Own It

The great thing about life is that the lessons never stop. If you are open, life is always speaking to you. The question is…will you listen? As I ‘celebrate’ my fifty-first birthday today, I hear the whispers of life. To show up. To do the work. And to own it. Yes, you must own your life, your decisions, your circumstances.

Do It Until

If you’ve ever tried to change something in your life, you know full well that change is hard. And since the middle of April, when I started working on changing myself and my life, it has not been easy. It has not been easy to always do the right thing instead of the easy thing. That has meant picking up the phone at the beginning of the day instead of embracing stillness. Instead of writing without distractions, distractions have ruled the day. The biggest challenge of all is trying to become—and seemingly failing miserably—who I must become to realize my fullest potential.

But here’s the thing… Just because it’s been hard, just because I haven’t succeeded, doesn’t mean that I’ve given up. I’ve let the momentum of a good day—when I didn’t let distractions take me away from my writing, when I went for a run or to the gym—carry me forward. Then I got hit by doubt and fatigue, and lost that momentum. But I tried again. Because as Jim Rohn writes in The Power of Ambition, “Whatever the level of ambition, whatever the level of risk, there must always be the discipline to overcome the failures and see the result, to keep trying until.”¹

Yes, you do it, whatever IT is—writing a book, starting a business, training for a marathon—until you succeed. That’s how you own it.

Own It

Let me be honest. Everything that has gone wrong on my change journey over the past three months has been a direct result of the choices I’ve made. When I reach for my phone, or stay in bed, take a nap, skip the gym or run…these are things that take me away from my purpose, from what matters.

What change comes down to, for me—and for a lot of people—is the ability to create a good habit that replaces the bad. It takes discipline, and “only an all-out, disciplined assault can overcome a bad habit.”² I know I’m capable of becoming more, doing more, and that’s why I’m willing to fail and still, no matter what, try again.

So, that is what I am doing…trying again. Because this is life whispering to me, guiding me in the right direction. And I will own it.

By the way, if no one else has told you today, let me tell you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And, best of all, you do not need anyone’s permission to be—unapologetically—who you are.

1. Rohn, J. (2022). The Power of Ambition: Awakening the Powerful Force Within You, Shippensburg, Nightingale-Conant-Corporation., p. 187. [↩]
2. Rohn, J. (2022)., p. 80 [↩]