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I didn’t expect this to happen when I first started this. I didn’t expect to be sitting here writing you a thousand posts later. I didn’t anticipate what would happen to my life. I didn’t know that I would become an integral life coach. I didn’t predict the audience that would gather around this idea nor see that I would take all of my experience over the past 5 years and begin to create something that would touch many more lives. I couldn’t have told you that I would have these amazing people in my life. I wouldn’t have been able to utter a word about the depth of the feelings I have been able to tap into. Could I have told you that people would start knowing me by the “guy who writes?” No, that would never have been in the forefront of my mind.

The only thing I really could have told you was that I knew I was starting something…a new beginning…almost 5 years ago, and that I knew there was magic in that.

There’s amazing synchronicity to things. The fact that I just finished another massive session in my graduate program for coaching, seeing my other project build daily and have my thousandth post come to the surface blows my mind a little. So much in fact that I really have had to sit down and take some time to think about what I really want to say here.

These past 5 days I have spent a truckload of time around some incredible people who all have unique gifts. The things that I thought were “weird” about me – being able to feel other peoples feelings, the levels of depth I am able to tap into, actually understanding how others feel about how they exist in the world without ever uttering a word to me, and being able to see into someone just by looking into their eyes – I’ve realized that there are other people out there who experience these things as well. They each have a body sense that tells them much more than words could ever describe. I guess I really found a community for the first time (besides the one here) of people that I can come into contact with regularly and who really understand exactly what I am talking about. That sense of belonging is something I missed for a long time.

So as I sit here writing you today, I want to start off this post with a poem that I randomly found in a slew of books that touched me. I guess this is a love letter to all of those people out there who are once again falling in love with themselves. This is for all the people who are on a journey into the depths.

The Changed Man

If you were to hear me imitating Pavarotti
in the shower every morning, you’d know
how much you have changed my life.

If you were to see me stride across the park,
waving to strangers, then you would know
I am a changed man—like Scrooge

awakened from his bad dreams feeling feather-
light, angel-happy, laughing the father
of a long line of bright laughs—

“It is still not too late to change my life!”
It is changed. Me, who felt short-changed.
Because of you I no longer hate my body.

Because of you I buy new clothes.
Because of you I’m a warrior of joy.
Because of you and me. Drop by

this Saturday morning and discover me
fiercely pulling weeds gladly, dedicated
as a born-again gardener.

Drop by on Sunday—I’ll Turtlewax
your sky-blue sports car, no sweat. I’ll greet
enemies with a handshake, forgive debtors

with a papal largesse. It’s all because
of you. Because of you and me,
I’ve become one changed man.

– Robert Phillips

I’ve written a thousand posts on just about everything I could think of…and when I start thinking about what piece of advice I would give you after all of this…all of this time spent on tapping into what’s inside and taking dive after dive into the different levels that exist…I would have to tell you this.

Begin.

It all starts with that. You must…begin. All of the things you’ve ever wondered about in your mind, ever dreamed about, ever considered, ever wanted to put out onto paper…you have to start. That starting point doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to have a fancy pen or a great computer…you don’t need to have things in your life in order…you don’t have to have the support network or anything else to actually begin. You just have to…begin.

That may sound like a pretty simple piece of advice, but it’s actually the densest piece of advice I could ever give you.

Throughout my 5 years of doing this, I have showed up so many times into a new day “stuck.” I mean really stuck. Stuck on what to do, stuck on the decision I had to make, and stuck on just about everything else. That stuck feeling only exits when you decide to get moving. Someone once said to me a long time ago that almost always going in any direction is better than not going at all. There is deep deep truth to that.

So get moving. Because without any amount of action, nothing happens. Nothing will ever happen I promise you that. There are worlds out there that you get to explore when you are actually in motion. But if you don’t move, be that because of fear or worry, you will never understand just how much you are capable of. Trust me, you are capable of far more than you could even understand. All of the things I have discovered in this time have come from being willing to risk it all to discover what life has in store for me. So take a chance on yourself…and enter out into the world in a different way. Show up as someone who is taking a stand for adventure and exploration…you never know what you might fight.

But if I had to tell you one more thing…it would be this.

Do it anyway.

Whatever you are scared of doing, but you know deep down in your heart that it’s the thing to do…do it anyway. Love hard. Get your heart broken to pieces. Laugh. Cry. Suffer. Explore. Get cuts and bruises. Allow life to tear you to bits. Risk it all. Lose everything. Gain it all back. The only thing that we are really guaranteed in life is that everything is going to change. So knowing that, you should really just take a chance on doing it anyway. Because if you think for one second that you actually have a grip on life…you’re wrong.

It’s all going to change. That…is the beautiful part of all of it.

That right there is what 1000 days of writing and 5 years of this project has taught me. Change is inevitable. People will come and go. You will lose and gain. Your body will change. Your relationships will change. Your life will change. It will all change. You might as well be a lead character in this thing called life instead of sitting back and watching it all go by. So do it anyway. Take risks. Live as much as you can.

It’s all worth it in the end.

Evan Sanders
The Better Man Project