Originally posted on Facebook HERE
January 1st, 2023 – dawn of a new year. We tend to do two things when a new year arrives – look back on the year we’ve left behind, and look forward to the year ahead. What a crazy year 2022 was. It’s the season of “resolutions”, too. New year, new me. Yet, we as humans really tend to gravitate towards the status quo more often than not. We like things to stay the same. Even though everything around us changes every second of every day, we try to maintain a set sequence in our lives. It can’t be done. The world will change whether we want it to or not. We need to be grateful for the experience of life, then move forward with faith and courage. It takes faith to answer a calling. To start a new business, to begin or end a relationship, to commit to a fitness program, to get a pet, to buy a car… almost everything we do will require some faith. That the change we’re about to make will work out for the best. And, whenever we make a change, it won’t always work out for the best. At least, there will be times when it won’t seem like it did, anyway. People start new businesses and go bankrupt. Relationships come and go all the time. Gyms have about twice as many people the month of January as the rest of the year would be my guess, because even with the best intentions many people won’t stick to a new fitness routine. We need to move forward with some courage. Courage that, in the face of all odds against us, if we hear and feel an inner calling strong enough, we should heed that call. Last year I started my own business. It was a painfully hard decision to make. To this day, I love the company I was working for, and I worked there for sixteen years. Great job, great company, great people. But I started to get pulled in another direction that I really felt would be significantly better for my clients. I knew if I did it people would be shocked. It was obvious I liked what I did and where I did it. It would have been way easier, at 63 years old to just finish my career there. But I have always intended to work until I’m at least 70. And I have to feel like I’m doing the best, the absolute best I can, in everything I do. It’s just how I’m wired. I knew I would lose a good portion of my business, because it’s so much easier for people to do nothing than to do something, even if it might be better for them. And all I could think of was back in 2006, after winning a production award in Real Estate – and obviously loving being a Realtor, I quit my job to become a financial advisor. One of the best decisions I ever made in my life. But it was scary as hell, and took a tremendous amount of courage. And you can’t make a life changing decision like that without second guessing yourself many times over. There are no guarantees. What I found in both instances – I made decisions based on faith. Faith that I was being guided by a power greater than myself. And faith that that power – for me I see it as God – would not instill in me the desire to make a serious change like that without it being a good thing somehow. Then – and this is where many people fall short – having the courage to make the change. And to move forward through all the ensuing upset, fear, and second guessing with faith and determination that it would work out in the end. This year, if you have an unfulfilled desire, try to have some faith. Then move forward with courage. Take a step in a new direction. Sometimes we get so caught up in the enormity of a task – like, “I need to lose 50 pounds”, let’s say – that it scares us into submission. Little things, new habits, daily over time, equate to huge changes – for the better or the worse. But anything new requires faith and courage. May you become the you you always dreamed of being more so this year than ever before. You are the only person who knows who that is. Only you can follow that dream. You don’t have the time to live any other way.
