“You have the power to say, this is not how my story will end.” ~ Author unknown

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Do you remember those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books back in the day?

I used to love them—with one random choice, I could change where the story took me and end up somewhere completely different than I’d ever imagined.

That’s my plan for 2016.

Here’s the deal with ending up somewhere completely different than where we are now—we have to make different choices.

Yes, some things happen to us unexpectedly, and they launch our life into a direction we never, ever imagined it would go. Mine sure as f*ck did.

It was like someone came in—and without my permission—took a wrecking ball to my world, cracked it open and left me with just a shell, looking around in a dazed blur asking, “What the f*ck just happened?”

So, yes—those kinds of unexpected little moments are going to happen in our lives, and this is where we learn to just roll with the punches, pick up the pieces and use is as an opportunity to rebuild.

And re-invent—re-imagine what’s possible.

This is the great thing about unexpected things that happen in our lives—they sometimes shake us awake from a deep slumber we needed to wake up from. Because we may have been missing out on some aspect of life that is meant to be ours, but we’ve been too comfortable and complacent to go after it.

Then there are those of us, who are just stuck. Stuck in relationships we are miserable in, stuck tolling away at a job we hate or stuck struggling to get out of debt that’s been chasing us for longer than we care to admit to anyone.

We can re-write this story.

Create a new one—a better one. We are the authors—the ones with the pen. Our problem is that many of us have writer’s block and don’t know what to write.

What do we really want? What are we searching for? What are we allowing to hold us back from the life we truly want?

What if nothing in the world was holding us back but ourselves? What if we were holding that pen in our hands—able to create any story we want to create—just by putting that pen on the paper? Could you do it?

Dream big. Let go of last year on January 1st. Let go of the failures and the mistakes and the things that didn’t work out the way you had hoped.

Let go of the heartache, the grief and the pain of any loss you suffered. Let go of toxic relationships, relationships that you know need to end and people who don’t make you feel good about yourself.

Close the book on that chapter of your life, and write a new one—one that starts with the dreams you’ve put on hold or the trip you’ve been dying to take.

One that has you telling that guy you’ve been holding back feelings for that you think about him every day and want to see what could be.

One where you spend more time with your kids and less time at a job you hate. One where you go back to school to get your master’s degree in some field you’ve dreamed of working in your entire life.

One where you let go of your old painful story that you’re “too fat,” “too old” or somehow “not enough.”

This is your new story-—and it can be anything you want!

Dream big—and give it a magical ending.

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Relephant: 

Lost Your Way? 4 Ways to Reclaim your Truth.

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Author: Dina Strada

Editor: Yoli Ramazzina

Photo: Flickr/Walt Stoneburner