To quote sports counselor and mental-toughness expert Chris Dorris, “Goals are for people who lack the courage to make decisions.”

Harsh words. But probably true.

We’ve all set goals and discarded them, made New Year’s resolutions and abandoned them. We’ve made charts and checklists and vision boards. We may have even enlisted support groups or accountability partners.

Heck, these may have even worked.

But most likely not.

Because what we usually lack is making a clear, definitive decision—the kind of life-altering choice that ushers in a whole new paradigm, a new lens through which we see and interact with the world.

Love him or hate him, Tony Robbins is a master at authentic, authoritative decision making. In his book, Awaken the Giant Within, he says:

“If you don’t make decisions about how you’re going to live, then you’ve already made a decision, haven’t you? You’re making a decision to be directed by the environment instead of shaping your own destiny. My whole life changed in just one day—the day I determined not just what I’d like to have in my life or what I wanted to become, but when I decided who and what I was committed to having and being in my life. That’s a simple distinction, but a critical one.”

I love that term ‘shaping your own destiny.’ It implies a destiny already exists, but that the precise form is up to us. Like a sculptor with a block of clay, she can shape and form it into anything she wants, be it a vase or a figurine. Anything of her choosing.

That is real power.

So forget your goals. Put away your lists and scrapbooks. Go deep inside your heart and choose the life you want to create.