It’s up to you what path you take in life

• You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You’re on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the only one who’ll decide where you’ll go. Dr. Seuss
• Understand that the right to choose your own path is a sacred privilege. Use it. Dwell in possibility. Oprah Winfrey
• All of life is a journey and which paths we take, what we look back on, and what we look forward to is up to us. We determine our destination, what kind of road we will take to get there, and how happy we are when we get there.
• No matter how much advice you get, you are the one who chooses which train to board. As you pass through life, pay attention to the signs and stations; if you don’t like the scenery, pull the emergency cord and get off the train. There is no other conductor in charge. There is no one who needs to give you permission to transfer. This is your life.  Your journey.  Your trip to conduct.  Bernie Siegel
• Life is a journey,  Adventure,  Do what you love,  Be who you are,  Conformity

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Follow your own path …

• You’re standing at a fork in the road. Presumably, both roads will lead to your ideal life. There are two signs pointing to your destination. One says YOUR WAY. The other says THEIR WAY. Which path do you think will be more fun? Never mind about enlightenment or building your credibility. Which path will have more free falls and heart rushes, more laughs, more daring? Danielle LaPorte
• It is better to live your own destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else’s life with perfection. The Bhagavad Gita
• It’s easy to get caught up in where the world is going and lose sight of the direction we were headed. Terry A O’Neal
• There is only one success – to be able to spend your life in your own way. Christopher Morley
• You must define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script. Oprah Winfrey
• No one can tell you what is right for you except for yourself. So start telling yourself what to do. If you blunder for ten years while thinking for yourself, that is rich treasure when compared with living these ten years under the mental domination of another. The only true, honest and enriching authority is the internal authority of your own Supermind. Vernon Howard
• A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within. Anthony de Mello
• It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world.  George Dennison Prentice
• There is just one life for each of us: our own.  Euripides
• There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone. Jerry Garcia
• Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself. Harvey Fierstein
• Live your life from your heart. Share from your heart. And your story will touch and heal people’s souls. Melody Beattie
• You have the right to do whatever you choose, so long as it does not harm another human being. Libertarian axiom
• If my life is going to mean anything, I have to live it myself. Rick Riordan
• You just have to do your own thing, no matter what anyone says. It’s your life. Ethan Embry

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…not someone else’s path…

• Don’t set your goals by what other people deem important. Jaachynma N.E. Agu
• Lead the life that’s yours instead of faking someone else’s. Sandy Natha
• Tis’ better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else’s perfectly. Elizabeth Gilbert
• When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Eric Hoffe
• You must define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script. Oprah Winfrey
• Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary. Steve Jobs
• The trouble is if you don’t spend your life yourself, other people spend it for you. Peter Shaffer
• If you focus on what others expect of you, you’ll continue to act on and attract more of what they desire for you. But when you can shift your inner thoughts to what you intend to create and attract into your life, you will no longer have to give mental energy to what others want for you. Wayne Dyer

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… even if it means daring to be different

• To dare to be different is to live your life your own way. Following your heart rather than following the crowd gives you much more chance to find happiness and fulfilment, but it takes courage. Many people are afraid of being different, of not being accepted by those around them, and of standing out rather than blending in.  Amanda Harvey
• Champion the right to be yourself; dare to be different and to set your own pattern, live your own life, and follow your own star. Wilfred Peterson
• Diversity,  Uniqueness

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Follow your path irrespective of what others expect or say

• Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• They will say you are on the wrong road if it is your own. Antonio Porchia
• You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations. Stevie Wonder
• A nice definition of an awakened person: a person who no longer marches to the drums of society, a person who dances to the tune of the music that springs up from within. Anthony de Mello
• It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world.  George Dennison Prentice
• Give up defining yourself – to yourself or to others. You won’t die. You will come to life. And don’t be concerned with how others define you. When they define you, they are limiting themselves, so it’s their problem. Eckhart Tolle
• Following your heart rather than following the crowd gives you much more chance to find happiness and fulfilment, but it takes courage. Many people are afraid of being different, of not being accepted by those around them, and of standing out rather than blending in. Amanda Harvey
• Our wretched species is so made that those who walk on the well-trodden path always throw stones at those who are showing a new road. Voltaire
• When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity… you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others. Robert Greene
• Those who’ve abandoned their dreams, will discourage yours.
• People who urge you to be realistic generally want you to accept their version of reality.
• Do what you feel in your heart to be right – for you’ll be criticized anyway. Eleanor Roosevelt
• People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. Live your truth and don’t ever stop!  Steve Maraboli
• Criticism,  Approval seeking,  Rejection,  Worrying what others think

