Any of us can make the choice right now to change things to become more empowered, to live a more authentic lifestyle.

There's an art to being empowered and although we certainly need to be passionate about our personal goals, we equally need to become a little detached from the way in which it all plays out to allow ourselves the chance to engage in unexpected new opportunities. This can be one of the more challenging lessons for many of us to learn, including myself for a while.

The greatest martial artists in any discipline practise controlled power - here is true empowerment. The martial arts practitioner who uses only unchanneled aggression or, worse still, anger, is unlikely to stay the course. And it is precisely the same for us when we walk the path of our goals.

The truth that this is genuinely possible for any one of us to make the conscious choice to live an authentically real life.

Ways that you can live more authentically:

• Learning to trust our intuition - it will not always seem to make logical sense to follow our gut instinct, but we would be wise to develop this habit.
• Investing all actions with one ocean load of passion and adapt along the way, but still authentically within our own personal life-plan.
• Develop a personally empowered mindset.
• Staying focussed in the moment to ensure maximum effectiveness.
• Controlling of our own personal future by setting targets and finding ways to take direct action every day, however small, to achieve them.
• A few simple adjustments in lifestyle can dramatically reduce stress and, equally importantly, the likelihood of developing serious health issues.