Throughout your life there are times when you find yourself at the proverbial fork in the road. The fork represents a hard choice. You may ask yourself:

“How do I chose?”:  Do you conduct research? Plan? Or do you randomly pick a path because you’re running from something ? (click here for more about that)

“Do I go back the way I came?”: Maybe you’re contemplating walking away from a dream because the reality is harder then you expected.

“Do I have to chose?”: You ask this as you crouch down at the fork in the road and become paralyzed by fear of making the wrong choice. You continue to go though the motions but it’s harder now because you know you have a choice.

Which scenario have you been in? Which one are you on now?

Change is really about hard choices. It’s about not giving up until the change has changed you.

Robert Frost’s poem “The Road Not” taken is my favorite. The end of his poem, below, captures the realities of the conundrum of hard choices.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

To me this poem is about taking action and making a choice to continue to learn, to grow, to discover who you are and claim your dreams. The road less traveled is the road of personal development and hard choices…that is why it is less traveled…

Few venture into themselves to discover who they really are. Until you journey inward your outward journey will have you going in circles. Yet when you commit to doing the internal work, on yourself, you begin to build the road that’s right for you one step at a time. With each hard choice you grow and become stronger; you learn more about who you are. You calibrate your internal compass, strengthen your sense of direction and that is how you know which step to take next. Need help doing that click here.

Every hard choice is an opportunity to take a step towards or away from something. Which steps will you take today?

Copyright 2015, Mary R. Miller