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Those who mind, don’t matter and those who matter, don’t mind

• Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind. Dr Seuss
• I promise you that if you make a choice that doesn’t please your mate, your friends, your mother, or whoever, the world will not fall apart. The people who truly love you want you to love yourself. Oprah Winfrey
• Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others.  Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.  Just do what you know in your heart is right.  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• Do what you must, and your friends will adjust. Robert Brault
• Never explain. Your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe it anyway.  Elbert Hubbard

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Dare to be foolish and a dreamer

• He dares to be a fool, and that is the first step in the direction of wisdom. James Huneker
• Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great. Cher
• Close your ears to all adverse suggestions. Never mind if people call you a fool and a dreamer. Dream on. Wallace D. Wattles
• Dreams,  Foolishness

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Only by following your own path can you live an authentic life

• Every decision we make, every stop we take, must be informed by our commitment to living a life that is true and honest and authentic to ourselves and ourselves alone. Robin Sharma
• The most important gift we can give ourselves is the commitment to living our authentic life. Robin Sharma
• I do not want to be folded for where I am folded, there I am a lie. Rilke
• To be authentic is literally to be your own author …, to discover your own native energies and desires, and then to find your own way of acting on them. Warren G. Bennis
• No one can tell you what is right for you except for yourself. So start telling yourself what to do. If you blunder for ten years while thinking for yourself, that is rich treasure when compared with living these ten years under the mental domination of another. The only true, honest and enriching authority is the internal authority of your own Supermind. Vernon Howard
• To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive. Robert Louis Stevenson
• Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living. Jonathan Safran Foer
• Be who you are

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If your path calls for it, don’t be scared to venture off the beaten track…

• We must go beyond textbooks, go out into the bypaths and untrodden depths of the wilderness and travel and explore and tell the world the glories of our journey. John Hope Franklin
• Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference. Robert Frost
• Never be afraid to tread the path alone. Know which is your path and follow it… wherever it may lead you. Do not feel you have to follow someone else. Eileen Caddy
• Our way is not soft grass, it’s a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun. Ruth Westheimer
• Better to start up a thousand wrong roads than to keep going nowhere because you know the way. Robert Brault
• Daily I learn – sometimes painfully, other times with glee – that mine is a path never meant to be paved. Jeb Dickerson

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… and even if it means blazing your own trail …

• Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• This is my way; where is yours? — Thus I answered those who asked me ‘the way.’ For the way—that does not exist. Friedrich Nietzsche
• You enter the forest at the darkest point, where there is no path. Where there is a way or a path, it is someone else’s path. You are not on your own path. If you follow someone else’s way, you are not going to realize your potential. Joeseph Campbell
• Try to discover the road to success and you’ll seek but never find but blaze your own path and the road to success will trail right behind. Robert Brault
• To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown. Karen Horney
• Adventure

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… and embracing the great unknown

• Always in the big woods when you leave familiar ground and step off alone into a new place there will be, along with the feelings of curiosity and excitement, a little nagging of dread. It is the ancient fear of the Unknown, and it is your first bond with the wilderness you are going into. Wendell Berry
• It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. Alan Cohen
• The unknown

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In fact, if you’re following the same well-trodden path as everyone else, it may be time to pause and reflect

• What millions of people are doing could be right for them, but totally wrong for you. Don’t choose your path based on numbers. Amanda Harvey
• Don’t think you’re on the right road just because it’s a well-beaten path.
• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. Mark Twain
• Conventional opinion is the ruin of our souls. Rumi
• You will not connect with your muse by following the herd; most of them are rambling over a cliff. Alan Cohen
• Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people. Giordano Bruno
• It is not worth an intelligent man’s time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. H. Hardy
• Everything popular is wrong. Oscar Wilde
• Reflection

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Don’t fall into the trap of conforming for the sake of it …

