another thing that you want to do is chose friends who reinforce your positive self image. If you are in a group of friends, where you are always the one being made fun of, it’s time for a new set of friends. It’s often hard to accept that because these might be people that you actually have come to know as close friends. It’s hard to admit that you are that person in a group. Yet, if you keep them in your life, it’s going to be really hard to overcome a negative self image. There’s a big difference between friends who joke about you endearingly versus those who seem to get their rocks off by putting you down. I only know this from experience and having had a massive falling out with people who I thought were some of my closest friends in college. If you have some toxic friends, it’s time to detox.

Careers: Making the choice between passion and practicality is something you really should take seriously in your career. I didn’t do it in my younger years and as a result my life was miserable in numerous ways. My health deteriorated, I was depressed, and I was always angry or anxiety ridden. A career takes up a significant part of your life, up to 65% of your day in many cases. If you hate what you do, then think about what kind of things you are going to attract into your life. The majority of your time, energy, and thoughts are being directed to your misery. It’s a simple application of the law of attraction at work.

Relationships: Your choice in relationships not only alters the quality of your life, but the quality of someone else’s. So, if you make a bad choice you run the risk of making two people’s lives miserable. Of course the opposite is true as well. If you make the right choice then you double the joy that goes out into the world and bring more of it back to you. Have you ever noticed how at the beginning of a relationship when you start dating somebody, everything seems too be perfect. You have a great time together and everything goes smoothly and you seem to be on a roll of attracting positive experiences into your life. Then, you stop getting along, and everything else goes to hell too. So, make sure you choose wisely.

Reactions: It has been said over and over that life is not about what happens to you, but how you react to what happens to you. Once we learn how to control our reactions to everything that happens we manage to achieve complete control over our lives. We are no longer impacted by circumstances and events because we are choosing our reactions.