From early childhood I have had an insatiable curiosity about how and why things work the way they do. By the time I was ten years old I was designing, building and flying model airplanes and competing in contests. Years later, I graduated college with a lot of background in medicine, optics, physics, chemistry, and psychology. The one subject that I found most fascinating was psychology and the working of the human mind.
Today, if you watch late night television, you will see ads from drug and pharmaceutical companies appealing directly to consumers, advising them to tell their doctors which drugs they should take, to cure a variety of emotional illnesses. Not too long ago a patient would go to their doctor, discuss their symptoms, perhaps have some tests done and then the DOCTOR would prescribe the course of treatment.
After studying emotional illness which some authors describe as illnesses which have no way of proving exist within the body via tests, no verifiable pathology, I have arrived at some conclusions. It is my personal opinion that a lot of these conditions which are very real to the patients, begin with a sense of loss of control over the major events taking place in their lives (see the back cover for a list).
As I mentioned in the disclaimer, this book is in no way designed to diagnose or treat disease. You need to see your M.D. for that. What it can do and will do for you is to help you get very clear on which areas of your life you can regain a sense of control. It has been my observation that people who feel in charge of their lives have fewer challenges that push them into the category of helpless victim. By reading this book and taking action there is a very good chance you can and will acquire methods for dealing more effectively with the challenges most human beings encounter in a lifetime. You have nothing to lose (except some old behaviors you no longer want) and you have everything to gain.
The activities in which we all participate can be classified into two major categories PROCESS and CONTENT. Imagine pushing a shopping cart in a huge supermarket. Moving the cart up and down the various aisles while viewing the countless items on display is the PROCESS. What you select and put into the cart is the CONTENT. This book focuses on five major categories of content and the related processes that will help you take back control of your life.
People have many different life goals, or destinations, and despite their best efforts, unfortunately, many of them get off track. I have found that it is often the little difference in the beginning of a process that makes a big difference in the outcome. For instance, if a jet airliner flies out of Los Angeles heading east, the course angle to a destination in New York or Miami is relatively small at the point of departure, but these cities are actually about thirteen hundred miles apart on a map. By making continual flight adjustments, the pilot will determine if the airliner lands in New York, New York, rather than Miami, Florida. Using the ideas in the pages that follow, you will be able to select the correct headings on your journey to your destination, or goal.
When you are in the supermarket of life, what you put into your shopping cart will determine to a large extent the kind of joy you will get to experience on your journey through life. The various checkpoints and destinations along the way will be determined by the course you select, just as navigators know that reaching their desired destination requires continuous correction to maintain a particular heading.
All of our lives have CONTENT. That might mean having: mothers, fathers, children, siblings, houses, cars, jobs, friends, books, movies, games, food, etc. The one thing we all have, however, is a brain.
The human brain has often been compared to a super-computer. The major difference is that human brains are delivered without an operating manual or Help files. This is one of the reasons why we each develop a unique hierarchy, or list of priorities, for our own story. It is this personal order of priorities that greatly influences our individual outcomes.
Once our basic needs are satisfied, we become interested in activities that lead to a feeling of fulfillment, and a sense of purpose or an awareness that life matters. Psychological studies proved that most of our activities occur because we want to change our state, the way we feel at any given moment. If we are tired, we go to sleep. If we are hungry, we eat to get rid of the feeling of hunger and derive the sense of pleasure associated with eating.
Of the seven most important areas of your life, the one that drives the rest is the DESIRED OUTCOME. We live in a results-oriented society. So often we confuse means values with ends values. How to become crystal clear on your desired outcome, the true ends values, will unfold as you read what follows.
Most of us go to work to obtain the necessary money to support the life style we desire. Yet, so often, we feel like victims or puppets of the system, meaning that someone else is in control of our futures even though we live in a country whose promise is freedom of choice, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Why does success by any definition come to so few?
Lets find out.
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