There comes a time in everybody’s life when you realize that you are going to have to finally face the music and either accept the life that you have, or start making some serious changes to become the person that you want to be. You can change your look, your location, your job, you can even buy all the latest toys with the coolest bells and whistles available, but until you start to change your own thought patterns and processes you’ll still be the same person. You’ll just look different and be surrounded by cool stuff. But what happens if you choose to make those changes?

I recently made that choice, specifically pertaining to my attitude toward my job, and let me tell you, it has been like a breath of fresh air. I get more done and I’m happier. You see, I am still in a sustenance day job. It isn’t anything that I specifically enjoy doing, but I also don’t hate what I’m doing. The problem lies in the fact that I know what I would rather be doing, but I haven’t gotten to the point that that pays the bills. So until then, sustenance job, and somehow I managed to find that needle in a haystack job that pays the bills, but doesn’t consume my life. It doesn’t stress me out, and when I leave, I leave it all on my desk. Work doesn’t come home with me.

Despite this, for a good long while, I have hated my job. Because it wasn’t what I wanted to be doing and it took up precious time that I could have been devoting toward my writing. The game changer for me happened when I realized that by hating my job I WAS taking it home with me. I was creating more stress than necessary and allocating unnecessary head space to a sustenance job. How ridiculous is that? So I decided to stop. I decided to stop dreading coming in in the morning. I decided to stop counting the hours and the minutes until I got to go home. I felt a bit like a fish out of water for a while, but I’ve started to get used to this new attitude and getting out of bed in the morning is so much easier now. Not to mention that my days are much more pleasant!

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not like every day has become a bed of roses for me. I still have my down days, and every now and then I find myself in bed like a petulant child telling my alarm clock that I don’t wanna get up! But things are better. The fact that I’m getting up earlier also means that I have time to make some coffee to drink on my way in to work, so I’m sure that that helps too. But really, it’s the attitude change that has really made the difference. This is a step. And quite frankly this step is probably the calm before the storm, because I’m a hop, skip and a jump away from being able to venture out on my own and I definitely feel like there won’t be very much calm then. Lots and lots of busy, but good busy so I’m looking forward to it. The trick will be to keep that attitude once I’m there! What attitudes can you change that will make your life better?

*This blog brought to you by @SteveLeeHwd who challenged me to write a blog using all nine of the clichés listed in this article from HuffPo.