Decide. Believe. Change.

By Scott Bartkus

Have you found yourself desiring change in your life, but often regress back to your old ways? Did you ever ask where these old ways of your mannerisms, habits, personalities, and reactions to certain circumstances come from? Can they be changed?

Have you ever wondered why some days you are full of life and energy, yet other days you can barely get out of bed? Do you often tell yourself you want to start pursuing goals and changes in your life but don't know where to begin? Even if you take that first step to begin, how do you stay motivated to keep on the path of a better change?

In Decide Believe Change, Scott V. Bartkus takes you through a step-by-step process of what makes us who we are today, and how we can look at the goals we want to achieve and make changes in our lives. He gives an understanding of how our thinking came to be that leads us to our current personalities and traits, and in turn, guides us to our actions of whether or not we pursue and achieve the changes we want in our lives. Most importantly, you will find within this book each chapter presenting steps of which you can take to resolve any negative patterns within your life and start changing today!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781640821804

Book preview

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Decide.

Believe.

Change.

Scott Bartkus

Copyright © 2017 Scott Bartkus

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2017

ISBN 978-1-64082-179-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64082-180-4 (digital)

ISBN 978-1-64082-343-3 (Hard Cover)

Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

To my wife Lori, my best friend, who stood by me with unconditional love through the good times and bad. I couldn’t be more blessed.

Introduction

There’s never been a more challenging time to be alive. In today’s wonderful society, we, as humans, are faced with more decisions, more options, more pressure to succeed. Every one of us wants to live a life to its fullest; to accomplish all we can. We all want to be a success in life. We all want to be happy. But, we also don’t want to let down other people around us. We want to live up to our potential and live life to the fullest. We want to accomplish great things. But sometimes, it seems like doing so might disappoint others or it just seems too difficult. Quite often, it seems that just surviving is enough. Just getting out of bed and making it through another day is sometimes the best option and the best that we think we can do.

It’s funny that when we are young almost all of us had dreams. But what happened along the way? Did life happen? Did we let ourselves down? Where did we lose our ambition to succeed and complete the dreams we wanted to? Where did we lose our confidence that we once had? Where did we lose that fire that we had inside of us when we desired to do something? When did we give up? Why did we stop pursuing our dreams? Were we listening to other people, or were we listening to ourselves? How did we get the life that we have today and the way that we live? Is it too late to change? Is it possible to succeed and live a life that we want to without giving in to those around us and listening to them, be it having a positive impact on the lives of those that we live with every day? Can we change what we want to do, and can we accomplish it?

Well, certainly, we can! Even though Life has evolved into one with many benefits. The life of today is easier and better, and has way more opportunities than any human being has ever seen before, more than the other generations that have come before us. But it also comes with a lot of problems. We worry ourselves sick to death over things that we cannot control. We give up our dreams, our passions, our potential, because we lack the belief to do so based on what other people have told us, or our experiences of the past. We lose sight of the things that truly make us happy. All the stages in life that happen—death, relationships, raising children, getting an education, pressures of jobs and employment, social stigmas, making sure we are wealthy or retire wealthy—all play a role which can all take a toll on us.

Many of us reading this book have heard that thinking positive and having affirmations and with goals to envision your future is the key to a happy lifestyle. It certainly is. But one thing we have to explore is that in this book we will see how we can get over the obstacles that present themselves to us every day when we try to pursue something we want, whether a memory of the past that becomes an obstacle or people telling us that we can’t do it. Or, it could be other outside sources that impact us and create that obstacle to stop us. How can we get over them? How can we stop letting those things get in the way of our dreams? How can we stay motivated to succeed and make that change? This book is going to explore how we can overcome all those situations.

In this book, I’m going to look at a simple formula to enjoying life, and explain it so you can have all the great things that we, as humans, have at our fingertips to enable us to do so. Getting over the scars of the past and staying focused on what we want out of life are both part of the elements. We will see how we can succeed and define success the way we want to. We have to remember—we don’t want to lose touch with our passions in life, what our desires are, and what really makes us happy. To succeed in life, you have everything it takes. You have all the tools at your disposal. You may just not realize it or you may have lost sight of it along the way. So relax, open your mind, and enjoy this book because your life is about to change for the better.

