“If you keep doing what you’ve always been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always been getting. – Unknown

We often forget the pen that creates our story rests in our own hand.” – Brook Noel

Although I write mostly nonfiction, I write fiction and short  stories for fun. One of the things I like most about writing  fiction is that you can rewrite, rework, change a word, a chapter  or an entire plot-line. As I have been traveling around the country  this past week, I realized that we can actually do the same thing  in the nonfiction of our lives; we often forget that the pen that  creates our story rests in our own hand.

I have done a lot of speaking at groups, expos and  conventions over the years. Thousands of women have embraced the  concepts in my books and the Make Today Matter Online program and  started implementing the positive steps in their lives. Yet, for  every woman that starts the program, there are likely women that  never will. There are women who will start the program and stop.

There are women who will laugh at the concept that change is even possible.

As someone who has seen this program change lives, and who seen  women transform themselves in numerous ways, I constantly wonder…  Why do some of us believe change isn’t possible? How do we forget  that the only place change can begin is right here and right now?
How do we quit accepting the cards that life deals and instead  challenge life to the fullest? And when we get off track in our  thinking, as we all will from time to time, how do we quickly return to our positive and affirming ways?

I don’t think the answer to these questions is simple, but multi-faceted and complex. However, I do believe that we can quickly get to the bottom of the problem by looking at our past. Many people make the mistake of letting their past create their future. Because we have “lived” a certain way or we have been expected to “be” a certain way, we give someone else the pen to write our story and we just turn the pages. We forget that for as long as we are on this earth, we have choices to make, and we can also choose change and growth and happiness.

Recently, I used an example similar to the one that follows in the Good Morning e-mail…

If you are hungry and your stomach is growling and you are sitting in the living room… what do you do? Odds are you will choose to get something to satiate your hunger. In that one moment (and hundreds of others throughout the day) you CHOOSE to make a change in your life. You CHOOSE to feed that hunger. What would happen if you didn’t choose to get that food? By not choosing to feed your hunger, you are by default choosing NOT to feed your hunger. As a result– guess what happens?? You will become hungrier and hungrier and emptier and emptier.

This example is a metaphor for happiness and change and dreams and choice.

Choice and change is that simple – we just make it complicated. Why? Because we give up our own control. We blame external circumstances and thus give those circumstances and people the pen to our story.

But guess what? Just as easy as you CHOOSE to get out of bed, or CHOOSE your clothes, or CHOOSE to eat, you can CHOOSE to be happy, you can CHOOSE to take another step forward, you can CHOOSE to make today count, you can CHOOSE to challenge life.

Your Turn: Pay attention to all the choices that come your way. Take positive action and make positive choices. Journal about who you have given the “pen” over to in your life. What steps do you need to take to take control of your life and challenge life? What  is one step you can take within the next hour? Think about it… then CHOOSE to take that step now.