“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.” – Winston Churchill

 “Yesterday I was not the same person I am today.”

          For most, that statement is probably very vague and ambiguous because most people change over a period of time. I don’t mean just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and spiritually also. People may not always change for the better and it may not be noticeable. People may not even recognize they’ve changed, but the truth is that people change. Which is why, that statement for me is everything. Knowing every day I am new is my building block to a life worth living; days without fear and nights full of dreams. When I reflect on that statement I think of the minor tweaks I’ve made in my behavior, attitude and habits. Friends whom I’ve recently met would hardly be able to fathom the flaws in my character prior.

Those who knew me no longer know me.

          A year ago, the words Confident, Determined, Passionate, were traits I would use to characterize great athletes or musicians; the rich and famous but never myself. A year ago, I was unsure, afraid, maybe even slightly depressed. Voices of family and friends echoed throughout my thoughts constantly. “You have so much potential” or “I know that you’ll do great things Alex” rang in my mind over and over again. “But how did I end up in this position?” “What happened?” “Where did things go wrong?”. These questions became the haunting ghosts in my life I could never get rid of as I mowed grass for a full-time job, joking with my friends how it felt like I was doing slave’s work trying to hide the embarrassment that my life hadn’t developed the way I dreamt it would.

“Where did things go wrong?” There goes those thoughts again.

       It’s funny, how people cope in life when they’ve hit rock bottom. People will tell you to get back up but they never tell you how. What happens then is people turn to drugs and alcohol to cope. I can’t say I avoided that path completely. My greatest outlet however wasn’t using drugs or drinking four days a week because it’s “Boozeday Tuesday” or “Thirsty Thursday”. No, my greatest outlet was music. Music was my escape from reality. I needed music to drown out the voices in my head. I listened to music 7-8 hours a day, everyday. Then one day a friend offered me an alternative and said “look, you can listen to the same music continually until this life is over, or, you can invest into yourself and start listening to speakers and podcasts.”

At the time I hadn’t much to lose in life so I began listening to different podcasts.

          Maybe it was destiny, the hero’s path which we all must take to conquer the infamous dragon which so often lives within us. Maybe it was luck of being around the right person at the right time. Either way, the podcasts I substituted music with began to change my life. I became less afraid to fail, realizing it’s necessary to grow and move forward. My thirst for knowledge became unquenchable. I quit living in fear, as fear is fabricated only in our minds, an outdated survival mechanism rooted in self preservation instead of self transformation. Most importantly, I understood that change is not only inevitable, it’s essential, and as our lives continually change we must accept the truth that we have the ability to create the reality in which we choose to live in. I found my north star and whenever I began losing my way, it guided me.

Day after day I tweaked my life always reminded that today I am not the same person as I was yesterday.

          Confident, Determined, Passionate, all were traits I would use to characterize great athletes or musicians, the rich and famous, and now, myself. Yesterday I was not the same person I am today, and tomorrow I will continue to hunt down the flaws in my character. I will continue to slay the dragons that live ever so deeply in my heart’s towers until I have fulfilled every great task presented to me. The only difference is instead of doing another 180° turnaround, I am already trekking down the right course on this unbeaten path. I know that tomorrow I am a new person again. A year ago I came to the realization that if I do not change now, I will die.

A year from now I do not know how I will view myself, but in this moment, I know that I am the pioneer of my life and as long as I continue to pursue my dreams and aspirations fearlessly, I will have lived a full life.

Here is a link to my all-time favorite podcast episode:

http://theshawnstevensonmodel.com/bob-proctor/