Holding this book in your hand is the very first step. I want you to look at this book and consider it like a road trip. We’re taking a road trip from New York City to Los Angeles. Not only am I going to teach you how to drive a car, but I’m going to teach you how to fix the engine when it breaks down along the way. Anybody can drive a car. Anybody can have a goal. But how do you fix it when you lose your motivation? How do you fix it when things happen that can prevent you from reaching the end result that you want? How do you stay motivated to stay on that road and make it to your destination in life? Our road trip to success and happiness is clouded with images of how we should live our lives. That fancy education, the diplomas, the big company with the big paycheck, the big house, the big garage with the fancy cars, going on expensive vacations—all throw us out of balance. Where is the balance in life? Where is the enjoyment? How many of us do not enjoy what we do for a living? How many of us don’t start pursuing goals that we really want to do, and we only think about them? How many of us get turned away from just thinking about a goal? How many of us out there live our lives every day because of what other people feel we should be doing with our lives? How many of us give up every day on a goal because we just don’t have the confidence as a result of something in our past?

We could have a professional, social, financial, spiritual, or any other change that we want to make no matter what it is. No matter what part of our lives it entails—how much we want to succeed or how much we want to win—we have to understand that we will be able to get over any roadblock that stands in our way, and that giving up is no longer an option.

So no matter where you find yourself or how you want to succeed and change—whether it’s a simpler life, basic happiness, more riches, stronger relationships, more meaning in your life, or maybe leaving a legacy—the formula is all the same, and our journey is going to get you there.

I’m happy you picked up this book, and you will be, too. As you read though it page by page, I hope it benefits you and creates a new you beyond all your potential imaginable.

Chapter 1

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions: Better Changes in our Lives

As we begin our journey to see how we can make better changes in our lives, in the things that we always wanted to do to succeed where we always wanted to succeed or just be better people, we need to understand one thing. We come across decisions we have to make every day, and our life, as we know it, is based on those decisions. Some of them are very common decisions, such as what to eat for dinner, what to buy at the grocery store, what roads to take to work, what time to get home, or what time to go to bed and get sleep. Other decisions are major crossroads in our lives. These are the types of decisions that either cause us to make big changes, or they can cause us to do nothing and shut down. We make our decisions based on one thing, and this one thing is what we need to understand.

Any decisions we make are based on our beliefs of what we think the reality of the outcome could be. Once we act on that decision, we know there will be an outcome and that’s based on what we believe. What do I mean by that? We all have beliefs about what we think is real in our lives. We all have beliefs about other people, certain foods, weather, items we purchase at the store, and we all have beliefs about ourselves. We may believe we are good at something. We might believe that we’re bad at doing something. Some people believe that they can easily excel at certain tasks and are natural at it, such as mechanical work like working on a car, or maybe building things, or in subjects in academics such as mathematics. Other people believe they might be good at cooking. They might be good at public speaking or other subjects in school. They believe that they’re good parents, or maybe a good friend.

Unfortunately, many of us believe that we’re not good at certain things. Maybe there is that certain subject in school that we might not accel at. Maybe we feel we’re not good at athletics. Maybe we never had the opportunity to do a certain act, so we believe we can’t ever do it. Or maybe we feel that, because of lack of opportunity, we’ll never be good at it. Many of us often think we’re not good at something we never even tried, and as a result, we don’t even try to make that change that we desire in our lives.

The one thing we as humans all have in common is that we all came into this world with what I like to call the Clean Belief Slate. None of us had a belief about anything. We all had our basic instincts, and that was it. Those instincts were to sleep, eat, and to make dirty diapers. It was until we got older that we started to develop beliefs. None of us spoke a single language, but we did learn at least one language growing up. Our parents or those who raised us and were around us taught us that language, and we grew up with it. Then throughout the years, we started to develop beliefs. These were beliefs about the world we lived in and about ourselves. We developed these beliefs about what we thought the world really was. Many of, if not all, those beliefs were handed down from the generations before—from those very same people we were surrounded by on a day-to-day basis. These beliefs translated into the way we act and the decisions we make on a daily basis. We began to grow up with them, and they became part of us.

For example, if you were brought up to believe that a certain food tastes horrible, you may never have even tried it. You may even get sick looking at a that food and it may never have even touched your lips. Why? Because you are acting on your belief.