You’re just about to reach out, grab the gold ring to win the prize, and then your world crashes down all around you.

I exaggerate, but maybe not as much as you might think.

In growing up in an unstable household with alcohol, drugs, and dysfunction, we’ve become accustomed to instability. It’s what we know.

Someone pushes our buttons, we react, and the circle of anger/fear/dysfunction goes round and round in an unending circle.

The stories we tell ourselves can be clouded with fear:

“I’m not good enough.” “I don’t deserve that.” “Nobody loves me.”

All of the fear, pain, and scarcity can be wrapped up in knots within us and we go about our lives doing the best we can. Just when we are about to decide to succeed, we pull back, or worse, self-sabotage.

But why?

The pain/fear that we know is easier to handle than the unknown.

Change is hard. If there’s no way for us to know for sure whether the choice we could take would be better for us, it might seem easier to stay where we are.

I’ve made decisions in my life that have been for the best and also for the worst. That’s life. There isn’t a way to know what’s going to be the best outcome.

But if we block our own path to success, we become our own enemy. In a way, we are repeating the destructive behaviors that we grew up with in our households.

The question is: What are you going to do about it?

Today.

Not five weeks from now, or some undisclosed day in the future.

Today.

One of the most powerful lessons that I’ve learned is that each of us has the power to change our fate. We truly do have power.

If we see our lives as empty, negative, or that we’re the victim, then we perpetuate a line of thinking that restrains and holds us back from living to our greatest potential.

But what if we flipped those thoughts, changed them, and realized that we have choice and opportunity. We can be happy and embrace all that life has to offer.

Sound too woo-woo to you?

If we embrace the possibilities of today and flip the switch in our thinking, what opportunities could present themselves to us?

Instead of negativity, what if we said, “Yes”?

Like what you’ve read? Be sure to check out my other posts in my Let Go and Be Free blog.