In 2023, Find The Courage To Change Your Life

Don’t let this new year go to waste. Here are some poetic reminders that will give you the courage to change your life in 2023:

1. You aren’t actually stuck in your current situation. No one is trapping you there. You’re only telling yourself that’s the case because you don’t want to deal with the chaos of change. You would rather pretend you’re fine than play an active role in your life, wake up from the repetitive loop you’ve been cycling through, and do what your heart has been begging you to do. There are always going to be a million excuses at your fingertips if you reach for them. You’re too old. You’re too comfortable. You’re too deep into the path you’ve already chosen. But none of that is true. It’s never too late to chase after happiness, to live your truest life. You don’t have to continue down this path because it’s the way it’s always been. Maybe you weren’t aware another path was possible before this moment. Or maybe you suddenly decided you need to reroute. Either way, you only get one life. If you don’t do what your heart has been aching for now, then it’s never going to happen. Choosing change might be painful in the short-term, but it’s better to deal with some stress today than a lifetime of regrets tomorrow.

2. You need to abandon the mindset that quitting equals failure. You can quit smoking. Quit drinking. Quit biting your nails. So why do you automatically associate the word with failure when talking about giving up on a relationship, a friendship, or a career that has only been bringing you down? More often than not, endings should be celebrated. It takes strength to say goodbye—to go through the process of recognizing that you don’t want a certain presence in your life any longer and then taking concrete steps toward changing your situation. At the end of the day, distancing yourself from someone who is wrong for you isn’t a failure. It’s a success.

3. If you were lost in the woods and realized you made a wrong turn, what would you do? Would you keep roaming down the trail you knew would never lead to your destination? Or would you stop, take a breath, and reroute?

4. You keep asking yourself what the right decision is. You stare at the pockmarks in your ceiling for hours at night, journal about your hurricane of feelings, ask your most trusted friends for advice, but you can’t seem to come to a conclusion that makes sense. And that’s because there’s no right answer. Your life isn’t a pop quiz. You aren’t going to get a gold star for whatever decision you make—but you aren’t going to flunk out either. As much as you want this world to be black and white, most of it is shaded gray. There will be pros and cons to any decision you make, no matter how small or looming, but you can’t allow that uncertainty to freeze you in place. You have to live. You have to choose. Doing nothing is a choice on its own.