Small decisions compound into either prisons or possibilities, and today offers the rare opportunity to choose differently.
Today is the first day of the rest of your life. I know what you’re thinking, but this is not just some trite cliché that you should quickly dismiss. It is a humble reminder that time keeps marching on, but it is also an opportunity to leave the past behind for the hopes of a better future.
The decisions we make today determine the quality of life we have tomorrow. It takes wisdom to understand that everything we have today is because of a small decision in the past. But the thing about decisions is that we only determine whether they are good or bad based on the outcome, sometimes years later; years that we can’t get back.
Decisions that are easy to make in a moment can create prisons for our future or form foundations for unlimited growth. So, what are you planning right now? Do you want to make the best out of your prison sentence, or do you want to break out and start building the future you’ve been longing for?
Many will remember The Shawshank Redemption as the story of an innocent man spending years in prison and eventually finding a way to escape; however, there is an interesting side narrative that develops through the movie about the various prisoners who get paroled and are put into a work release program to help them get adjusted to life on the outside. While behind bars, all of the prisoners wanted their freedom, but it is revealed that almost everyone who makes it into the work release program either finds a way to go back to prison or decides to commit suicide. You see, they’ve been in prison so long they no longer know how to handle true freedom and succeed in a world without the confines of constant oversight and 30 foot concrete walls.
For many of us it seems absurd that anyone would prefer prison or death over freedom, but hold up for a second and take a look in the mirror. What decisions have you made in the past that have created a prison for your future? Is it financial? A relationship? Whatever the case, you’ve become so accustomed to your situation that you have lost all sense of true freedom. Instead, you have resigned your future to the pale gray walls of confinement that define the limits of your vision.
Leaders, as much as we would like to think otherwise, we are also not immune to our own prisons. A prison, whatever form it takes, limits our vision, and therefore puts a serious limit on our ability to lead. To the outside world, Shawshank’s Andy Dufresne might have appeared to be confined, but the truth is that for him the walls of the prison were not the limit of his vision. He worked consistently (for 19 years) to pursue his vision beyond the difficulties he faced on a daily basis. As leaders, we must do the same.
Take five minutes and consider, have I let a past decision create a prison for my future? Have I gotten so used to my circumstances that I have let my vision get small and my hope grow weak? Am I perhaps holding back those people around me because I can no longer give them a vision beyond my own prisons?
The steps to freedom are often more difficult than we would like to think. The first step, of course, is acknowledging your prison and committing to free yourself. The second is being brave enough to live and grow in the open waters of freedom. A leader who is truly free can have a vision that is unbound by their own circumstances and open to possibilities that few ever dare to pursue.
From the upcoming leadership book by Brandon Pinkerton, Now Go Lead Yourself, released January 2026.
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Brandon Pinkerton is a project executive at HP Engineering now IMEG. Connect with him on LinkedIn. |