You always have a choice

Hey champ,

After my speech at an event last week, a man came up to me to have a chat.

His name was Dave and he was a really nice guy – a husband and father of three who loved running in his spare time. Dave told me that my story had really struck a nerve with him, because he felt like he’d been trapped for a few years in a job he hated.

He dreamed of opening his own business and wished he could step up more in his life, the way I’d challenged everyone to during my speech.

I asked him what was stopping him from going for it and he said “Well, I don’t really have a choice right now. Starting a business is risky and I’ve got three young kids.”

Uh oh, the old ‘I have no choice’ card.
There’s a red flag to Bull Turia if I’ve ever seen one.

This is what I told him:
“You always have a choice”.

See, you may not have a choice in what you do for work right now, or the things that have happened in your past, but you always have a choice in what you do from here.

And you always, always, always have a choice in how you respond to situations in your life.

Let’s say you have the same dream as Dave – you dream of opening a business but you can’t justify the financial risk.

OK, sure, maybe that risk outweighs your desire to quit your job right now. That’s ok, but remember, that’s your choice to be a responsible parent and husband. And, you get to choose how you see the decision to stay in your job too. So, will you say “I’m stuck in this job because I have no choice” or “I choose to go to work so I can take care of my kids”?

And maybe there are some steps you can take right now to bring that dream of opening a business even closer. Maybe you can take a small business accounting course in your spare time. Maybe you can start to build a hit list of sales targets, maybe you can start building a website so you’re ready when the time comes to launch it.

You can’t change the cards you’re dealt, but you can change how you play them. – Tweet it!

The bottom line is, everyone is in the grind, dealing with stuff they don’t always want to do. But if you keep thinking you have no choice or no control over your life, well, guess what? That’s how it will be.

It’s up to you to step up and take ownership of your life and the choices you make.

And trust me, when you do, it’s gonna feel good. It’s empowering.

Woah, was that a rant or what?! Haha, I told you Bull Turia came out to play.

But seriously, I’d love to hear from YOU about this.

Is there something in your life that you’re currently doing because “you have no choice”?  Can you change how you see that situation and the choice you’ve made to be there?

Let me know in the comments below.
Turia x

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