Be Awesome: Just Decide

What’s the first step in changing your life? It’s something so simple and simultaneously so complex, but I promise, you can do it.

There are a million little things that we let stand between us and the life of our dreams. Money. Relationships. Timing. A lack of skill, talent, or knowledge. A bunch of excuses for why something will never work. When you distill it down and remove all the bullshit, you’re left with something simple. You don’t believe it will work because you don’t believe in yourself.

You know that moment when you realize the number one barrier between you and your goal or dream is your own damn self? That! That is everything. It took me along time to finally see it, but I don’t want you to have to wait another day.

I’ve recently come to realize that the number one most crucial first step in starting any new big project is to just decide to do it. To intentionally make a decision to change your life. Not to just wish and hope, but decide and act.

You’re thinking, “well, d’uh!” but ask yourself, how many times have you let an opportunity pass you by because you just weren’t willing to believe in yourself and make the commitment? You might have given a different reason. I can’t afford it or it’s not a good time. But were those really just excuses? They were for me.

I’ve been writing this blog off and on for six years, and it wasn’t until last month that I finally decided. Now is the time to change my life. I’m worth it. I deserve to be happy, and I don’t have to apologize for feeling that way. And neither do you.

So, what do you want? What do you really want for your life? Not what do you think you should want. Not what do you think you can reasonably get. How do you want to design your life so that you feel outrageously happy? Allow yourself to sit with that question. See it in your mind. Feel it. Write it down or speak it out loud.

If all this is easy for you, if you’ve already got it all figured out, I take my hat off to you. For me, this process has been difficult, even scary. There were actual tears. I felt like I didn’t deserve to be happy. I told myself that living your dream life is for other people. Rich people. Lucky people… Good people. Not for me.

Truly accepting that I am a good person who deserves to be happy was a revelation. Something I’d denied for the past 20 years.

But I’ve decided. I’m changing my life. It’ still terrifying, but in the most exciting way. And I’m so far from having all the answers. I don’t yet know how I’m finally going to start making money off my blog. I’ll figure it out. Other people have done it, and I can, too. It will be hard work, but I’ve done the most important thing. I’ve decided to show up and do the work.

So let’s take this journey together, friends. Let’s build the lives we truly want. Let’s start now and not waste another moment envying someone else’s life. You deserve it because you are awesome.