What Do I Want To Be?
Sample chapters...
"Everything that people create is a projection of what's inside them." Stuart
Lichtman
Life is based on decisions – attitudes lead to decisions –
better attitudes, better decisions.
This week we are going to take a look at attitudes – not
“bad attitudes” or “good attitudes” but attitude in general and how a shift in your attitude can have an impact
on discovering your passion and realizing your potential.
"By the way that we think and by the way that we believe in
things, in that way our world is created." Pema Chodron
In particular we will discuss the
following:
q Build your confidence and
self-esteem.
q We all have
filters.
q You control your
emotions.
q FEAR – False Evidence Appearing
Real.
q You are an amazing
individual.
q You deserve the very
best.
q Who are you?
q It’s ok to say “I am good at
this!”
“An optimist sees an opportunity in every calamity; a
pessimist sees a calamity in every opportunity.” Winston Churchill
“The longer I live, the more I realize the impact of
attitude on life.
Attitude to me is more important than facts. It is more
important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than success,
than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, gift, or skill. It will
make or break a company...a church...a home.
The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day
regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the
fact that people will act in a certain way.
We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do
is play on the string we have, and that is our attitude.
I am convinced that life is 10 percent what happens to me
and 90 percent how I react to it. And so it is with you... we are in charge of our attitudes.” Charles
Swindoll
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of
their dreams.” Eleanor Roosevelt
Before you can hope to effectively alter your attitude to
one of tolerance, understanding and the expectation of great things, you need to ensure that your confidence and
self-esteem are strong.
“Quality begins on the inside... and then works its way
out.” Bob Moawad
Why aren’t we as confident as we would like to
be?
Why have we chosen to listen to the people who
put us down and tell us “it can’t be done” or “you’re not good enough”?
“Pay no attention to what the critics say; no statue has
ever been erected to a critic.” Jean Sibelius, Finnish Composer
q For the next three days, keep this
journal with you and write down EVERY success you have – no matter how large or how
small.
These could be successes such as:
q You arrived to school/college on
time.
q You cooked a great steak (something I
would love to master!)
q You were there for a friend who needed
you.
q You successfully completed the project
that you have been working on for a long time.
q You exercised every
day.
q You took time out to
paint.
Even if you think they are minor or trivial, list
them.
q At the end of the three days, review
your list.
q Choose the most significant success you
had and celebrate that success.
q Do this activity every week for the
remainder of this program (and even longer if you like).
Day 1… My Successes
Day 2… My Successes
Day 3… My Successes
“If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major
opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead.” Gelett
Burgess
What are ‘filters’? They are the result of life
experiences. They are the feelings, emotions and information that change the way we see what we
see.
For example, if I say, “think of a car”. Chances are you
will be thinking of a different type, make, model and color car than the one in my mind.
Why?
Chances are we have different cars in our respective
garages. We have friends who drive different cars from one another and so on.
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as
though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” Albert
Einstein
I was teaching a retail course many years ago and was
trying to explain the subject of filters to my class. Unbeknown to my group, I had pre-arranged with a colleague
to come in at a particular time, speak with me for a moment, hang around the desk area and then
leave.
About ten minutes after he left, I said to the class, “just
suppose I said to you that I have discovered my wallet is missing and the only person other than myself who had
access to it was the person to whom I was just speaking. Can you give me a description of that
person?”
The responses were that he (at least they got that bit
right!) was about 5’11” down to 5’6”, he had brown hair, blonde hair or dark brown hair, he was wearing a dark
shirt, a light shirt, plain shirt, with stripes, dark pants, light pants – and they all agreed he was wearing
shoes although what color they were was open for debate as well.
The interesting thing was that everyone was relatively sure
they were right. Just about everyone’s response differed in some way from the others, however they all held
reasonably firmly to the fact that their recollection was correct.
At the completion of the activity, I asked my colleague to
come back into the class and funnily enough, not one of the participants was able to get the height, hair color
and clothing color all correct.
What does this activity tell us?
So often we hear things or see things and then make
decisions based on what we ‘think’ we see or hear.
“Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things
before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll
How many times have you heard two people recount the same
event and it sounds like two separate events? The song from the classic movie ‘Gigi’, “Ah yes, I remember
it well,” is a good example.
“We met at nine – we met at eight; I was on time – no you
were late…”
“It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily
existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking
on the doorsteps of our hearts” K.T. Jong
When clearing the way to discover your passion, you need to
be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking and new opportunities. When we do not acknowledge our filters and
rigidly hold on to what we ‘believe’ to be the way things are, we are clouding our
judgment.
Remember, people once believed the Earth was flat and as
such, until someone was open enough to challenge that belief – to challenge those filters – there was no
possibility of ever sailing around the globe and discovering lands on the other side of the world (because if
you asked them, there was no other side of the world!).
“The first and most important step toward...success is the
feeling that we can succeed.” Nelson Boswell
When communicating with others, in addition to our filters,
consider that we each have different ‘styles’ of communication.
Is your style ideas-driven and one where you like to be the
centre of attention?
Is your style one where you need to see the practical side
of the subject?
Is your style one where you need to see a logical
sequence?
Is your style one where you need to sit back and think for
some time before you give a response?
Think of the challenges for each party when you have
someone whose communication style is direct and quick interacting with someone who is slow and methodical in
their approach?
No one style is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ – they are simply
different from each other.
Consider…
q Think about a recent time when you
disagreed with someone. It doesn’t have to be a public disagreement – maybe they don’t even know you disagreed
with them. Just think about your side and their side.
q Write down what you believe
happened.
q Now write down what you
think they believe happened.
q Could there possibly be another way of
looking at the situation?
q How could you have expressed yourself
differently to perhaps get a different result?
Maybe that should read, “You CAN Control
Your Emotions” as most people don’t. They “react” rather than choose their “response”.
“No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will
react.” Viktor Frankl
Remember the Eleanor Roosevelt quotation from
earlier in the book? If not, here it is again:
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
We can control our emotions. It is up to you
if you choose to feel upset, angry, happy or sad. Nothing outside you gives you these emotions – you create them
for yourself.
I would encourage you to read Viktor Frankl’s
book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, published by Washington Square Press. In it, Frankl describes his time as a
Jewish psychiatrist during World War II when he was interned in the Nazi concentration
camps.
While many around him gave up during that
horrific time, Frankl decided that the captors may be able to imprison his body however they could not imprison
his mind. He made a conscious decision to use his skills, knowledge and his power over his emotions and
responses to analyse the psychology of the concentration camp – in particular why some people gave up and others
did not.
His work lead him to develop a revolutionary
approach to psychotherapy known as logotheraphy, or ‘man’s search for meaning’.
“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the
way we see them.” Leo Tolstoy
While some people gave in to what they saw as
their fate, Frankl discovered that those who kept going were people who believed they still had ‘meaning’ in
their life – that they had something yet to do.
"Everything can be taken from a man but ...the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's
attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." Viktor
Frankl
My belief is that if Viktor Frankl was able to
control his emotions and his attitude, in such conditions that I pray no one ever experiences again, it is
possible for the rest of us in relatively passive circumstances to control ours.
“Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.” Ralph Waldo
Emerson
q Write down a situation that regularly
sees you getting angry or upset. It could be red traffic lights; it could be a particular person; a particular
action…
q The next time that event occurs, stop
yourself from automatically responding as you have done previously.
q Consider the
situation.
q Choose your response.
q Act accordingly.
q Review the
results.
You may decide that being angry or upset is the best
response. I’m not suggesting that is or isn’t the way to go.
What I am suggesting is that by choosing your
emotional response, you are taking control of your life and, in the words of Viktor Frankl, you are choosing
your own way.
“The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be
continually fearing you will make one.” Elbert Hubbard
FEAR = False Evidence Appearing
Real
If you have a chance at discovering and then
living your passion and fully realizing your potential, you need to overcome your fears.
“Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are
developed.” Michael Pritchard
Please note that here we are discussing
fear in general as it relates to you achieving your goals, dreams and desires. If you are in a situation where
you fear for your personal safety or the safety of your family, please seek immediate assistance. It’s one thing
to suggest that fear is false evidence appearing real and quite another to acknowledge that there are times when
the evidence is true and it is real and you do need to take action.
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not
absence of fear.” Mark Twain
According to a definition by Princeton
University’s Wordnet, fear is to
“be afraid or feel anxious or apprehensive about a possible or probable situation or
event”.
“Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just
as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, your fears are a treasure
house of self-knowledge if you explore them.” Marilyn Ferguson
First, if we analyse that statement, the two
words that jump out are “possible” and “probable”. Note that nowhere in the definition do they describe a
“definite” outcome or event.
So, in other words, fear is imagining
what could happen, what might happen – not
what WILL happen! These are possible or probable outcomes – not definite ones.
“The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and
hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the
divine floods of light and life no longer flow into our souls.” Elizabeth Cady
Stanton
“Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather
fear that it shall never have a beginning.” John Henry Cardinal Newman
The more you focus upon something the more
likely it is to happen. (We will cover this later in the Power of Focus).
If we bring those two elements together you
have a situation where, when we allow ourselves to be in a state of “fear” that something bad could occur, and then we focus on the bad
outcome that could occur, not only are we creating additional stress in our lives, we are giving ourselves the
best possible chance of making that bad thing occur because of how much focus we are placing upon
it!
“The truth that many people never understand, until it is
too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more
insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.” Thomas
Merton
“Over the years your bodies become walking autobiographies,
telling friends and strangers alike of the minor and major stresses of your lives.” Marilyn
Ferguson
That brings in the third component we are
going to discuss here – stress. Although a certain amount of stress can actually be good for you in particular
situations, when you are trying to work through the process of discovering your passion and realizing your full
potential, stress is not necessarily the best running mate.
Whenever your body is in a state of acute
stress, you often experience symptoms such as the following:
q Poor memory
q Confusion
q Difficulty expressing yourself
q Increased adrenaline production
q Increased blood pressure
q Increased sugar levels
This is because when we are fearful, our body
goes into what is known as fight or flight mode. In other words, it prepares us to fight the aggressor or run away
from the danger.
In order to achieve this, our body increases
its heart rate and respiration, pumps extra blood to the muscles and heart (and less blood to parts of the
brain), while focusing on how to physically remove
us from the situation.
That instinct has served us well throughout
our evolution to enable us to run from our predators, however when the fear is something intangible from which
we cannot run, what happens? Those symptoms stay with us – and in some people who experience stress over a
prolonged period of time, they cause other health issues.
“Before you agree to do anything that might add even the
smallest amount of stress to your life, ask yourself: What is my truest intention? Give yourself time to
let a yes resound within you. When it's right, I guarantee that your entire body will feel it.” Oprah
Winfrey, O Magazine, October 2002
“A woman is like a tea bag- you never know how strong she
is until she gets in hot water.” Eleanor Roosevelt
One way to deal with fear is to re-frame the
situation – or, in other words, look at it from a completely different angle, and in particular remove the
extreme emotion and look at the truth and reality of the situation.
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every
experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have
lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think
you cannot do.” Eleanor Roosevelt
We get so tied up in the emotions, we often
lose sight of the facts.
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand
more, so that we may fear less.” Marie Curie
q Write about a time when you were fearful.
q Describe all the emotions you were feeling.
q Now, remove the emotions and write down the situation – both the
positive and the negative – in a purely factual form. For example, you may have been fearful that you would
fail an exam. Discuss the positives and negatives without being emotional – and think about the fact that the
more you ‘stress’ about ‘possibly’ failing, the more likely you are to fail! * Please note, we are not
suggesting that what’s happening doesn’t have major ramifications – it may well do – but the more you stress
about it, the less likely you are to successfully overcome it.
Re-Framing
Continued…
Another way to re-frame the situation is to
look at the possible outcomes and consider whether you could live with the consequences. Make a decision to
choose your response as one of expecting the best possible outcome, not the worst.
