Читать книгу Your Journey to Success: How to Accept the Answers You Discover Along the Way - Kenny Weiss - Страница 4

INTRODUCTION

As a life coach, I show people how to live in the best day of their lives. Imagine what it would be like to wake up each morning knowing that whatever comes your way, you will have what it takes to make it your best day. I help people identify and remove the obstacles that prevent them from achieving that vision.

We have all started or ended our day thinking about what we should have done in our personal or professional lives to attain our goals. But, somehow, we couldn’t seem to get ourselves to do it. As we lie there and consider the steps it would take to realize our dreams, there was a feeling we couldn’t overcome. That feeling is what kept us from pursuing what we wanted—it stopped us from taking action. We have read books on how to make our careers and relationships better, but we are still stuck. None of the other wonderful success processes in those books can be fully implemented until this work is done—until we can find a way to move beyond this feeling. This book bridges that gap and offers sound information to help us understand why we are inexplicably stalled in our endeavors. It then offers tried-and-true strategies to help us finally let go of that feeling and fully go after our dreams.

The Worst Day versus the Best Day Conundrum

My theory on why we are stuck is based upon what I call the Worst Day Cycle. Getting out of it requires a shift into our best day. To jump-start this process, ask yourself the following:

1.Do you remember the best day of your life? Take some time here. What happened on this day? A best day might be when you felt at peace with yourself and you liked who you were in that moment. It doesn’t need to be a momentous occasion like a birth of your child or your wedding day. Think of it as an ordinary experience where a certain feeling overcomes you, like when you witness an athlete being in the zone. At that point, they are living a moment without judgment or self-criticism. Our best day is unencumbered by shame and denial. Instead, we are feeling pure joy, clarity, and spontaneity.

2.What was the worst day of your life? Can you see it, smell it, hear it? Do tears well up in your eyes or do you get a lump in your throat? Does your heart ache? Does your stomach flip or other parts of your body hurt as you relive that moment that marked your worst day?

When I asked what the best day of your life looked like, did you struggle? Or did you think of some so-so days or maybe a good day, but you didn’t instantly think, feel, and picture a life-changing incredible moment that gave you shivers? Was it hard for you to even come up with one? When I ask the best day question during a presentation, invariably only about one out of forty people raise their hand with a response. Usually those who do just describe an event with very little emotion or satisfaction. That’s because they are stuck in their worst day and can’t feel real joy because of it. When a so-called best day happens, the remnants of the worst day overpower it. When I ask about the worst day, the room goes heavy and dark with emotion. People’s faces and gaze drop, they shift in their seats, they go blank and numb and stare off into space as they relive the feeling of that worst day.

Stuck in That Worst Day

Nearly all of us are stuck in the worst day of our life. The trauma from that day is where that feeling comes from and it is the birthplace of the Worst Day Cycle. Since there is no mechanism in place for overcoming trauma, this cycle is the natural maladaptive coping skill we use to survive it. While it is effective in the short-term in that it keeps us alive, in the long-term this cycle ultimately works against us and over time kills us and our dreams. The cycle compounds with time because we re-inflict the trauma from that day on ourselves. We are continually gaining new layers and more pain as it becomes further entrenched in us.

We are all reliving our worst day on a daily basis. It is why we can’t find peace and success. I’m not talking about what we all think of as success, such as the acquiring of things or status. Cars, houses, the trophy spouse, the office in the corner... all those “things.” Most of us who have achieved this type of “success” are more miserable and numb inside because we have chased those things hoping they would take away that feeling only to find out that they don’t. Don’t misunderstand me; I am a proponent of having nice things. What I am saying is that we achieve true success when we like who we are, feel at peace, and accept ourselves and when we feel all of that whether or not we have acquired those other things in life. No matter where we are in our life process, that worst day feeling shouldn’t have the power to jump up and stop us.

New Information Requires a New Mindset

If at any time you feel any sort of negative feeling or think negatively about yourself while reading this book, you need to know that comes from your Worst Day Cycle. I want to make this clear: you aren’t bad and you aren’t incapable. You just have never been given the information to escape this cycle. We can only do what we know. You can’t overcome something you weren’t even aware was operating in you. Sometimes you are going to want to put this book down, as you won’t want to go where I am taking you. That feeling will come up and it may be too difficult to face. That is fine; that is normal. If you discover that your trauma is triggering you, talk to a helping professional. It’s okay to take breaks, but realize you need to acclimate your brain. The more you familiarize yourself with the content, the better you’ll be able to understand and apply it to your life.

The Incredible Value of Doing the Work

Why do all this hard work? There’s a reason. My client shared the following:

The day I walked into Kenny’s office for the first time, I was at the end of my rope. I sat slumped over in my chair barely able to take a breath as I held back my tears. I remember feeling completely lost, hopeless, and had zero sense of self-worth—the result of a lifetime of saying yes to everyone but myself.

At this point in my life, I was quickly climbing the career ladder within my industry and had a job that paid great. I was expecting to become engaged to someone I deeply cared for within the year, and I had two parents who adored me and supported me in every way possible. My life was perfect by society’s standards, yet I would lie awake every night dreading having to wake up the next day. The reality was that I was living in a complete delusion, had zero boundaries, and was unable to identify my own wants and needs, let alone meet them. Remember that great job I was talking about? That perfect relationship? My nurturing family? It was all a fantasy. I (a person with no boundaries) was surrounded by other people with no boundaries, all of whom exploited one another’s lack of boundaries.

With Kenny’s guidance, I quickly became aware of how deeply entrenched I was in codependence and self-victimization. I saw it as a generational pattern and a pattern that I was continuing within my own life and relationships. As I began setting healthy boundaries and experiencing healthy levels of self-esteem, my life changed drastically. I lost friends, quit my job, and was finally able to leave a three-year love-addicted relationship. All of this happened in a matter of weeks. The old me would’ve completely shut down in this situation. I would’ve spent months feeling sorry for myself and self-medicating in various ways just to make it through the day. This time was different. I now viewed these circumstances as an opportunity to finally create the life that I wanted, not the life that other people wanted for me.

Your Journey Awaits

We all want to avoid the darkness that lies in the unknown. By going on this journey, you will gain the tools and understanding you never had. Use those tools to leave the darkness of that worst day, step into your greatness of that best day, and overcome your fear of success. You are great, incredibly great, but you have never been given these essential tools to be great or to succeed… until now. Your greatness awaits you on the other side.