• When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Eric Hoffer
• A man must consider what a rich realm he abdicates when he becomes a conformist. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The Element is about discovering yourself, and you can’t do this if you’re trapped in a compulsion to conform. You can’t be yourself in a swarm. Sir Ken Robinson
• …in all the woods and forests, God did not create a single leaf the same as any other… People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different. Paulo Coelho
• He who would be a man must therefore be a non-conformist. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The opposite of bravery is not cowardice but conformity. Robert Anthony
• The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity. Rollo May
• We see your world trying to get agreement. You gather together in your groups. You feel strength in your groups. But it is not valid strength. It is bogus strength. It is not true strength. For true strength only comes from the alignment between you and You. Abraham-Hicks
• Things are not to be judged good or bad merely because the public thinks so. Publius Cornelius Tacitus
• Be neither a conformist or a rebel, for they are really the same thing. Find your own path and stay on it.  Paul Vixie
• Conformity

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Following your own path will require looking deep into your heart and being willing to embrace change

• Following the crowd eliminates the pressure of needing to think and choose. It is challenging to have to consider what you truly want in life. It means stopping and really looking into your mind and heart- something we often try to avoid. Amanda Harvey
• Choosing to follow your own path means breaking away from the ‘safety’ of conforming. It involves daring to look deep into your heart, regardless of what you might discover. It means embracing change rather than fighting it and having the courage to make the changes needed to live your dreams. Amanda Harvey
• Change

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The rewards will be well worth it

• To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown. Karen Horney
• I’m afraid of taking steps that are not on the map, but by taking those steps despite my fears, I have a much more interesting life. Paulo Coelho
• There are grand rewards for those who pick the high hard roads, but those rewards are hidden by years. Richard Bach
• Take the path that runs along the cliff–that one, the one without any guardrails. Take that path and know the exhilaration of the ride and the pride you feel when you reach the end will inspire you to take that path again and again. And that experience … every day, will make you more fulfilled, more complete, and more alive. Harry Beckwith
• The one who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The one who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been before. Albert Einstein
• If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people’s opinions, you will never be rich. Seneca
• To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you ought to prefer is to have kept your soul alive. Robert Louis Stevenson

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There is nothing more heroic than to take command of your life and live it on your own terms

• And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• …in all the woods and forests, God did not create a single leaf the same as any other… People go against nature because they lack the courage to be different. Paulo Coelho
• Oh, while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me shall ever take command of me. Walt Whitman
• To go against the dominant thinking of your friends, of most of the people you see every day, is perhaps the most difficult act of heroism you can perform. Theodore H. White
• Freedom

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You don’t owe anyone an explanation if your actions aren’t hurting anyone

• If other people do not understand our behavior—so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being “asocial” or “irrational” in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them. How many lives have been ruined by this need to “explain,” which usually implies that the explanation be “understood,” i.e. approved. Let your deeds be judged, and from your deeds, your real intentions, but know that a free person owes an explanation only to himself—to his reason and his conscience—and to the few who may have a justified claim for explanation. Erich Fromm

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How do you know if you are on the right path?

• Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. Howard Thurman
• Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t, it is of no use. Carlos Castaneda
• There is no right path. Only the one that allows you to sleep soundly and wake up excited. Jennifer Louden
• The way is not in the sky, the way is in the heart. For the traveler who knows his direction, there is always a favorable wind. Stuart Avery Gold
• Do you ever say to yourself, “I’m stressed . . . I’m overloaded . . . I’m going to have a breakdown”? We all feel like that occasionally, in small moments of our life, but if you are feeling that way consistently, regularly, from the moment you get up in the morning until the moment you go to bed, you’re clearly not on your path, and you’re most likely not doing what you were meant to do. Kevin Hall
• A path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.  Carlos Castaneda

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Realise that no matter what path you choose, there will be plenty of ups and downs

• Every path has its puddle. Old English proverb
• Stop worrying about the potholes in the road and celebrate the journey. Fitzhugh Mullan
• The road to self-belief is potholed. Nyasha Madavo
• When you find your path, you must not be afraid. You need to have sufficient courage to make mistakes. Disappointment, defeat, and despair are the tools God uses to show us the way. Paulo Coelho
• Life is sunshine and storm

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Never judge others for the path they choose

• We can never judge the lives of others, because each person knows only their own pain and renunciation. It’s one thing to feel that you are on the right path, but it’s another to think that yours is the only path. Paulo Coelho
• Let go of the need to judge

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Questions

• In the big and small decisions in your life, do you follow your heart? Or are you swept along by the tides of circumstance and the expectations of others? Amanda Harvey
• We will never be happy if we live someone else’s idea of life. James Van Praagh

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