I need you to conduct an important exercise right now. You don’t have to move from where you are, and it won’t steal more than three minutes of your time.

Look around – take stock of the environment that surrounds you, and all the things you don’t like about it.

I’m sure you’re facing a variety of obstacles, and I’m sure that in some way, shape or form, those obstacles are making you feel alienated from your environment.

You’ve questioned why the circumstances brought you here, and what your life would be like had things unfolded differently.

You’re waiting for a plan to move past the things that limit you and rise into a much more fulfilling reality.

You’re ready to leave, move on, change what doesn’t work and leave this behind for good.

But you’re forgetting the most important key needed to turn those desires into action…

It is a paradigm shift that will immediately transform your perspective on many of the most pressing questions you have about your life in 2022.

Are you ready for it? Here it is: You chose this for yourself. You wanted to be here. You wished for things to unfold this way. You picked this chapter of your life (along with all the limitations that feel disempowering). You are surrounded by your choices.

It doesn’t matter how difficult your circumstances are, how little you could have foreseen about your current issues, or how many of the things that led you here were out of your control.

You are standing here because you knew this would happen to you, and you understood that it was exactly what you needed. You picked these challenges. You picked these restrictions. You picked these obstacles.

I understand that your initial reaction will be somewhat like mine: “Did I really choose all of this though? A lot of these injustices have nothing to do with me.”

It depends on how you want to see it.

There are many spiritual philosophies that would explain that you selected your present challenges long before you were even born.

They would say that you understood, from the great beyond, how important it was for you to experience these problems, not because you deserved them, but because you had something important to learn from them. They would say that you lived it so you could change it – so the pain you felt and the lessons you learned would become embedded in your life mission and you could go on to do something about it and change the world for the better. They would say that you knew all along, even before you truly understood it, how much your soul needed to be challenged by them. You picked them for the year you are living them, at the age you are living them, so you could empower yourself to rise above them.

There are other equally popular spiritual philosophies that would claim there is a direct link between your deepest subconscious thoughts and the circumstances you continue to attract into your reality.

I’m not here to comment on the level of truth behind either of those philosophies. Spiritual beliefs are very personal, and the people who choose them must make that choice for themselves.

I’m just here to illustrate all the ways in which you may have chosen this for yourself.

There is also the logical perspective: your current reality is simply the outcome of the complex web of choices you have been making over the past nine years (the jobs you took, the things you spent your money on, the priorities you made, and the ways you combined them into your present circumstances).

From a million different angles, in a thousand different ways, it is clear that the obstacles sitting on your lap today…were actually created by you. You own them. They are yours and no one else’s.

Some find that statement to be insulting. I find it to be deeply empowering. It forces me to start thinking about what I can control, rather than what is completely out of my hands. It forces me to focus on the things that are my responsibility, rather than something for “luck” or someone else to resolve on my behalf.

They push me to look at everything from the optimist’s perspective (“however shitty this may feel, it is inherently good and deeply important for me. I’m experiencing it for a reason.”).

Like pure magic, these philosophies transform my problems into blessings, allowing me to understand the opportunities hidden behind the situations that would otherwise only cause me unnecessary pain.

Think about it: it doesn’t matter if you really chose this for yourself or didn’t. The truth remains the same: you are not powerless.

You are not a victim of your circumstances. You are not a slave to the people whose choices have complicated your present life. You are not beholden to the whims of luck or chance. You are not permanently condemned to your financial situation, relationship, or anything else that is holding you back.

Your life is always in your hands. Your obstacles are the only ingredients you have to build the life of your dreams.

So long as you keep your mind locked in the victimhood loop (where someone or something is doing this to you), you will disempower yourself to do something about it.

It matters little whether you are actually a victim in certain contexts (and I would never deny that you are in some). Taking control of your life by feeling in control is always the best mindset.

So long as you dwell on dissecting why others are MORE RESPONSIBLE or how YOU DON’T DESERVE THIS or why THIS KEEPS HAPPENING TO YOU, you will have no time to apply your creativity into designing and implementing a solution that will bring you closer to the things you want.

The only way to get yourself to a better place is to understand the role you played in what brought you here, regardless of how much fault lies in others or external forces.

Try applying this philosophy now:

Why would I have chosen this for myself?

How did I create this for myself?

Why did I think this was the best way of learning what I needed to learn?

Why was I convinced that this was the only way to get what I want in life?

How could this actually be the very best thing that could ever happen to me?

There is a reason you have brought yourself here. There is a reason you feel trapped and are aching to get out. You chose this. You made this. You are responsible for turning it into something great.

Something important is hidden beneath this experience.

The key to your freedom is hiding somewhere beneath these questions. The moment you figure them out you will literally trigger change into action.