“It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” —J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

Choice is freedom. Choice means options. Choice gives us the ability to create anything we want in our lives. Choice is our paintbrush, and we are the artists—able to paint our masterpieces if we so desire.

Without choice we are prisoners, victims, puppets. We are without hope, vision or dreams.

In a nutshell, our choices = our life.

Our power to choose is really a massive gift, but it can also be our biggest roadblock to living lives we love.

Although we have been given this huge gift, we don’t always give it the appreciation it deserves. Sometimes, we actually have a chronic habit of making bad choices—choices that keep us separate from our greatness, our purpose and our happiness. Choices that render us unable to make real, lasting changes in our lives.

We become frozen, stuck and prohibited from creating our masterpieces.

It’s easy to get caught up in this trap, and it’s even easier to create excuses to justify why we can’t seem to change. Although on a rational level, we may think we really want to change, we really want that relationship, that job and that book deal—the reality is that change can be scary for most of us. When fear is in the mix, our default choice is often to play it safe and not change. We decide not to take chances so that we don’t get hurt, disappointed or rejected.

While this can be chalked up to the part of our brain that is just trying to protect us, there are times when we need to get through a bit of discomfort in order to change and get to the next “level” in our lives.

Sometimes, change means having to ditch the default choice of playing it safe, playing it small and hiding from our gifts in order get the results we seek.

I am not advocating the “no pain, no gain” mentality, but rather suggesting that there may be times in our quest for personal growth, spiritual evolution or happiness that we’ll need to challenge some of our old beliefs and choice-making patterns that have previously held us back.

This is the exact place in which I found myself about 10 years ago. After having gone to such lengths as traveling to Brazil to work with local shamans and taking part in healing ceremonies involving sacred medicinal teas, I had spent so much money, time and energy trying to find myself, yet I only felt more lost in the process.

I kept choosing to find answers outside of myself in the form of gurus, online courses or the next latest and greatest system. I kept making choices that only left me feeling more confused, less connected and further from my truth.

The solution came when I really accepted and came to understand that I had the power inside myself to choose my life. I found all of my answers in my realization and true appreciation of what choice really meant in my life….and finally owning that no one else was going to make those big changes for me. It was up to me. If I wanted to change, I had to choose a different way of being, thinking and feeling. I had to stretch my limits, go through a bit of discomfort and change how I had been choosing to think, feel and react.

I decided to make the most significant changes in my life, simply by altering how I chose to feel.

In order to create any significant change in our lives—be it related to our health, our prosperity or our overall happiness—it’s necessary to take a good hard look at the choices we are making.

Life is energy. We are energy (thank you, Albert Einstein). So to experience the change we desire, we simply (maybe not always so easily, due to those tricky default patterns of feelings and thoughts) need to change our energy by choosing to change how we feel. Our feelings are our strongest indicator of our energy.

It’s not about faking happiness or pretending to feel a certain way when we really don’t. But it is about committing to being choosier about how we feel and learning to recognize when we may be sliding into a chronic state of feeling bad or choosing thoughts that don’t really support our desires. For example, if we really want to change our financial situation, but we always feel nervous, negative or depressed about money, that is not going to help us attract prosperity. While going from feeling depressed about money to elated about money isn’t realistic, you can certainly take baby steps to improve how you think and feel about money.

You might start by appreciating what you do have and creating a detailed list or plan on how to bring more money into your life. Start spending more time around people who have the prosperity you desire (the idea is that we become like the people we spend the most time with). Start choosing thoughts, feelings and actions that are in alignment with what you want, not what you currently have.

To change something, we have to focus on the dream and not necessarily on what’s manifesting for us right now. Just be careful to not make it too big of a jump. It’s not productive to think that we go from feeling mostly horrible about money to thinking we will have millions in the bank tomorrow.

We can shape our lives by the choices we make. Not just the everyday choices that we all have to make as humans. But the bigger and more profound choices of how to feel, what to think and the type of energy we choose to put out into the world.

Here are a few reminders you can use to start using the power of choice to create change in your life right away:

Start becoming aware of your choices. How do you feel most of the time, or in regards to specific topics? This is a great time to become more conscious about how you really feel about things. Remember, your feelings are the same things as your energy. And the specific energy you put out is primarily what you will get back.

How you feel is a choice. Once you become aware of this and start to learn how to choose different feelings in order to create significant change, you will experience a newfound sense of freedom.

Create a journal around exactly what you desire to change in your life and take the time to write about how you feel. Becoming more aware and conscious of something requires that we pay more attention to it. Journaling is one of the best ways to do this.

Meditate. I know this is a huge one and many people have a lot of resistance to this (resistance can be a sign we are holding ourselves back from a bigger truth), but meditating —even if it’s just closing your eyes for 5 minutes at your desk and becoming more aware of your breathing —can really get you in touch with how you feel.

Be picky about how you feel. Don’t fake feeing good, but get super committed to finding ways to feel better and improve your energy and vibration when things don’t feel so good. Just be a bit choosier about feeling good and finding ways to feel better in regards to things that may normally trigger you.

Create a list of things that make you feel good fast. For me, it’s being in nature, petting my dog, hugging my kids and indulging in a bit of dark chocolate. Create your own feel good list!

Most of all, remember to have fun. Life is supposed to feel good, and we are meant to enjoy our time here.

What choices you can start making right away that can help you move closer to something that you want to change in your life?

Is it reacting differently to those slow drivers, or being more patient with your kids? How about creating a vision board, or taking those public speaking classes you’ve been meaning to get to? How about committing to sitting down (distraction free) each day and taking 1 hour to start on that book you’ve been wanting to write?

Whatever it may be for you, you can start to create the change you seek by making a few new choices today.

Share your comments below and let me know!

In love and appreciation,

Carrie Jolie Dale

Photo by natur.echt