Discovering YOU CAN
Author: Danish Ahmed

What has people feel empowered? What has people make things happen?

Choice. We become conscious of the options that are available to us, we pick something, and then we act upon that choice.

It's simple, but it's not easy. Are you with me? Let's take a closer look at what we're talking about.

1. Become Conscious

Are you enjoying the summer? My friends like to be outside in the summer. That doesn't work for me because it's too bright for my eyes and my skin quickly sunburns (due to albinism). Before I did any personal development, I would stay home or I would go to an outdoor activity and mentally complain to myself, enduring the pain. Now, I'm conscious of the choices I have: I can wear appropriate clothing and glasses, I can request my friends to be in a heavily shaded area, I can enroll my friends in doing an indoor activity, etc.

If life can be altered simply by making different choices, then why don't people do it? Most of the time, it's because they think they don't have a choice. They think they are stuck with their circumstances. They believe that life is the way it is, and that it's too difficult to change it.

Andrei Losinski, manager of Customer Learning Services at Royal Bank of Canada says, "Your life is about your choices, and you can only make choices when you're in the moment of distinguishing that you have choices."

Every moment has the possibility of endless choices. You can choose to smile, you can choose to laugh. You can choose to communicate, or you automatically choose not to communicate. You can choose to do something different, or you automatically choose to continue doing what you've always done.

Every moment is choice.

2. Pick Something

The publisher I picked for the first edition of my book turned out to be a scam! Some would say I got ripped off. Did I? I picked, and I learned. Now I'm negotiating a contract for my second book, "Your Guide to Personal Development", with a major U.S. publisher.

Most people are so afraid of making the wrong decision, that they don't make any decision at all.

Yet they have chosen: They've chosen to allow circumstances to shape their destiny.

We often worry about consequences that we "think" will occur from a wrong decision. How many times have you worried about the consequences of your decision and it turned out better than you thought?

Picking something -- anything -- already puts you in the top 95 percentile.

Seldom are choices permanent. You can change them later.

Picking something gives us momentum. It empowers us. It demonstrates to the world and to ourselves that we are proactive and that we are at cause in our lives.

3. Take Action

Nothing happens without doing.

If you're going to do what you've always done, then you're going to get what you've always got.

It does take something to break out of our routine, to stretch beyond our comfort zone, to do something we perhaps have never done before.

Even if we're in dire circumstances -- a prisoner of war or at the merci of evil -- we still have choice. We can choose our attitude and we can choose to develop an empowering meaning for our lives.

Is it worth it? Yes, because fulfillment doesn't come from achievement. Fulfillment comes from taking action to overcome the odds.

Choose to overcome your odds.

You can do it! (If you choose it.) It's up to you.


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Danish Ahmed is an inspirational speaker and best-selling author of "A Dictionary of Distinctions"

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