Question: I will preface my question by stating I am very new to writing and new to this website. I am here for help.

I'm writing a collection of inspirational short stories, as though I was sitting across from someone over coffee sharing my experiences. Because my normal manner of speaking is in passive voice, I am struggling desperately to convert over to active voice, which is basically stifling the flow of my thoughts and words, making them almost stiff and impersonal. 

I have been studying the grammar rules and know exactly what needs to be done, but I am stuck - what is the best advice you can offer for someone in my situation? I am not ashamed or embarrassed to ask this but would appreciate your input. Thank you.

Answer: 
Consider finishing your draft before trying to do active voice and instead changing things to active prose in your revisions. 

Active vs passive voice usually reads better, but it does not change the meaning of the text it just makes it seem more energetic and immediate. Therefore it is not like you will have to restructure huge pieces of plots or similar if you want to change it later. So it is good to do it in late revisions. 

Improving prose is something that is usally good to save until late revisions. (If you do it in early revisions or in your initial draft there might be large parts you end up not using or you have to rewrite a chapter because the plot doesnt work or you want to change a character and suddenly you have wasted a lot of effort improving prose you are scrapping and rewriting anyway)

And obviously if you just write great from the start you'll have less revising to do in the future, but if trying to write great stops your drafting process there is nothing unusual with saving it for later and just producing the words.
I struggle with this too, so while I can't completely act like I know what I'm doing, I would like to recommend this app:

<http://www.hemingwayapp.com/>

It's a neat little app that will at the very least flag up all the little ways you're using passive voice so you know where you're tripping up. It's useful for minimalist prose in general, but don't take its word as gospel; after all, if everyone was hyper-minimalist, there'd be no stylistic variation.

Note: I'm not sponsored by Hemingwayapp.