I’ve been a people pleaser for most of my life. In general, there’s nothing wrong with doing things for people because you love them. And from an early age, I had learned to please my mom and accommodate her wishes. At some point though, I think I started doing things for other people and deferring to other’s opinions or desires because it was a lot easier than deciding what I wanted.

I convinced myself that I took a very rational approach to making decisions. Usually, I would look at all of the available options and then try to think through the merits or disadvantages of each. Unfortunately, what also usually happened was that I would get overwhelmed by all choices by the end and I would get stuck. Even if there only two options, it was one too many and I just got lost.

While I realized the dilemma I had placed myself in, I could never climb out of it myself. I needed someone to tell me what was the best choice to hard decisions. I looked for answers from all around me, external of me, seeking others’ guidance. Astrologer after astrologer. My mom’s was my de facto tie breaker. If she felt so strongly about something, I figured there was a good reason for it. I trusted her more than I trusted myself to make decisions for my own life.

My inability to make difficult decisions on my own usually also meant I would slide into decisions. I would passively go along without any preference and let the circumstances decide for me.

So using these two very solid strategies for making life decisions, I realized in my early forties that life was unfulfilling (surprise). I had no idea what would make me happy. I just knew that something was missing, that I had no real purpose in life. Nothing really excited me to rouse myself out of bed in the morning.

So what was wrong with my whole life approach? Simple. I forgot to tap into my intuition. I used only my head and not my heart. I forgot to ask myself, “how do I feel?”

Feelings for me have been in an untapped, inaccessible place for so long that asking myself how I felt about options didn’t even occur to me. I was too wrapped up in my own confused head about what I thought.

The answers were given to me in so many different ways and I realized it was all the same. That I had the power to change my destiny. That I had the power to CREATE my destiny.

I didn’t realized that deciding on what I wanted my destiny to be was going to be the easy part. The commitment and follow through has been even tougher.