Like everyone in this world, you are looking to improve your life! No matter how well or how poorly you are doing, there are definitely areas where you desperately want to boost the quality of your life. Maybe you want to end emotional eating, overcome depression, feel relaxed and self-confident, or live more intensely and passionately. You can take control and create the freedom to live life as you choose it. And yes, you can do all this without using force or punishing yourself in your efforts to improve your life!

Most people know that "happiness is within." However, they don't know how to access that happiness and then use that positive energy to boost the quality of life. Taking control of your life means getting in touch with what is important to you, and feeling good because you have consciously chosen a direction for your life. In addition, taking inspired action every day and putting your needs at the top of your priority list nurtures your inner pride, strengthens empowerment, and adds to your happiness.

To be in control of where life, start with these 7 steps and you are on your way.

1. Dream from the Heart
You have the ability to live a new life. However, the life you wish to live can only be imagined by you, and can only be created by you. Sit for a moment and take a deep breath. Close your eyes, and look inside. What is it that you want? Only you can decide what feeling good would look like. For example, it is not enough to say, "I want to lose weight." This statement may steer you away from what you do not want, but lacks the clarity and focus to move you toward what you do want. To create the life you want, you must take the responsibility to first name what you want to experience, and decide how you would like that experience to feel.

2. Regularly ask yourself these important questions:

What do I want?

What is important to me about what I want?

What is the feeling or inner strength I want to generate during the process of creating what I want?

What am I doing today to get what I want?

What action or choice will make me feel proud of myself right now?

3. Cultivate Inner Strength
As you move forward and decide to stop your self-defeating patterns, notice what underlying feelings and personal integrity characteristics you are wishing to cultivate. For example, you do not want to just end emotional eating. Instead, you want to end emotional eating by increasing your ability to feel calm and relaxed, and have a greater capacity to deal with life's challenges. Other inner strengths include self-respect, a sense of worthiness, and ability to receive abundance from the world, self-esteem, confidence, or feelings of happiness. Notice if you want to turn your depression into joy. Perhaps you wish to eliminate stress, worry, and anxiety and replace those feelings with trust and positive expectation. Your dream is not just about the surface desire such as overcoming depression or weighing a different amount, it is about creating a life in which you feel better and more alive than you do right now.

4. Expect More Out of Your Self
Do you believe you can achieve success? I mean really, really, completely, with every fiber of your being, believe that you can accomplish your dream? Do you hold the vision that you can permanently achieve and maintain a desired body shape or freedom with eating? Do you feel good inside of yourself as you hold this belief, even though your outer circumstances do not yet show any evidence of your success? Your thoughts and beliefs are more powerful than you can even imagine. Maybe you have tried in the past and failed. Perhaps you have given up. Or maybe you "want" to achieve success, but in your subconscious you know that it will be impossible. Or too difficult. Or too time consuming. As protection we come up with all sorts of reasons not to allow ourselves to fully believe. It is your job to believe in yourself, especially when things seem at their darkest.

5. Set Personally Meaningful Goals
In order to get what you really want you must start by setting effective goals. Learning the art of goal setting begins the process of discovering how to live a conscious life in which you determine your level of happiness and success. Goal setting is simply a teaching tool. Its strength lies in its ability to lift you up out of your current life's turmoil and challenges, into a world of possibility and potential.

6. Take Action Every Day!
Setting meaningful goals activates your spirit. Your inner passion starts jumping up and down inside, all excited that you have decided to take action on ideas that are purposeful to you. Everyday, your spirit or inner passion will provide both the energy and the creative solutions necessary to overcome your challenges. However, wishful thinking alone is not enough to make your dreams come true. Allow the human physical aspect of you to get involved also. Follow through on those hunches. Take action on those inspired ideas.

7. Expect Your Dreams to Come True
Expectation is the fire that will fuel your dreams. Open your heart, your lower belly, and add life energy to dreams. Play with your desired outcomes. Breathe into them. Even if you have no idea how you will accomplish your goal, it needs your energy and faith to become a realizable potential.

Taking control of your life is a process that involves both love of self and a conscious decision to move in a desired direction. Through this journey, be kind to yourself, respect your decisions, develop a trusting partnership with your body, back yourself always, approve of yourself, like yourself and what you do, and always be proud of yourself. This is the important lesson. Learn it and live well!

Author's Bio: 

Dr. Annette Colby, RD can help you take the pain out of life, turn difficult emotions into joy, release stress, end emotional eating, and move beyond depression into an extraordinary life! Annette is the author of Your Highest Potential and has the unique ability to show you how to spark an amazing relationship with your life! Visit www.LovingMiracles.com
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