
Welcome back family! I took the last few weeks off from blogging because I had my book launch! AAAAHHHH!!! I had such an amazing turn out and an overwhelming amount of support from so many people. I am so grateful for everyone who came out to support me at The E-Market and The Masked Melanin Market for launch weekend. Anyone who wants to support please note it in your calendars. I will be back at both locations this weekend.
To find out more about these awesome events click here.
Now let’s continue learning how to achieve our goals.
Wouldn’t it be great to be your own boss? Wouldn’t it be awesome to be the person who calls all the shots? It is an amazing feeling to be the kind of person who makes things happen, because when you are the sky is the limit. But if you’re like most people who lack self-discipline you end up lukewarm in most of the areas in your life.
Think about coffee shops, they offer both iced coffee and hot coffee, however, no one in the industry sells lukewarm coffee. Let me ask you some more questions.

- Do you find yourself in relationships just going through the motions? Maybe in a relationship just to say you have someone, but not truly happy?
- Maybe with your body, you’re just trying to maintain your current shape, but not really trying to be as fit or as healthy as you could be.
- In other words, are you a person just trying to hang on, desperately clinging to the middle, living a lukewarm life?
Here’s the crazy part, the more you do this, the more frustrated you become. The middle shifts far too often and far more quickly than anyone would like. Staying in the middle is a dangerous slippery slope.
Think back to when you were young, and I’m referring to your high school years, back when you had your whole life ahead of you. There were so many different doors that you could walk through. There were so many different paths.

It was easy to feel that you have all the control in the world because you had the power to decide the course of the rest of your life. But now, after several decades, you feel that your best years are behind you and here you are, living a life that you did not choose.
Well, that’s an illusion. You have the power, right now to determine your present and your future. As long as you are breathing, you still have control. Why? You can still choose. You can choose to think differently. You can choose to interpret your life differently and guess what? This change of thought patterns changes your emotional states, which changes how you decide things.
So let’s remove the limiting belief that life handed you a bad deck of cards.
When you decide to do things differently, that’s when your life changes. That’s right. The world doesn’t care about your intentions and motivations. But you can bet that it sits up and pays attention when you change what you do.
This lack of control over your life is an illusion. But the problem is, this illusions is very hard to break. Why? Well, this negative thinking has become habitual because you lack self-discipline. You have decided to coast through life.

Whenever any kind of challenge or choice happens, you can always count on yourself to take the easy way out. Before you know it, this becomes your default response. Well, I’m sorry, I’m not sorry to say, the big successes in life require a tremendous amount of discipline.
How come?
Well, they are a burden when they first appear. You have to keep working on them day after day, week after week, month after month. In many cases, you have to keep at it year after year. How is that sexy? How is that fun?
Why would anyone want to do the work? Especially when you could choose to go drinking with your friends. You can choose to work at a very low paying job that is immediately available to you. Who wants to hassle with college? Do you really need to graduate school? My mentor always told me, “Shana, be like everyone else if you don’t want to achieve success. Quit! Burger King is hiring.”
Do you see how this works? Unfortunately, the more we take the easy path, the more lack of control we feel we have over our lives because they lead to certain consequences. Please understand that you had a tremendous amount of control back when you started this path. That control never goes away, even though you are not happy with the results of your choices.
Choose a different path today. There is not better time than the present to get started. If this has helped you, let me know in the comments. If you think it will help others, share it!
As always, I love you.
It’s Time to Rise!
If you haven’t grabbed your Guide to Rise.
Do so by clicking the button below. It will help improve your life.
Rise – A Collection of Inspirational Poetry, Prose, and Affirmations
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