How to Transform your Life

Failure in life often comes because we fail to align our action with our conscience.
Unknown

Our choices have the undeniable power of transforming our lives.
Jose Teixeira

Want to change your life? It’s easy! Simply start making choices that you know will change it for the better. Ok so writing the solution makes it seem easy, but actually doing it is much more difficult. Let me share a personal example though to illustrate the truth of this point.

Growing up there was a period in my life where I felt an emptiness inside and a little pit in my stomach. I wasn’t sure why at the time, but now looking back, I realize it was because I was spending my time with people who did not hold the same values as I did. As a result of this, I was frequently in an environment that was not comfortable for me, because it was a place where my values were constantly being compromised. In fact during this time in my life I often felt I had to hide my values or pretend to be someone who I wasn’t. So what happened? I finally realized that what I was doing was ridiculous, so I decided to stop going to places where my values were not supported. This simple choice had a big positive impact on my life and alleviated me of my emptiness and pit. So, how did I change my life, how can all of us change our lives? Through our everyday choices.

Today society teaches us to do what feels good right now. Rather than wait, think about, or suppress our desires, we are told to just do it! Acting on our impulses however often gets us into all sorts of trouble. Patience and wisdom seem like fading virtues as impulse and recklessness seem to be the norm. Likewise it seems we rarely consider future consequences to our actions as we become consumed with what we want now. To me it’s almost as if our human race has lost the ability to reason logically and do those things that will simplify and better our lives rather than complicate and ruin them. Perhaps we are addicted to drama or seek the thrill of living without consequence during the immediate moment. Perhaps we have began living in a fantasy world thinking we can hide things and get away with poor behavior; when in fact technology has made this nearly impossible. This lack of thought, foresight, and discipline leads us to heartache, misery, and results in less successful and happy lives. I hate to say it, but it appears as if Tiger Woods is a perfect example of this...Think about how his choices will impact his happiness and success in life both personal and professional. And he is one of what seems to be a growing majority. The sad thing is, often we pressure ourselves and each other into living this way. “Everyone is doing it”, “what is the big deal”, and “don’t worry about it” seem to be the belief system and rational behind this craziness. So for us to reach our potential and increase our success and happiness in life, we must avoid buying in to such belief systems.

So what do we need to do to change our lives? We need to align our actions with our conscience, and we need to understand simple daily actions and choices can transform our lives. We need to start making wise, well thought out choices that will lead to success and happiness. We need to deny ourselves every once and awhile and suppress our initial urges and impulses. We need to have the discipline to say no. We need to think about whether our actions or choices are inline with our values and what the long-term consequences of these actions will be. Does this sound old school? It probably does but doing this will make us much better leaders and better people with more successful and happier lives.

So, want to change your life? Then change your choices. Each of us has the power within us to lead the life we want to live. We have that power and the ability to create our own destiny. So let’s be wise, and make those choices that will result in success and happiness!