“Although no one can make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”

~ Carl Bard

I love fall. Back to school is a time of new beginnings. Clean pages in never-used notebooks, an opportunity to start fresh.

As the air turns crisp and cool, I start to shift my attention to my resolutions for the coming year, welcoming the opportunity to see what areas of my life need a tune-up.

It wasn’t always this way.

In the past, fall meant a time of complete terror. As the kids went back to school, I felt overburdened. My already over-scheduled life just became even more over-scheduled.

I knew something had to give, and I just hoped it wasn’t my health. But fear of change kept me stuck. I was fearful of not having enough money. I was fearful of trying something new.

But, mostly I was just too busy to take the time to stop and evaluate what it was that I could do to enhance my life.

Moving unconsciously through life had got me more of the same old—a career that gave me little pleasure and certainly no quality of life.

And then I asked myself a simple question. What is it that I love?

Up until then, I had been focused on avoiding what I was scared of. All of the reasons for my choices had been based on fear. Fear of not having enough, of not being enough.

As soon as I shifted my focus to what it was that gave my life joy and purpose, I was able to live a life of joy and purpose.

I loved to be with my children, but my career often took me away from my family. I loved food and preparing meals for my kids, but I often missed dinner altogether or grabbed a snack at an airport kiosk.

I loved being outdoors and living a healthy lifestyle, but too I often spent my time in stuffy boardrooms without any access to nature.

Once I made the conscious decision to choose what I loved instead of what I felt obligated to, I was able to make decisions that better reflected what I valued in life.

Rather than feeling stuck in a less-than-ideal situation, recognize that we all have choices and opportunities. We may not decide to seize each opportunity—or any of them—but recognize that when we wake up each day, we have a choice to make about how we want to live—at least for that day.

Repeating old habits and patterns will guarantee more of the same.

Maybe you already know you want things to change, but sometimes our fear can get in the way of actually moving forward.

Decisions motivated by fear yield more fear.

Instead, we can choose to make truthful decisions based out of love—for ourselves, our family and others.

When we choose the truth, we are choosing to love ourselves and honor what we want, not what others want of us.

How to start living fearlessly now?

Observe life consciously. Watch our choices. Notice interactions. Are they automatic or thoughtful? Conscious or unconscious? Once we begin to notice our patterns and evaluate our choices, we can see the pattern. Are these choices and behaviors formed out of love or fear?

Once we become aware of this distinction in our own life and behavior, we can shift from fearful to fearless.

Love is creative—fear is destructive.

We can make the choice.

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 Assistant Ed: Tawny Sanabria/Ed: Bryonie Wise