by Oli Anderson, Transformational Coach for Realness
You Can’t Change Your Fate but Your Destiny Can Be REAL or UNREAL – It’s Up to You
Sometimes, life throws us events so unbelievably against the odds that we can’t help but feel like something ‘bigger’ is at play (and, of course, it is because there’s always something bigger):
Maybe you bump into someone at just the ‘right’ moment, an opportunity appears when you need it most, or things unfold in a way that seems so perfectly orchestrated that it must have been meant to be. In these moments, we talk about fate – as though some unseen force is guiding us.
And sometimes, it is.
There’s something very real about synchronicity – those meaningful coincidences that seem to weave life together in ways we couldn’t have planned (or, as Carl Jung described them “an acausal connecting principle” when the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ worlds collide).
When we’re in alignment, open to truth, and moving in the right and REALEST direction, things have a way of falling into place, or at least ‘nudging’ us to show us we’re on the right track. You’ve probably experienced this yourself at some time in your life?
That synchronicity is a real phenomenon in the human experience doesn’t necessarily mean life is always following a predetermined script, though.
A mistake we often make is assuming that everything that happens is fate, when in reality, many of the events we call “fated” are actually a result of the CHOICES we’ve made.
In other words:
Fate is what we’re given. Destiny is what we do with it.
Or, to put it another way, fate is the hand we’re dealt, but destiny is how we play our cards.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
Deal or No Deal: Understanding Fate
Fate is everything we don’t get to choose.
Where we’re born, our genetic makeup, the environment we’re raised in, etc. etc. etc. – these are the ‘cards’ reality deals us. Some of us might get a royal flush, others receive a mismatched mess; some are born into wealth and privilege; others start life with obstacles stacked against them. You don’t get to pick your family, your early experiences, or the time and place you enter the world. That’s fate.
And, because fate comes from REALITY, it doesn’t care whether you ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ your cards or not. It just is.
The thing that trips a lot of us up and leads to those “lives of quiet desperation” that Thoreau talked about is treating this as the end of the line:
When we assume that the hand they’ve been dealt determines the entire game, we can end up resigning themselves to a predetermined story of either success or struggle. If you believe fate dictates everything, you either get lucky, or you don’t. This is a passive and unreal way of looking at life – one that takes responsibility and the power of REAL CHOICE out of the equation and brings a whole truckload of self-limiting and world-limiting beliefs with it.
Luckily, that’s where DESTINY comes in.
The Play: Creating Destiny
Destiny is not written in the stars; it’s written in the choices we make.
No matter what cards you’re holding, you still get to decide how you play them:
Some people get dealt an amazing hand and squander it; others get dealt sh*t and turn it into a diamond. That’s because destiny is not about what happens to you – it’s about how you respond and the accumulation of all the choices you make over time.
This is where synchronicity kinda starts to make sense (not that it will ever make total ‘sense’ because it’s beyond the sensemaking tools in our brain):
When you start playing your cards right – by taking bold action, trusting yourself (“do your best”), trusting life (“accept the rest), and aligning with what’s REAL – you create the conditions for the right things to happen; you start seeing patterns, meeting the right people, and noticing opportunities that were always there, but hidden from view.
It feels like magic, but really, it’s the result of moving in harmony with reality and building with you fate on a foundation of acceptance rather than ego resistance or distortion.
The problem is, many people confuse this with ‘fate’:
They assume that just because something feels significant, it must have been predestined – but what if it’s the opposite? What if these moments of synchronicity aren’t fate leading us, but signs that we’ve stepped into our destiny?
Think about some of humanity’s classic ‘Rags to Riches’ stories – many of their protagonists didn’t start life with the best circumstances:
J.K. Rowling found herself as a struggling single mother (FATE), yet she became one of the richest authors of all time by making the CHOICE to sit and write in a coffee shop all day (DESTINY). Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in prison (FATE), yet emerged as a symbol of peace and leadership (DESTINY).
Their fate wasn’t kind, but their CHOICES shaped their destiny.
Compare that to someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth who coasts through life without ever pushing themselves:
They had the resources and the opportunities in the world, but they never made anything meaningful of them because they didn’t make the CHOICE. They had fate on their side, but they let their destiny slip away.
The world is full of people who have amazing potential but never use it and end up lost to the Void. Why? Because destiny requires courage, REAL action, and the willingness to step beyond the script that fate has handed you and create something new by believing in the choice for something different.
The Battle: Overcoming the Pull of Fate
There’s a reason most people stick to the path fate lays out for them: it’s easier in the SHORT-TERM because it requires less effort and personal growth.
Society, culture, family expectations – all of these things subtly (or not so subtly, depending on where fate has placed you) nudge us toward conformity. The world around us doesn’t want you to break the mould – it wants you to stay in your lane, to follow the script, to accept your circumstances and not question too much.
And if you do try to carve your own path? Expect resistance, especially when you’re surrounded by others who are avoiding their destiny because of ‘fate’ too.
Luckily for us, the world isn’t reality. It’s just a bunch of collective ideas and interpretations about what’s true and what’s not.
