Over the course of my life I’ve given in to defeat many times.  I’ve given up.  The thing I noticed this week is that I am often walking a finer line than I think on this, because giving up never feels like throwing my hands up in desperation and sinking to the floor in a heap:  it feels more like simply not getting around to something.

Giving up sneaks up upon us in insidious forms: like simply not making time,  like putting things off until tomorrow.

Last week I was noticing how many times I heard people say, “life just got in the way," as the reason why they didn't do something they said was important to them. (like writing that book).   But how does that work?  Can life really insert itself between your fondest dream and your daily calendar? 

I just don't believe life gets in the way.  I don't believe there is no time.  I believe we never take the time to chose.

We too easily consent to wasting our lives on details.  We spend little thought time on what's important, much less prioritizing what's important.

I also don't agree that the reason we don't is because it’s scary or too hard. On a basic level there is an unwillingness to train ourselves mentally.  And maybe there is just too much tolerance for our minds' own wanderings.  We consent to a  reactive state of helplessness which gets us out of the task at hand, but kills our longer-terms dreams.

The way out can be to engage others in our game.  To not allow ourselves to work alone, to disappear, to become the victims of our own lazy thinking.

Having spent a week with a group of fellow writers, I notice that it actually works quite well.  We all encouraged one another.  We all admitted where we were blocked and then took a step together.  We set the timers for 45 minutes and then said "Go!".  And we worked. 

At any point in life, there are a multitude of choices, and for most of us in this writing group, we can clearly see two paths ahead: one involves making some hard choices, the other allows me to lag behind, and then ultimately to give up and blame it on life, the kids, work, and being just too busy.

Which to choose I wonder?

I spoke with Eldon Taylor today.  It’s such a privilege to be with him (you can listen to the show here).  There were so many things I loved about this show, that it is really hard to pick one.  But here goes... it's  Eldon's four keys to becoming self-actualized.

Before I give you those, if the word ‘self-actualization’ rings odd for you, here's the idea: the entire point of exploring the inner self and how we work mentally is so that we can express who we are, rather than rehearse who we think we need to be.

When we don't understand how our own cogs turn, we are little more than organ grinder monkeys (who get lots of bananas).

This must be a bit of a theme in what I do, because this week is not the first time one of my clients came to the realization that very little mattered in life if they couldn't be themselves while living it.  He called it, "Standing for Who I Am."

The realization that I didn’t want to spend the bulk of my life managing my personalities and masks (work, home, mom, athlete...) was a complete turning point in my life too.

While it’s possible to have success and never reconcile the different parts, for me it looked like ‘empty success’.  In other words, you get there, but then you don’t recognize the person who is looking back at you in the mirror.  Not all that satisfying.  Not very meaningful.

So, if you like the idea of feeling satisfied and having meaning, here’s the four-point plan from Eldon

1. Guard against what goes in
2. Get inside yourself
3. Change the context
4. Remember you are a miracle

What do you think?  Please feel free to leave a comment or drop me a note at [email protected]

The best recipe for feeling misery is to compare your insides to someone else's outsides.

These are not exactly in the words Michael Niell used when he first said this to me, but they were the words I couldn't manage to hear when I needed them.  Here is my salutory tale.

I was skimming through some great blogs on Huff Post and checking out Havi's latest (on http://thefluentself.com) when my mind slumped down in the corner of my office in total misery.  It said, "someone has taken my life and already written my book and is 20 thousand million times better than me and all original thoughts have already been taken"  and suddenly (hardly surprisingly) all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

Funny how that is.  Anyway, I chose not to sleep. Instead I went for a walk and petted a dog (I recommend that actually) and when I came home I still wanted to sleep but again I chose not to.

I decided I'd just do one thing.   One mindless thing, if necessary. This is not a good time to do something hard.  So I made a nice-ish dinner.  Then I took one task that required zero energy and I did that. I noticed it wasn't so hard.  And suddenly I was up and running again.

Sometimes, it's just taking the next step.  The next mediocre, half-***, stupid step.

Seems to work.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I didn't say no when I really wanted to.   And I also wish I'd known a lot sooner in life that...

The key to saying no is Permission.

If at any time I am having trouble saying no, here is what I do:

• Give myself permission to want what I want.
  
• Give myself permission to not look for a reason why.
  
• Give myself permission to be wrong. (Are the planets likely to grind to orbital halt really?)
• Give the other person the right to hate me.  (By giving them the right to feel how they feel, I get to do the same)

People want things.  I want things.   If we really accepted that everyone simpy wants what they want, it opens the cage door and frees us all.

In the end, one can be liked, or free.

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