When everything feels like it has completely fallen apart or you just feel that you haven’t made the progress you intended to, just remember the three Cs. These three concepts of life honestly have helped me think more about what I wanted to accomplish and calculate how I would get there. The three Cs have kept me focused in times of disarray, taught me what it means to push myself and to embrace whatever life decides to throw my way.

The three Cs come from an anonymous source (as far as I could tell when I tried to search for the author) and also probably have been making the rounds on Pinterest, Tumblr or some other platform where inspirational quotes are overly abundant.

So, the three Cs are, “Choice, chance, change. You must make the choice, to take the chance, if you want anything in life to change.”

Choice

Every human being on this Earth has the ability to make certain choices in their lives. These choices can be insignificant, the most important choice we ever make, positive, negative or somewhere in between, but the point is we all make choices.

The thing about choosing is that plenty of us have something that holds us back from making the hard decisions. We make excuses as to why the timing is not right or that we are not ready, yet, to make any big decisions. Some of us are content in our day-to-day routines that the most important choice we make could be to have pizza or a salad for lunch and whether you should wear all black to the office (again). However, our choices tend to have a ripple effect we may not even be aware of or place too much importance on.

If we decide we are unhappy with the way our lives are going, we still have the power to stand up for ourselves and say “this is not what I wanted.” If we decide to remain inactive in our own lives, then we will have chosen to remain stagnant and miserable. Once you feel change is necessary don’t ignore that feeling, listen to your gut and take action. Make that choice to move forward.

Chance

Chances come and go throughout our lives. Sometimes we are pleased with ourselves for taking a chance outside of our comfort zone. Maybe you are proud that you tried something new or your courage actually helped you achieve exactly what you planned to achieve.

However, the reason chance is so intimidating is because no outcome is guaranteed. Once you get enough nerve to choose to take chances, it can be easy to back down due to the fear of the unknown. Whether taking that chance gives you the results you were hoping for or not, I can almost promise that you will not regret trying. You may even begin to feel change regardless of the outcome.

Taking chances has become so much more to me than feeling afraid. I feel more confident and brave when I take a chance on myself, someone else or a new experience.

Change

When you begin making choices for yourself and putting those ideas into action, change is inevitable.

Change can be so terrifying and I will completely attest to that. Change used to scare me so much that I thought I was content with the same routine. I thought I had to have everything figured out, whether it was what my intuition told me was wrong or not. I couldn’t fathom the idea of leaving the tiny bubble of security I had so carefully placed myself in.

However, I was also dealing with actual physical discomfort on a daily basis (breaking out in hives, overwhelming dizziness and nausea). I wasn’t sure then what this meant; I thought maybe I had some kind of sensitivity to foods or an allergy of some sort (the doctors I saw actually thought none of it was real). It wasn’t until I reached my first year in college that I realized I was physically uncomfortable within my own body and that these issues stemmed from my undiagnosed anxiety.

I used to (and still do) get this overwhelming urge to rip out of my skin, like the idea of standing still makes my skin crawl and I feel like I am outgrowing my shell. I understand this sounds a bit nutty and I know it seems this has nothing to do with change, but these physical feelings in response to my anxiety have everything to do with change. When I was at my most anxious levels, I was stuck in the “same-thing-different-day” scenario. When something new wasn’t happening, the more on edge I got.

When I started making little changes I began to grow, sometimes I dove too fast into making changes to my life that my impulsivity and obsessions could get out of hand, but I have since learned how to balance those aspects of my life (for the most part). Later, I started making gradual, big changes and my nervous anxiety has begun switching to an excited anxiety (which I much prefer).

As each day passes I am slowly becoming surer of what kind of person I want to be and what I really find important. I don’t want to waste any more time waiting until the time is right or holding back my opinions out of fear of someone not liking me, and I certainly don’t want to suddenly wake up from a haze and realize I hadn’t grown at all.

People change every day. This is not to say that you can change a person. I mean that other people who have the ability and the desire to change their lives in the way they feel to be the most rewarding do achieve their goals. However, you cannot just wake up and tell yourself you are going to jump right into making the changes you want because we can be dreamers, but we also need to be realistic. If I have learned anything about change, it is that you need to find your own pace and the right reasons to make the changes. If you are doing anything for anyone else except yourself, then you need to step back and reevaluate if this is what you truly want.

Change must come from you for you.

I know it can be scary, and it is a much more complex process than you can imagine but when you really feel that change is what you need then you absolutely need to go for it.

With out these three Cs I would not have been able to become the person I want to be. Without choice, chance and change I wouldn’t have traveled parts of the world, met amazing people, found the career path I am excited about, have a giant list of more places I want to travel to, write publicly for strangers to read my thoughts, have the relationships I hold dear to me and try so many new experiences that past me would never have even imagined.

These three Cs potentially saved me from myself and a life I wouldn’t be totally confident in.