You can always CHOOSE reality instead and start to change the game for yourself:
Either way, the moment you decide to shape your own destiny, you’re going to come up against obstacles – internal and external. F.E.A.R (“False Evidence Appearing Real”), self-doubt, criticism from others, systems designed to keep people in their place… These are all forces of the EGO and old ways of identifying trying to pull you back to the predictable, the comfortable, the expected
Here’s the thing, though: every REAL life is built on defying that pull.
The people who make a choice to grow REAL – the ones who shape their own destiny – are the ones who refuse to be limited by their circumstances.
They see their fate, acknowledge it, and then decide: What can I build with this?
They accept what can’t be changed (FATE) and use it as a springboard into the real life that can be CHOSEN (DESTINY).
Knowing the difference between the two is where the real power lies.
Flow vs Force: Navigating Destiny with Awareness
There’s another important distinction to make here:
Creating your destiny doesn’t mean FORCING things to happen through sheer willpower – force is always of the Ego and because it’s unreal it never works.
Nor is force about blindly fighting against everything – in fact, the most powerful way to shape your destiny is to align yourself with reality by cultivating ACCEPTANCE instead of RESISTANCE.
Think of it like this:
You’re in a river. Fate is the current, always moving and shaping the landscape around you. Though you can’t stop the current or change the river itself, you can learn to navigate it.
You can learn to work with it instead of against it…but only if you accept it.
This is what we mean when we talk about flow:
When you make conscious choices based on deep self-awareness – when you act in alignment with who you really are in your realness instead of who the world wants you to be and the Ego you created in reaction to this – you start to experience a kind of natural movement toward your highest potential.
Things start falling into place. Opportunities arise. The right people show up. It’s weird but – if you TRUST and take the action to find out – you’ll see it’s inevitable.
This isn’t necessarily because of magic or anything ‘mystical’ but because – when you’re moving in the right direction – you start noticing the doors that were always there instead of blocking your view with your focus on resisting your FATE and causing friction, frustration, and misery in your life.
That’s the difference between trying to force life to go your way and actually playing your hand in a REAL WAY:
When you try forcing the door open, it closes; when you let go, you see that it was open all along.
How to Start Playing Your Cards Right
How do you move from being a passive player in the game of life to someone who shapes their own destiny?
Here are some things to work on:
1. Accept Your Hand Without Complaint
You didn’t choose your starting point, and there’s no point wishing things were different. Accept your circumstances fully – not as a victim, but as a strategist and a creator. Once you embrace what you have in your hands, then you’re ready to BUILD something with it.
2. Identify Where You Actually Have Power
Too many people waste time worrying about things outside their control. Instead, shift your focus to what you can change – your mindset, your actions, your habits. Small changes over time lead to BIG results – you just need to be consistent, focused, and disciplined and work the process.
3. Make Conscious Choices
Don’t sleepwalk through life. Every decision, no matter how small, is a chance to move closer to or further from the destiny you want and each moment you can make a choice between your REAL life and your unreal life. Start paying attention. Even the ‘little’ things like when you’re waiting for a train or something – are you gonna doom scroll on social media and compare yourself to others (and reinforce your ‘fate’ through a lens of victim mentality) or are you going to read or learn something that can help you CHOOSE your destiny?
4. Trust Synchronicity, But Don’t Mistake It for Fate
When things line up, see it as a sign that you’re on the right path – but don’t assume it’s all predetermined. Synchronicity is real, but it’s a response to your alignment, and not a fixed script telling you to stay put. You need to take REAL ACTION to meet your destiny so keep taking it (and you’ll probably experience more synchronicity along the way as you build momentum).
5. Stay Adaptable
Destiny isn’t a straight line. Be willing to adjust, pivot, and refine your path as you go. The best players adapt to the game from moment-to-moment. That means learning to LET GO of ego and identity and keep learning who you’re becoming from day-to-day (whilst still having a vision in mind as you navigate reality).
Final Thoughts: Be the Player, Not the Pawn
Fate is real. You don’t get to pick your starting hand. But destiny? Well…that’s down to you.
When you play your cards right and take REAL ACTION, life has a way of meeting you halfway: synchronicities emerge, opportunities arise, and things start ‘clicking’ into place – not because it was all written in stone, but because you aligned yourself with what’s real.
Stay real out there,
*Based on ‘Revolution’ number twenty one in Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness
Personal Revolutions: A Short Course in Realness is a book designed to help you look at your life from the inside-out so that you can stop holding yourself back and go get what you really want.
It contains 166 practical ‘Revolutions’ for awareness and over 8,000 Self-Guidance Questions for you to uncover new insight about yourself, the world, and reality that you can translate into action and start building your real life on the realest possible foundation.
Shadow Life is an exploration of the human shadow and the hidden side of our personalities. It looks at the masks we wear, where these masks come from, and how we can take them off.
The book explores how we can better manage our relationships with shame, guilt, and trauma in order to remove the Mask that the world has asked us to wear (and that we forgot we were wearing) so we can live an authentic life with less drama, chaos, or BS whilst we’re still around.
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