Far too often, against our better judgment, we make the wrong choices. Our pride has us holding on when we need to let go. Pressure from peers sway us left when we mean to go right. Negative thoughts provoke frowning on otherwise beautiful days.
And so it goes…
One choice at a time, one moment at a time, we ruin the most promising days of our lives.
If you can relate at all, it’s time to answer your wake-up call!
How many times have you thought “this isn’t working” or “something is not right” or “things have to change”? – those thoughts and words are from your inner voice. It's your wake-up call calling.
You really don't need some scary, life-threatening diagnosis or major crisis to wake you up. And no one needs to tell you because you already know. Your inner voice has been trying to tell you for awhile now, but incase it's been a challenge to find time and space to listen through the chaos, maybe you'll resonate with one of these situations:
If your life is on auto-pilot and you're always feeling worn down, beat up, stressed out, and completely depleted, this is your wake-up call.
If you never put yourself first, this is your wake-up call.
If you are constantly numbing out with food, shopping, alcohol, TV, or other distractions, this is your wake-up call.
If you've become someone you don't recognize to please other people or to chase some version of success that doesn't resonate with you, this is your wake-up call.
Getting your wake-up call is not the hard part. Answering the call is. Choosing to answer the call instead of ignoring it is HARD! Right now, it may feel much easier to keep going, and going, and going. But you know if you don’t find a way out of the endless cycle you’re in, it’s going to get worse...
Remind yourself that a big part of your life is a result of the choices you make. And if you don’t like your life, it’s time to start making changes and better choices.
How do we start to make changes and better choice?
Decide YOU ARE STUCK!
Take a moment to reflect on evidence of this in your own life...
Think about ONE self-limiting belief you have—one area of your life where you believe you absolutely CANNOT make progress. It can be about any part of your life you hope to change—your health, your weight, your career, your relationships – anything at all. What’s one thing you’ve essentially decided is a fact about your place on Earth?
And then I want you to shift gears and think about ONE time, one fleeting moment, in which the opposite of that ‘fact’ was true for you. I don’t care how tiny of a victory it was, or even if it was a partial victory. What’s one moment in time you can look back on and say, “Hey, that was totally unlike ‘me’—but I did it!”? Because once you identify the cracks in the wall of a self-limiting belief, you can start attacking it. You can start taking steps forward every day that go against it—positive daily rituals that create tiny victories, more confidence, gradual momentum, bigger victories, even more confidence, and so on.
And yes, I also understand that we all face our share of incredibly difficult circumstances, many of which are not the results of anything we’ve done. But we still have choices when it comes to how we’ll respond to these seemingly-random tragedies that afflict us.
The choice is as simple as it is universal:
Grit our teeth and try to move the immovable object, and become frustrated and bitter when we realize we can’t.
Answer our wake-up call. Let it be. Let go.
Surprisingly, the first choice is easier because it’s our default action. We want full control because feeling out of control is very terrifying. Empowering yourself to relinquish control of the wrong attachments is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself—the ability to exist peacefully and productively in the midst of the chaos of life.
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