The simplest and profound way to find clarity when you feel like you can’t decide:

Ask yourself what is the thing that would make you most proud.

And then do it.

When you love, you will be pulled in many directions. Don’t ignore the tension. Embrace it, be curious about it, and tap into your creativity.

The tension is required to stretch the canvas so you can create the unique work of your life. Your fulfillment comes from your creativity, not from a convenient set of circumstances.

You can love the many things you love in the many ways you love them if you are willing to do the work that will fulfill you.

You can become free from something when you no longer fear it. To release our fear of it, we often need to know something intimately or trust its role in our process. To learn something or to trust its contribution, we usually must experience it firsthand.

Failure, falling, heartbreak, relationship breakdowns, big transitions, and even big successes are all waiting for us to be willing to experience them so that we no longer have to fear them. When we understand that an experience doesn’t change who we are at our core, we grow through it exponentially.

What is it time to open yourself up to so you can find freedom?

There will always be multiple demands for your energy and attention, and you will never be able to say yes to all of them.

One of the skills to cultivate to live a happy and fulfilling life is becoming completely content and grounded, knowing there will always be outstanding demands for your energy.

To cultivate this skill, you must discover for yourself and embrace what it means to be human and what it doesn’t mean. As you engage with this inquiry, you will likely find that your happiness is more closely related to how easily you can let go rather than how tight you can hold on.

What demands do you need to say no to, or not right now, so you can do the vital work of being who you are meant to be?

1. Ground yourself in unconditional love (which allows space for discernment).

2. Clarify boundaries (understand where you end and someone else begins and accept free will).

3. Take action (do what courageous and compassionate love would do even if you are scared).

4. Release the result (realize the fulfillment is in the commitment and the loving action, not the result).

We are influenced by the people we spend time with and focus our energy on more than we know.

We also have the power to transmute any negative energy of others into positive growth for ourselves if we are willing to respond to it rather than react to it. If we cultivate our discernment skills, we can see harmful behavior for what it is and let it help us become even clearer about what we are committed to.

It is easy to get dragged down. It takes energy to reach a new level. We are constantly being influenced. The question is, how would you like to be influenced?

When you find yourself craving advice, beware. There is lots of advice out there, and when there is a lot of anything, that means most of it is bad.

Instead of going to the person closest to you in proximity for advice, pull back and envision the person who has demonstrated what to do or who to be in a situation similar to yours. Take your inspiration from here.

If they don’t have what you want, why want the advice they have?

When we celebrate weddings, babies being born, and business ventures beginning, we are essentially celebrating all of the problems we are committed to solving ahead of time.

Anything that makes life better also makes it harder, guaranteeing newer, bigger problems. Don’t let these problems confuse you into thinking you shouldn’t have celebrated. You are developing the strength to hold more joy.

What if you stopped looking for the thing that would come with no problems and instead chose the one with the best problems? Wouldn’t that be worth celebrating?

Experiencing failure

Quitting drinking

Starting your workout routine

Having that uncomfortable conversation

Doing the cold plunge

Putting yourself out there to be judged

Taking a pay cut in favor of a different kind of wealth

Leaving the relationship

Commiting to relationship

Eating the vegetables

Sitting your but down to meditate

Apologizing to that person

Forgiving that person

Forgiving yourself

Loving your kids exactly as they are

Loving your spouse exactly as they are

Loving yourself exactly as you are

Understanding that life will be absolutely, completely imperfect forever…

Whatever that thing is, that you are sure you just can’t do because it will be miserable… what if you knew for sure it will make you happier? Would you do it then?

It probably will if you are willing to endure some discomfort to get there.

If you avoid what you don’t want, then what you do want will avoid you.

That said, avoiding is different from authentically choosing. You can choose not to spend time with someone, yet if you avoid them because of something unresolved in yourself, you are guaranteeing that you won’t be open to receiving the truly amazing things you want in your life.

Even the best things come with downsides and challenges. Until you have nothing to avoid, you will feel like you are missing something.

Where is it time to be open to what you don’t want so you can have what you want?

A significant part of your responsibility as a human committed to thriving is knowing when it is time to move on to the next step and then taking action based on that knowledge.

