Most of the (things) you think you absolutely “have to do” isn’t actually (things) you have to do at all.
You don’t have to check your email on your phone when you first wake up. You don’t have to respond to voice messages right away. You don’t have to use Twitter. You don’t have to drink at happy hour or own an iPad or wear heels or watch the news. You don’t have to be an entrepreneur and you don’t have to love yoga and you don’t have to do a 3-day juice cleanse. You just… don’t.
And you know what else? All of the things you really do want but aren’t doing because you think you need more time or more money or more whatever are actually things you could start doing right now. Today. No matter what.
If you want to write a book, write a () book. Write the title, or the first page, or the last chapter. You don’t have to write a perfect first draft and you don’t have to wait until you’ve done more “research” and you don’t have to worry about who’s going to publish it or what other people are going to think because none of that matters unless you just start writing.
If you want to change your life, change your life. Change your story and then change your habits and then just do one small thing after another to move you in the direction you want to go. It doesn’t matter how slow you’re moving as long as you’re moving. As long as you’re making relentless forward progress. And guess what? Part of forward progress means pausing sometimes and getting off track sometimes and wandering around in circles and taking sixteen steps back because that’s what real change in real life looks like.
The key is not to give up. To never give up.
You feel like something is holding you back? Guess what, so do I. So does everyone. We all have eleventy thousand excuses for why we’re not doing everything we want to be doing. But, at the heart of it, do you know what’s really holding you back? The fear of starting. So just start. Do something. Do anything. The only way to get what you want is to start and then to keep going and to try things and see what works and when something works, keep doing it, and when something doesn’t work, just stop.
Just stop.
If you’re unhappy with your relationships, fix them. If you want to quit your job, quit your job. If you hate a TV show, stop watching it. If you want to be blonde and ride horses and drink fancy coffee, then dye your hair and sign up for a () riding lesson and start buying the fancy coffee.
Think you need permission? You don’t.
You don’t need to be told that it’s okay to wear red lipstick and you don’t need a certain body to wear a bikini and you don’t need to be fast to complete a half marathon.
Who cares if you feel like you’re not doing it “right”? There’s no one right way to do anything because there are lots of ways to do everything and it’s time to step back and recognize what you do because you think you “should” and what you do because you’ve been doing it and then realize that just because you’ve been doing something one way for a very long time doesn’t mean you need to keep doing it that way for even another minute.
Because listen, I spent eight years of my life going from one shot of tequila to another and one bad decision to another and I heard over and over that people can’t change because we are who we are – and yet, despite all odds, yesterday was my two year sober-versary.
So when I’m telling you that you can do absolutely whatever you want no matter where you’re starting from or how many things are standing in your way, I () mean it.”"
