Several years ago, I ran a blog called ‘lifearticulate’. it was born from a deep conviction that many of us live lives we’ve never fully chosen. Through this blog, I wanted to encourage people to be true to themselves and articulate the kind of life they truly wanted to live.

To articulate is to name. When you can name something, you can nurture it. When you can describe it, you can design it. When you can articulate it, you can achieve it.

Too many of us keep editing our lives based on what life throws at us. We adjust our dreams, scale back our ambitions, and reshape our goals until they’re barely recognizable. We become reactive rather than proactive, letting circumstances dictate our path instead of choosing it ourselves.

By the way I stumbled on this quote today: ‘Don’t let your dreams give up on you’ And I was like ‘how does that even happen?’ It happens when we stop working on them. It happens when we tuck them away as “someday” wishes. It happens when we let circumstances silence our desire and we stop believing in the power of our own voice.

Back to our talk on ‘life articulate’, here’s what I’ve learned: Whatever has happened in your past brought you here. The key is to pick up the wisdom from those experiences and accept the responsibility of creating a new future. Your past experiences have shaped you, but they don’t have to define your tomorrow.

Many things in life is about cause and effect, so it’s what you do—or don’t do—that influences your reality. So know that your life energy is precious, and you have a choice in how to use it. You can spend it responding to whatever comes your way, or you can channel it into creating what you truly want.

It’s time to be brave enough to name the life you want. Not the life others expect of you, not the life that seems most practical, but the life that resonates with your deepest truth. When you can articulate that vision clearly, you’ve taken the first step toward making it real.

Name it. Describe it. Design it.