“You must be the change you wish to see in the world. ”

— Mahatma Ghandi

You may have heard and been moved by Gandhi's quote, yet haven't heard the back story.

“Whatever changes you want like to effect in our society has to begin with you”

And that's what Ghandi did, when he was asked to speak with a young boy by his mother to give up sugar. 'Upon your visit two weeks ago I too was eating sugar.' He explained that he could not speak of or teach her son to not eat sugar if he himself had not taken that journey.

Simple and profound, if you want to see the change then start within.

1. Be the change ~ starts with you

Start with you, how you think, feel and the actions you take. The world around you will change because when you view your life through new lenses of thoughts and emotions, you're now inclined to take action in ways you wouldn’t have while you were stuck in old thought patterns.

2. You're in control ~ the drivers seat

What you feel and how you react to something is always up to you, no one can hurt you without your permission. You may think there may be a normal or common way to react to different things, that's a reaction. Instead choose your thoughts, response and emotions to what's going on and leave behind the freak out, overreaction or negative comment. Nobody outside of you can control how you feel. Integrate this thinking into your daily life to develop a thought habit, growing stronger and stronger over time, making life easier and pleasurable.

3. Be authentic ~ your true self

Want to feel even better about yourself? Then commit to improving your social skills to behave and communicate in a congruent and authentic way. It feels great when our thoughts, words and actions are aligned, dropping the pretense and mixed messages. When words and thoughts are aligned it shines in your communication. Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

4. Get into action ~ do it anyway

We can often get trapped into thinking that taking action will be hard and difficult. So we begin seeking the reading and studying endlessly, feeling like we're moving forward yet getting little to no measurable change in results. Let's face it, without taking action very little will occur. Get on track to where you want to go through truly understanding yourself and your world and surrounds, tapping into the resources and taking the bold action. The more we're in action the lower the levels of resistance become.

5. Choose to Persist ~ stay the course

Be persistent as in time the opposition within you and surrounding you will fade away. Find what you really like to do to fuel your motivation to keep on keeping on. Rarely does success come as quickly as we would like it to, so stay the course, never giving up no matter how tempting or challenging. The rewards are bigger than you can imagine.

6. Forgive ~ then let it go

Consider this, if you don’t forgive then you let the past and another person control how you feel. By forgiving you release yourself from those connections. You always choose how to react to something and when you can incorporate such a thought habit more and more into your life then you can react in a way that is more useful to you and others. You soon realize forgiving and letting go of the past will do you and the people in your world a great service.