Today I’m diving into Glennon Doyle's book “Untamed”. Glennon Doyle is a New York Times Bestselling Author, and motivational leader to those in search of community, change, and the breaking out of a caged life.

Glennon says that who you truly are - that spark in you - fades around the time where you begin to learn how to people-please. It is when you start to hide who you are in order to become what the world expects you to be, and then figure that's just what life is about.

But look hard at your friendships, work, values, your entire life and ask yourself - how much of this was your idea? Do you truly want any of this? Or is this what you were conditioned to want? Who are YOU before you became what the world told you to be? Questioning your foundations is the first step to creating a new identity by design, rather than living one by default.

By doing this, you bring out the parts of yourself that you were trained to mistrust, hide, and abandon in order to keep others comfortable.

Who you will become is unforeseeable, and SO specific, that you’ll need every bit of today’s lessons to become that.

When you learn that pleasing the world is impossible, you begin to learn to please yourself. To do this you need to know what your inner voice of wisdom sounds like and listen to that, rather than the voices of outer approval.

How to hear that inner guidance:

1) breathe, be still and empty your mind .. relax

2) feel for the knowing that doesn’t come from your mind, but from the root of you - the voice will tell you your next step, without question, without doubt, but with pure knowing. And even if it doesn’t make sense right now, just go with it

3) repeat forever

In order to create that new identity that’s under your terms and will lead you directly to your purpose, you need to see that voice / dream/ knowing - whatever you want to call it- as a command.

10 years ago I was incredibly unhappy with the cards I had been dealt with in my life. I was being mentally and physically abused, manipulated, robbed, had been molested, contemplated ending my life every day, and attempted twice. But amidst that chaos, I found myself one single moment of stillness. Instead of taking the path I normally did to head home, I wandered off into a bookstore, gravitated to one book on the shelves, opened it up and read a random page. Suddenly as I read, I felt this pool of emotions - of hope - I read, “3% of people break out of the poverty cycle”. In that moment I heard myself say, “I can be that 3%”.

The decision, without question, and with full confidence, was to move out. I left and lived with my partner at the time whose family I am so grateful to, for letting me in. And as I settled into the new life I forced myself into, the vision of what I wanted my life to be, one that I could not have imagined if I stayed and tolerated what didn’t feel right, became stronger.

A couple of years later I found myself in another shithole.[..]But even in the midst of the chaos those next years would be, I knew that there was more, that this was just another necessary step, and that I can imagine better than this.

In every single one of those decisions, as well as others, that inner knowing / guidance was like a command. It told me, “just do this, trust me.” And though many of those decisions felt like huge risks and sacrifices, I’d never go back and change anything. I made every one of those decisions on my call, no one else’s. Each decision was my own, it empowered me, and forced me to take responsibility for my life.

Let your wildest imagination of what you want out of this life become your plans. Act as if every decision is a command coming out from the depths of your soul fighting for a better life.

To know where you’re going and who in your wildest dreams you can become, you need to know where you are, and who you are right now. Are you making your decisions, or are you letting others drive your life?