Graduating from high school, medical school, or completing a designated curriculum is more straightforward, as the path has been set for us. However, the timing of natural graduations is nuanced, as we are the only ones who can sense when a personal season is coming to a close.

The ideal timing for a completion tends to be right in the space where things are still good, like a ripe fruit, yet we know it will start to decompose shortly, like a fruit left on the vine for too long. Our job is to lovingly harvest and enjoy the fruit, trusting in the natural process so we can be complete and begin again.

An essential part of graduating from one curriculum and moving on to the next is honoring the one you are completing so you are clear, grateful, and available for what is next. Our work is not just to end things and move on but to end them well.

Where is it time to have the discipline to trust your internal timing and complete this phase of your education?

It may be true that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Yet, that doesn’t necessarily mean you are indebted to anyone if you receive a gift.

It could be that you have already paid and are being rewarded. Infinite Intelligence always pays us for doing the right thing, often in unexpected ways.

You have been a blessing, so prepare to be blessed.

What if you stopped focusing on what is fancy and flashy and focused on what is simple and grounding?

What if you were disciplined enough to experience the abundance and joy of staying connected to what is most important?

The more profound question these questions bring up is the one worth answering first and always, what do you see as the most essential thing to focus on during this one miraculous life you have been given?

Focusing on what is truly valuable to us means we must be willing to feel the discomfort of letting go of what we believed would make us happy, which is likely what has made us feel safe and comfortable yet is keeping us small and unfulfilled.

Is there something simple that your mind has been forsaking yet your heart knows it is the way?

Where are you showing up with as a demand for drama?

Is it worth considering that if you stopped demanding it in conscious and less-conscious ways, it might stop being supplied?

Not having what you want is so good for you, because that is where the growth lives.

If you don’t have what you want, it is likely time to do something you haven’t wanted to do to have what you want. Otherwise, you would already have what you want.

What is it time to do that your mind doesn’t want to do so you can have what your heart wants? The faster you get at doing what you don’t want to do, the quicker you will get what you want.

Are you struggling to decide yet, life is clearly showing you the best option?

Maybe the “constraints” you have been resisting are simply life making decisions for you, letting you know what to say no to so you can move on to the next thing. Maybe life is so beautiful that it always tries to make your decisions as easy as possible.

Where might it be time to embrace your circumstances to help you have ease?

All people are nuanced, complex, surprising, emotional, and unpredictable.

You don’t need to be able to trust everyone to be who you want them to be. You only need to trust them to be themselves because they never can and shouldn’t have to live up to your standards.

What if you just trusted people to be who they are and aren’t and dropped the expectations? What if you focused that energy on being who you wanted others to be instead?

You could focus on infinite things, and you won’t feel clear on your next move until you decide your priority.

You may think that you will one day be clear on what is guaranteed to produce the desired results, yet nothing guarantees your mind’s preferred outcome. There are simply high-quality decisions you can make to help you focus your energy on something life-giving. Once you decide what to focus on, the clarity will come.

What if you didn’t wait for the clarity to make your decision? What if you made your decision and knew the clarity was on the other side?

To be free means to be responsible; often, when we envision freedom, we expect a life without responsibility.

It feels easier to live by someone else’s rules because then we get to blame them for our unhappiness. It feels easier to judge someone else’s life because then we get to be right about how wrong they are and don’t need to be curious about our own integrity. It feels easier to cater to the requests and needs of others because then we get to be a victim to time, and in victimhood we get power from our powerlessness.

Our minds trick us into believing that if only we could become free, we wouldn’t need to be responsible for these things. The truth is that all of the habits listed above are reactions, not responsibilities. Only when we are willing to release our reactions can we become genuinely responsible, which is what it means to be free.

What if you didn’t need commitments or constraints to go away to be free? Would you be willing to embrace the discomfort of your freedom now and take responsibility for your life?

This is a faulty, stressful belief. There is no adult in the world with no problems.

Stop wasting your time wishing for no problems or resisting them. Instead, become curious about the quality of your problems. Are they associated with solutions you want to be creating?

What if you stopped focusing on avoiding downsides and started choosing the ones you value dealing with?