Stronger Now: How to Thrive in Any Circumstance and Become Unstoppable

By Rebecca K. Sampson

What if everything that happened to you was an opportunity? What if you could transform pain into lessons and wisdom? What if everything that you think is holding you back, is actually preparing you for something bigger? What if you could love, appreciate, and find joy in your life just as it is right now, while still working towards transforming it into the life of your dreams?

 

After her husband's cancer diagnosis, Rebecca said enough was enough. From hopeless to unstoppable, you'll read how she moved through fear and stopped letting circumstances tell her no. Not only did she finally meet her dream of publishing her fiction novels, but she also fostered a go-getter attitude that has taken her life and career beyond her imagination.

 

Stronger Now helps you train your mind to find the opportunity, purpose, positivity, and hope in your everyday life. The results? After reading and applying this material you will feel your innate power and have the confidence to create change in your life right now, not later.

 

Written by bestselling fiction author Rebecca K. Sampson, this guide takes both popular and often misunderstood personal development topics and reinterprets them for a modern audience. Each chapter is filled with real-life examples from her life and her community.

 

Are you ready to be stronger now?

 

Included in your purchase is a web portal with additional guides, videos, and worksheets to complement your journey.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rebecca K. Sampson
• Release date: Sep 18, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393927549

Book preview

1

IS IT MONDAY YET?

"Change happens when the pain of staying the same

is greater than the pain of change."

Tony Robbins

I’ve known this quote for years, but I didn’t live it for half the time I knew it. Knowing and doing are two different things, especially when you are lying to yourself about knowing the lesson. I didn’t truly understand this quote until August 18th, 2017. Was it only a few years ago? It feels like a lifetime.

Maybe you are wondering, Rebecca, are you starting this book by calling yourself a liar?

Yes, indeed I am. It happens all the time even with the best intentions. You are likely lying to yourself about something too.

If we haven’t met before, my name is Rebecca K. Sampson. My favorite things in life are my family, encouraging people to follow their dreams, and writing. All three of these things are coming together in this book because many of these stories involve the transformative events my family and I worked through these past few years.

I learned how to stop taking my dreams (and life) for granted so that I could normalize one big passion of mine—publishing. You’ll learn about how I finally took action to publish my book, as well as the feelings and experiences that came along the way.

Life comes with many lessons, and we absorb some of them, acting as if we have all of the answers. But if we knew everything we claimed to know, wouldn’t our lives look a little (or a lot) different?

How many times have you told yourself and others, I already know this, and internally sighed about wasted time? How many times have you told yourself that Monday was the day it would all change for you? The fitness starts Monday. The goal starts Monday. The new me starts Monday.

But why? Why New Year’s Day? Why in the Fall? Why choose any other day? Why Monday?

Because Monday is not today, six days out of seven. Isn’t that handy? We can be motivated to start our goals when it isn’t today.

And why does it matter that you put off your goals for next week? Because next week may not come. I didn’t realize that to be true until August 18th, 2017, the day my husband was diagnosed with cancer.

There are many changes in my life that I attribute to cancer, and at times I hate it. I hate that my life before and after centers around this one day that caused our family so much pain. That day echoes in me like a scar on my heart.

We knew something was wrong with my husband, Chris, since about July. We went to a few specialists and got a biopsy, but it took weeks for the diagnosis to come. At 30 years old, Chris was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma, a type of cancer that typically afflicts children. They couldn’t find what it was for weeks, because they didn’t know to look

My husband’s father was also his primary care doctor. When his diagnosis came in, instead of calling his son, he called me. I was sitting at my desk at work when he did. I agreed to meet him at the parking lot of our complex so we could tell him together. I stood up from my office chair, turned around, and picked up my bag. I looked to my coworker and told myself to be brave, but seconds later I fell to the floor crying.

I have to tell him. How can I tell him? I have to be the one to tell him, I remember saying. She ushered me to the elevator so I could get to him faster and told my bosses for me. This was a unique situation, one I was oddly grateful that I had to bear for my husband.

The first call on my drive home was to my mother. I have no idea how I got any words out. She called my dad. Chris’s dad called the rest of the family. And there we were, outside my door, with his family on the way. I’m glad I had to have that moment and knowledge ahead of him so that we could be together when we discussed what to do next.

A few days before this news, we had been celebrating. I had finished the first draft of my first fiction novel, Ember Dragon Daughter, and we were going to Disney for our first family trip since our son was born. It would be my 28th birthday and our son, Jack’s, first birthday. We had the biopsy in the back of our minds, but we didn’t focus on it. What could go wrong?

They’ll always be Monday.

Let me skip forward a bit. My husband is alive and well. He is now two years cancer-free, as of this writing.

But what if…

As a note, my husband’s cancer does come up a lot in my story, because it was a big moment for us and has shaped our future. However, the focus in this book will be on how I felt because I can’t tell his story for him. Through this book, like the introduction comments on, I share my lens of events and how I took them to create change in my life. This story was shaped by many events and people, but this one sticks out the most in my life.

Now we are back to the quote.

Change happens when the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.

I wouldn’t take my dreams for granted any longer. No longer was it about Monday. Monday was bullshit. Most people don’t like Mondays anyway! Why start something you claim to be passionate about on the day most people dislike?

I knew that I had to be ready to believe and fight for my goals every day, regardless of what day it was on the calendar. I would no longer set goals for Monday or live for the weekend.

But before I could do that, I had a pressing matter. I focused on our survival. We took the shutters down after Hurricane Irma interrupted the start of treatment. We set appointments, an average of 15 appointments per month. Over time, we got into a routine with chemotherapy. My husband and son were the priority and for a few months, I stopped writing.

And then on November 1, 2017, I started the second draft of what would become my debut novel. I had a book to finish, a dream to pursue, and most of all I needed to hand my husband my book. I needed to have him read it and tell me what he thought of the world I made up in my head. He is my best friend, my confidant, and my #1 supporter. I’ve had a lot of wild and bold ideas in the 15 years we’ve been together. When I would share my ideas with him, he would always respond, sure, why not?

There was a hole in my heart over the fact that I had been complaining every