Baby Boomer Success Strategy: You Choose: Your Freedom or Your Story

Your life is full of moments of choice. You can respond to each moment based on old patterns, old stories, (conscious or unconscious) or you can choose to react from a new place based on freedom from the past. You can make new choices that make you feel alive and free. It's your choice.

The old story I'm talking about is not the fairy tale story your mother told you before bed at night, but it's the old story we drag around like a huge bag of useless rocks. Keeping this story alive drains your life force, your energy, and your very happiness. Keeping this story going allows you to wallow and remain a victim. If you choose, and it is a choice, to let go of this story you can craft a new life based on triumph, instead of victimhood.

It may sound simplistic to say that you can choose, but you can. In fact, you can not only choose your story, you can rewrite your story. After all, you're not dead yet! The first step in this process is to simply stop telling that old story. That old story that makes you a victim. That old story that makes it impossible for you to move forward. Let go of that old story. That old story is over. That old story is just dragging you down.

The next step is to replace your old story with a new story, one that is full of gratitude. The truth is, it's your life, so while you can't change the past, you can change how it affects you. If something tragic happened to you in the past, you lost a loved one, suffered a divorce, failed at something you tried to do, you can change how the situation affects your life today by figuring out what you were supposed to learn from the event. By rewriting the story into one of gratitude, learning, and moving forward, you can transform the story from a victim story to one of empowerment.

Ultimately, it's a choice that comes down to being free, or hanging on to that old story. By simply changing your reaction to a situation, you can make the story one that demonstrates your power, your victory over oppression, your success climbing out of despair, your joy after suffering from depression. In order to accomplish this, you will need to be very aware of how you react to each situation, and then learn to turn negative thoughts to positive thoughts.

Select an area of your life that's important to you. One of the keys to changing your story is selecting a goal that truly matters. Ideally, you can find something you want more than anything. This will help keep you dedicated.

Be specific. The whole idea of choosing your own story can seem over-simplified. Here's how to be more specific:

Be realistic. Set a realistic timeframe to complete your story.

For the choosing to be healthy instead of saying I want to get into shape consider committing to specifics such as, "I want to lose 3 inches from my hips or I want to walk for 40 minutes three times per week.

At first it will feel unnatural, but soon it will feel as natural as breathing, if you do the work and practice. Your first task is to accept that you do have a choice. Freedom, or hanging on to your old story.