More from Convention Keynote Speaker Shawn Ellis

AMTA 2026 National Convention Closing Session Speaker, Shawn Ellis delivered a keynote focused on choosing your own ending so that each of us can create new beginnings.

Now, he is keeping that momentum going with more insights to help you stay inspired and on track in your massage therapy career and life. Read his special message below.

You Chose Your Ending. Now What?

In Denver, I asked you one question: What is one thing—one behavior, one habit, one story—that you are ready to let go of this week?

That was a few weeks ago now. Which means one of two things is true. Either you let it go and it's gone, or it came back.

If it came back, this is for you.

Choosing was the hard part, and you already did that. But you're home now, the convention is over, and real life has resumed. This is where the choice becomes a practice.

Start here: the old pattern is going to show up again. That is not evidence your ending didn't work. You practiced that pattern for months, years, maybe decades. Of course it knows the way home.

So when it shows up, don't argue with it. Notice it. Name it. Then ask one question: What becomes possible if I don't choose this today?

Next, make the new choice small enough to practice. If you chose to let go of people-pleasing, today's practice might be a single pause before you say yes. If you chose to let go of overthinking, give yourself a deadline on one decision you've been postponing. If you chose to let go of a story—the one about not being good enough, or not being the kind of person who does that—notice the next time you start telling it, and stop halfway through.

You don't have to prove you've changed forever. You only have to make the next choice differently. Then the next one.

And don't do it alone. Tell someone what you chose. Ask them to say something when they see the old pattern returning. Let them celebrate the small wins with you. Isolation is what makes change feel impossible. Community is what makes it stick.

In Denver, I told you that desire doesn't create change—desire plus decision creates change. Every person in that room wanted something to be different. The ones who will be different a year from now are the ones who decided.

You already made that decision once. Today just asks you to make it again.

I know it feels like an ending...

But it looks like a beginning to me.