Change, of course, is the common denominator. The big life changes, like birth and marriage and death, are easily visible yet our lives are all changing minute to minute. (Isn’t that what’s so amazing about being around little kids? You can actually see the changes from day to day, as they grow and learn.) For some reason, human beings resist change—it feels scary and stressful. But change is unavoidable. How you handle change is where choice comes in.

Successfully dealing with change depends on researching and evaluating the challenges and options at hand. Give yourself the gift of time to work on this without distractions.

1) Ask yourself what you want to do.
2) Be as focused as you can with your answers. Write them down!
3) Give careful consideration to all options, no matter how improbable they may seem.
Right now, you’re gathering information.
4) Acknowledge that change is a normal, natural part of life.

Keep coming back to this exercise until you can clearly express the changes you need to make in order to live the life you want. The insights you gain at this point will allow you to move forward. And you’ll develop the confidence that you can do more than simply endure change. You can—really and truly—learn to embrace it.

Don’t underestimate the importance of sharing passionate experiences with people you care about.

We’ve started 9 different businesses over the past 35 years, always working together and always working hard. Most of our companies have been successful but they’ve all encouraged us to take a careful look at how we’re living.

We drew upon these experiences to identify four important checkpoints that have always helped us determine our choices. These are the Big 4: Passion, People, Environment and Money. And using them as checkpoints for your choices will encourage you to make choices that can change your life.

We’ve learned that living what you love means living a life guided by your passions, surrounded by people you love, in a place you enjoy; we’ve always felt that money’s main function is to makes the other three possible. Life the pistons in your car engine, the Big 4 must all be in proper working order and running smoothly if you want to move through life with confidence and joy.

Think about your own dream and evaluate what’s needed to make it real in terms of people, location, passion and money. Identify what needs adjusting and addressing: Different people? More money? Use the Big 4 to create a plan so your dream can come to life.

Sharing music and s’mores with some of our closest friends

In our commitment to living a life we love, we’ve found that it’s important – no, it’s essential – that we continually question what is and what isn’t working. And that’s our challenge to you. Right now, ask yourself:

1. Am I still passionate about what I’m doing?
2. Do I enjoy the people I spend time with?
3. Do I love where I live?

If the answer to each of these questions isn’t an enthusiastic “yes,” then you need to make an adjustment.

Time and again, we’ve been offered opportunities that seem to offer overwhelming advantages but often enough, we’ve turned those opportunities down. Why? Because they didn’t feel right. We’ve learned to trust our instincts and we take our feelings seriously enough to use them as our guides.

Of course we all need to take practical considerations into account but sometimes, the more logical choices just don’t feel right. And we’ve found that those feelings are what make the difference between a life that’s good enough and a life that’s vital, passionate, meaningful.

Whether you call it instinct or intuition, whether it comes from your heart or your gut, you need to trust your feelings and use them to determine your choices. That’s how you create a life you can love.

West End, Anguilla

Here are some questions to get you thinking about where you’re living these days.

True or false:

• My home suits me perfectly.
• My environment makes me feel good physically.
• I like the climate where I live.
• I generally enjoy my commute to work.
• My job is not the only reason I live where I live.

If you have more nays than yays, you may need to start thinking about what needs to change.

What we didn’t expect was how appropriate the title would turn out to be. After we finished the book and it was ready to go to press, we evaluated what we’d written and realized that we had to revise it completely. It seemed disjointed and not quite right. It was more a story than a roll-up-your-sleeves, do-it-yourself guide. We decided that if we wanted to make this book the best it could be, we had to change our course and start over.

So as ironic as it sounds, we changed our own course while writing Changing Your Course. That’s right. We re-wrote the entire book four times! But the best part about that experience is that we were able to revise and really test our 5-step process. We used the very same D.R.E.A.M. steps – Decide, Research, Evaluate, Act and Maintain – to create the book. First, we decided what parts of the original manuscript needed to change, researched the various approaches we could take, and evaluated which method worked best. Then we acted, working on the book for many months.

Finally, in order to make sure our system works in any life situation, we tested it using changes of all sizes. We applied our 5 steps to all kinds of goals: weight loss, new career, new relationship, and more. Then we launched this Web site to spread the Live What You Love spirit even further. That’s how our dream of helping people will be maintained for years to come.

What change would you like to make? Is it big or small? Have you been able to narrow it down? Are you stumped? Have you hit a wall? How have you started to change your course?