If the answer is, “yes, I could live with the
possible outcomes (even if they are not pleasant)” and you then say to yourself, “I am only going to focus on
the possible positive outcomes,” you will have gone a long way to reducing the level of fear and
stress in your life – and making the way clearer for you to see your passions.
“…when you squelch your toughest judge, that hanging judge
at the core of you, there is very little to fear from the ones outside.” Sarah, The Duchess of York,
Author of “My Story”
This might sound easy – and once you get the
hang of it, it is – but it can take some time, especially if you are addicted to being in a state of fear and
stress.
“Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything
is an emergency. Nothing is that important.” Natalie Goldberg, O Magazine, October
2002
q Write about a recent situation when you
have felt fearful of the possible outcome.
q Describe that
situation.
q Describe how you felt – what was it
about the situation that was leaving you feeling anxious?
q Did the worst happen?
What did happen?
q Were you able to live with the
result?
q In future, how could you reframe a
similar situation to be less fearful and stressed?
“When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And
when you have fun, you can do amazing things.” Joe Namath
Self-worth is a significant issue for many
people.
On the surface you may tell yourself and
others that you deserve only the very best that life has to offer, yet deep inside there is a recording playing
over and over again telling you that you are not worthy and that there is nothing special about
you.
Here is something to consider that
fundamentally blows that theory out of the water:
"Consider the fact that for 3.8 billion years,
a period of time older than the Earth's mountains and rivers and oceans, every one of your forebears on both
sides has been attractive enough to find a mate, healthyenough to reproduce, and sufficiently blessed by fate and circumstances to
live long enough to do so.
Not one of your pertinent ancestors was
squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stuck fast, untimely wounded or otherwise deflected from its life's quest
of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to theright partner at the right
moment to perpetuate the only possible sequence of heredity
combinations that could result - eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly - in
you."
Excerpt from Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything", 2003, published by
Doubleday.
“If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a
thing, you're right.” Henry Ford
Without a belief that you are special and unique, it is a
challenge to believe that you could possibly have a passion that would be special enough or unique enough that
you would want to devote your life to it, let alone spend the time required to discovering it in the first
place.
“Have you ever wondered how immigrants, many of whom can’t
even speak English, come to America and own their own homes and businesses within a short period of time?
How do they do it while others – with presumably more advantages – struggle just to make ends meet? What
do they know that the rest of us don’t?” Marcia A. Steele, Author of “Making it in
America”
q Start with this premise – “You Are
Unique!”
q Make a list of everything that is unique
about you - …and before you say there is nothing unique about you, go back and re-read
the quote from Bill Bryson’s book. By the very fact that you are here, you are unique. It could be that you have
a certain style; a certain way that you do something; some knowledge or skill that you have applied in a
different way…
q If you have trouble with this activity,
consider asking someone close to you to tell you what they believe is special, wonderful and unique about
you.
Everyone does!
“Dignity consists not in possessing honors, but in the
consciousness that we deserve them.” Aristotle
We all have things that happen in our lives
that we think are terrific and other things that we may wish didn’t occur, but whatever happens, you deserve the
very best that life has to offer. To settle for and believe less is doing an injustice to you and to everyone in
your life.
Also, if you believe in God, the Universe or
some other ‘higher power’, are you not doing a disservice to your faith to be less than you can
be?
This brings us to an interesting
thought:
“The minute you settle for less than you deserve, you get
even less than you settled for.” Maureen Dowd, in 'New York Times'
“Remember that what you believe will depend very much on
what you are.” Noah Porter
If you truly don’t believe that you deserve to
have the very best and to be the very best that you can be, you won’t let yourself truly want to achieve it in
the first place. You may have fleeting thoughts in that general direction but that’s all they will be. You won’t
put your heart and soul into achieving what you don’t think you can have.
That’s why acknowledging that you deserve the
very best is important in being able to discover and live your passion. Without it, while you may work out what
you desire, you will never allow yourself to want to achieve it.
