A funny thing happens when you decide to make a change in your life. You may have been stewing about a change, plotting out the ways you’ll be happier when you make then change, even blaming others because you haven’t made the change you know in your heart is  right for you. So what’s holding you back?

It’s really quite simple. As humans, we are wired to crave change. We are programmed, like flowers tilting toward the sun, to bend toward transformation, toward personal development. At the same time, we are hard-wired to fear change. Seriously? Yes. At the same time we yearn for that new figure, new career,  a new skill like playing the piano, we  resist change.

Your inner saboteur will try to soothe you. It will whisper in your ear:   everything is fine the way it is. You don’t need that degree anyway. Your mother likes you the way you are.

Your inner saboteur is a smart cookie. It always sounds reasonable, so like the smart voice in your head. The trouble is, if you take the advice of the part of you that will always opt to play small, your world will remain equally small.  If that’s what you want, perfect! Don’t change a thing. Do not pass GO and collect your prize.

But if what you desire, what you crave on a cellular level is to be more of who you really are,  you must learn to befriend change.  Change is tricky. Change can be messy.  It means letting go of what you know. But if you persist, if you step into the discomfort of something new, you will conquer your fear. If you keep jumping in that water and swimming beyond the crashing waves of doubt, paddling past the rip current of insecurity, you will enter the center of your power and you will change.

Change, like happiness, is a choice. There is a saying from a gritty old movie, where the tough guy says to the would-be hero, “We can do this easy, or we can do this rough.”  Even a villain knows  there is always choice, and either way is okay.

Sometimes, when you’re ready, shift happens in the blink of an eye and nothing is ever the same again. You get to choose. Happiness always comes down to choice.