I have realized recently that the reason many people don’t recognize the first step out of balance is because you can’t live by a measure you don’t have. You can not recognize that your priorities are blurring if you have never fully identified what your real priorities are. Priorities have to do with the things you most value, not the most recent crises you think you must solve.

Pretend for a few moments that there are no fires to put out. Take a few minutes, and make a list of the relationships and people that are most important to you.  Write down the activities that most energize you and give you the most joy. How do you feel about the quality of your life? Are you able to operate at a maximized physical condition for yourself, and if not, why?

Making life changes is not about getting it All right. This road involves opportunities. You will fall. To believe you won’t is unrealistic. However, babies don’t quit walking the first time they fall, they just have to keep getting up until they get it right.

 Are you living life or is life living you? Do you spend a lot of time running from one fire to the next, so busy taking care of “have to” that you don’t remember what a “want to” looks like? Find out what the measure for your life is. Find out the things that you would die for and then live for them. That is Joy…Beyond Freedom!

Many contemplate freedom as some incredible destination. But beyond freedom, what then? The journey is about enjoying the trip to freedom, about the changes we make along the way, and about “what then”. What happens when we get there and what comes next?

“It’s about change!”

Crises: figurative a point at which a change must come, either for better or worse; deciding event

In my life I identified a moment, when a change needed to happen. That change would take place in me, however initially I had no idea what this change would look like. I am still walking this process out, but day be day the components of this change become more evident. For many people I work with, this moment, this epiphany of “something has to give” is what they would call a crises.

 Crisis is not generally a conscious choice. However, once there, the very definition of crises indicates the necessity of choice. This “choice” is where the opportunity lies. Will I choose the easiest way, will that be the best choice for me? Or will I choose to do the hard things?

 Mothers Against Drunk Driving…The Amber Alert… The National Kidney Foundation… Easter Seals… Alcoholics Anonymous… Susan G. Komen for the Cure… Organ donors “leave a life that keeps on living.” Only a few of the choices made.

 Each one of us will face points in which change must come. Will our choices be mired in our own pain? Or can one person, one decision at a time make a difference?