MaryRuth Ghiyam - Liquids till Lunch: 12 Small Habits That Will Change Your Life for Good

Crystal Chow

Moving forward through the chaos and uncertainty that exists in this world can be so challenging. Or your day-to-day might be difficult even when you dont have any real struggles. You could be about to enter a great new phase in your life, but its fast pace and tricky challenges force you to work hard and develop true self-mastery.

Whether your situation in life is wonderful or awful, its easy to feel paralyzed or scared if you dont have a road map, cant summon your power, or worry you might fail or fall behind. When youre faced with a hurdle to clear or a mountain to climb, you might be tempted to crawl into your bed, turn on the TV, and stay there forever. But you cant. Youre worth more than that. Your life can be so much better than that, so you must get out there and make great things happen.

I have some fantastic news for you. You dont have to conquer all your challenges in one day. You also dont have to be rich, have a fancy degree, or have loads of free time to come out on top. To feel happy, accomplished, fulfilled, or like youre putting good out into the world, all you need are a few daily fundamentals that will help you gain momentum, operate to your highest-functioning degree, and move forward to whatever your goal or purpose is.

Its all easier than you think. You just need to boil the process of moving forward down to the essentials. The actions that will allow you to dislodge yourself from whatevers slowing you down or dimming your energy are as basic and straightforward as taking your daily vitamins.

I can show you how.

When I was twelve, my beloved forty-two-year-old dad died suddenly of a heart condition we didnt know he had. My dad ran our family business and, my whole life, Id never known a weekday when Richard P. Boehmer hadnt been pacing around the house scratching notes about work on a yellow legal pad with a red pen. On weekends, he and my mom got up early and loved to play golf together. He was always buzzing, chasing, and dreaming... and then he was gone. Our house was very, very quiet after that.

Im the classic oldest childorganized, driven, and focusedand my dad always pushed me to hold my chin up, be a leader, and succeed. After he died, I assumed that going to school, making good grades, and getting into the right college would be enough to help me recover. I did all those things on top of helping my mom around the house, nurturing my younger brother, Daniel, and acting as a shining example of strength and courage for my family. I was just putting one foot in front of the other, though, not thriving. To top it off, I was crushed by grief.

When I was twenty, I came home from college for Easter break and was in my bedroom when I heard my mom screaming at the top of her lungs. I ran out of my room and saw her in my seventeen-year-old brothers bedroom, standing above his motionless body on the bed. Then I watched her drag him to the floor and start to give him CPR. But it was too late. He was dead, clutching a phone hed been trying to use to call for help. We didnt know it, but Daniel had developed a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Suddenly, the hole in my chest that I thought the passage of time had helped heal opened up again, and now the wound was even bigger. My brother had been my best friend. Daniel came to all my basketball games in high school. He made me countless playlists of the best songs to listen to, and he made me laugh about everything, especially during our summer vacations on the Jersey Shore or at Lake Nebo in Upstate New York.

I knew I had to keep going, though, so I went back to college soon after the funeral and worked as hard as I could to prepare for my final exams. I studied abroad in Italy that summer, and when I got back to school, I focused on graduating on time with the rest of my class. If I could succeed, wasnt I living my best life?

Just over a year later, my mom went to the doctor to talk about the right-side facial spasms shed been having, and she left with a diagnosis of two brain tumors. When she told me, I went numb. My entire family is going to die, I thought. Im twenty-one, and Im going to be the last one left. I didnt feel cursed or unlucky; my pain was physical, like a two-ton weight was sitting on my chest.

My mom endured one painful craniotomy surgery followed by another seventeen months later. Luckily, doctors determined that both brain tumors were benign, but the part of her brain that controls motor function had been damaged during the second operation, and she became partially paralyzed on her right side. During her long months of rehabilitation, I drove home on the weekends to help take care of her. It wasnt always easy but being present for my mom taught me I had a greater purpose: I wanted to help people live healthier, more fulfilling lives.

I went back to school and earned certifications as a health educator and professional business coach. I loved being a student again and I dove into research, soaking up everything I could about health, healing, and the human body. The benefits of healthy food, exercise, alternative therapies, and fasting fascinated me; the interconnectivity of negative emotions and chronic pain opened my mind and showed me things Id never thought of. I applied all this knowledgeand so much moreto nursing my mom back from her paralysis and into normal life. It was the best unpaid job I could imagine, and waking up in the morning knowing I could make a difference for someone I loved was thrilling.

Life was moving forward, and my mom was getting better. We 100 percent believed the worst was behind us and that nothing as bad could happen to us again. Then, in late 2008, Lehman Brothers crumbled, the housing market collapsed, and the Great Recession exploded like an atom bomb. Our familys lumber business plummeted and, over the course of the next two years, my mom had to shut down five locations and lay off 250 employees. She sold our house at a 50 percent loss, borrowed money from friends and family, and started living off credit cards. Within a few years, she was a whopping $700,000 in debt. It was technically her debt, not mine, but we were family, and we were sticking together through thick and thin.

If youve carried significant personal debt, you know how hopeless it can feel. I carried around the weight of that debt in my bones, and every day I woke up tired. But then I jumped out of bed with a smile on my face, went to my job as a Manhattan real estate agent working with my mom, made good money, and surpassed all my companys earning benchmarks. After writing our rent check and buying groceries, we gave every last cent of our paychecks to the debt-management program my mom and I had enrolled in. Then I went back to work trying to sell more, network more, and earn more. I felt like Sisyphus, pushing a boulder up a mountain all day long only to have it fall back on top of me when the sun went down. Sure, I was putting one foot in front of the other, but I was getting