Choose Your Own Adventure

When I was a kid, I really enjoyed reading the “choose your own adventure” books where you would be presented with a choice at one point in the book and depending on your choice, you would be directed to proceed to a different page further into the book. I would read the books over and over making different choices so I could see how each of the variations of the stories would end.

I have met people in my past who would say things like, “We don’t get to choose our lives” or “It’s just not my destiny.” Though I do agree that some things in our life are predetermined by fate and many people cross our paths for a reason, I believe we also have free will and can control many of the things that happen to us by the choices we make in our lives. At a minimum, we definitely control how we react to things that happen in our lives. Things can send us into a negative spiral or push us to strive for more in our lives.

Have you ever been faced with a choice in your life and later looked back on it and said, “What would have been different if I had made a different choice that day?” I can recall a few pivotal moments where my life could have gone down a very different path had I made a different choice. Sometimes it’s a regret where something bad happened (even if it was mostly out of your control) and sometimes it’s something great like the story of how you met your best friend or your spouse.

I want you to think about your money journey. Think about the choices you have made up until now and think about the choices you will make going forward. Is there something that you have been putting off that you need a nudge to move forward with? It could be getting out of a toxic or dead-end job, it could be starting a savings account and making a commitment to add to it every paycheck, it could be opening that investment account to save for your child’s education or making sure that you and your spouse have life insurance. It could be something as simple as deciding to take a small walk every morning to work towards being healthier or less stressed. Whatever it is that you’ve been putting off, I challenge you to take one small step towards it. Now is your chance to create the thing that you will look back on and say that this was the day that changed the trajectory of your life. Make a choice.

“Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” ~Arthur Ashe