“People are always blaming their circumstances for what
they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up
and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.” George Bernard Shaw,
"Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893) act II
q Consider that you were put on this Earth
for a reason and that reason is to be the best you can possibly be.
q Write about times in your life when
things have gone your way.
q Make a list of terrific major events
in your life (it could be events such as your high school graduation; being selected onto a team you really
wanted to be on…).
q Make a list of terrific minor events in your
life (it could be as simple as finding a book you have been looking for in a second-hand
bookstore).
”The value of identity of course is that so often with it
comes purpose.” Richard Grant
q Who are you?
q Have you become lost in what you do and in the roles you play –
daughter/son, sister/brother, friend?
q Do you define yourself by your weight, your hair colour, your
height?
“If a man happens to find himself, he has a mansion which
he can inhabit with dignity all the days of his life.” James A. Michener
It is important to recognize that you are not
your body, you are not your labels and you are not your roles – you are so much more. Your very essence is so
much more.
“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is
giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.” Anna
Quindlen
Former US President, John Quincy Adams summed
up this principle when, near the end of his life, he was reportedly asked, “How is John Quincy Adams
today?”
"John Quincy Adams is well, thank you,
quite well. But the house in which he lives is tottering on its foundations, the windows are shaking, the roof
is leaking, the doors are not hanging straight; and I think John Quincy Adams will have to move out of it soon.
But John Quincy Adams himself, sir, is quite well, thank you, quite well!"
In his response, Adams made the distinction
between the essence of the man and his physical body.
“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great
undertakings.” Samuel Johnson
q Who are you? List ten ‘labels’ that are used to describe you. For
example daughter, son, student…
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q Do you define yourself and/or others by physical appearance?
Why?
q Do you define yourself and/or others by how much money you/they have?
Why?
q Do you define yourself and/or others by your/their education and how
well you do in school/college? Why?
q Are there any other ways you define yourself and/or others?
Why?
q Consider the above questions and your answers. What did you uncover
about the way you think of others and yourself?
q Now, make a list of 10 of your positive personality characteristics. For
example: happy, loving, artistic etc
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q Think about the differences between the two lists – labels and
personality characteristics – and how your use of labels may be holding you back from realizing your
potential.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without
a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” Norman Vincent
Peale
We live in a society where people who say,
“I’m good at this” are thought to be egotistical and arrogant.
We also live in a society where it seems more
acceptable to ‘beat ourselves up’ over our weaknesses than to‘build ourselves up’ with our
strengths.
I am going to suggest to you that it is
healthy to be able to say that you are good at something!
You don’t have to be the best at something to
say “I’m good at this!”
Provided you are not trying to put anyone else
‘down’ in the process, acknowledging your strengths – the things you are good at – is a crucial step to
discovering your passion and realizing your potential.
“There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only
come to our senses and feel it.” Elizabeth A. Behnke
q List 20 things you can say, “I’m good at this”.
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q Now, ask your three best friends to list the top 10 things they each
believe you are good at – and if you don’t feel comfortable asking your friends, then consider asking your
teacher, your pastor…
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Friend #
3:
q Review your lists and write down your thoughts on why it is important to
be proud of your strengths!
Help us Help Our
Students!
Hello, my Friend!
We have a big, hairy, audacious goal of getting the careers guided journal (workbook) "What
Do I Want To Be?" into the hands of 100,000 kids who really need it to help
themincrease their
confidence and discover their passion.
...and to do that, we need your
help!
This e-book is 176 pages of
information, activities and more - and
only $10 if you buy direct from us
here... As soon as you complete your order, you immediately receive the download link to get your book
straight away.
PLUS, we are donating $1 from
every book to the Freedom Writers
Foundation! The Freedom
Writers Foundation is a nonprofit organization that impacts communities by decreasing high school dropout
rates - and we want to help them help the kids who most need our support! (you may have seen the movie,
but may not know this is a real organization that needs
support)
What Do I Want To
Be? Is a careers guide structured in journal format
to enable teens and college students to increase their self-confidence, discover their passion for life and
inspire them to truly believe they can achieve their
dreams!
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