On Wednesdays, I share posts, fables, songs, poems, quotations, TEDx Talks, cartoons, and books that have inspired and motivated me on my writing journey. I hope these posts will give writers, artists, and other creatives a mid-week boost.

A longtime fan of bestselling authors and coaches Marc and Angel Chernoff, I look forward to receiving their daily emails. Here’s a recent message that may resonate with anyone who is struggling to achieve their goals.

If you want something in life, you also have to want the costs of getting it.

Most people want the reward without the risk. The shine without the grind. But you can’t have a destination without a journey. And a journey always has costs…

So instead of thinking about what you want, first ask yourself:

“What am I willing to give up to get it?”

Or, for those inevitably hard days:

“What is worth suffering for?”

Seriously, think about it…

If you want the six-pack abs, you have to want the sore muscles, the sweaty clothes, the morning or afternoon workouts, and the healthy meals.

If you want the successful business, you have to also want the long days, the stressful business decisions, and the possibility of failing several times to learn what you need to know to succeed.

And the same general philosophy holds true for HEALING any source of pain in your life – you have to want to WORK through the pain, step by step.

Regardless of what you want the next chapter of your life to look like, you have to consistently DO things that support this idea. An idea, after all, isn’t going to do anything for you until you do something productive with it. In fact, as long as that great idea is just sitting around in your head, it’s doing far more harm than good. Your subconscious mind knows you’re procrastinating on something that’s important to you. The required work that you keep postponing causes stress, anxiety, fear, and usually more procrastination – a vicious cycle that continues to worsen until you interrupt it with positive ACTION. That’s the brutal truth!

The best action you can take right now, though, is changing how you THINK about the actions you need to take…

And there is a path. Marc and I have walked this path ourselves many times. A decade ago, in quick succession, we dealt with several significant, unexpected losses and life changes back-to-back, including losing my brother to suicide, losing a mutual best friend to cardiac arrest, financial unrest, and more. The weight of these dire circumstances had us STUCK to say the least, and we were avoiding the very actions we needed to take to heal and move forward. But, by changing our thinking, these circumstances became the proving ground for achieving renewed happiness and beauty in our lives.

The key is to understand that no matter what happens, or what challenges you face, you can choose your response, which dictates pretty much everything that happens next. Truly, the greatest weapon you have against pain, anxiety, negativity and stress is your ability to choose one present thought and action over another – to train your mind to make the best of what you’ve got in front of you, even when the journey is harder than you expected.

Yes, YOU CAN change the way you think and respond to life! And once you do, you can master a new way to be.

Note: I highly recommend subscribing to Marc & Angel’s website.