9 Things You Simply Must Do To Succeed In Love and Life by Henry Cloud
is that the author is a ...believer. As in there are scriptures quoted throughout the book and what is interesting is that I didn't stop reading the minute the first one was quoted.
He made them...palatable for lack of a better word.
(I do say that while I might have left organized religion behind, it doesn't mean I stopped believing in God.)
Since I didn't finish sharing the highlights of the 9 things I thought I'd continue here, in another post as opposed to editing the other.
So where were we?
Principle 5: Act Like an Ant
When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself. Isak Dinesen.
Why is it taking this particular chapter to drive it home to me that while I moan and groan about seeing weight loss as a mountain too high to climb that maybe I'm focusing too much on the destination and not the journey?
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. Henry Ford
...no successful person ever lost [thirty] without losing one. The another one. Then another.
[Sidebar: I've been toying with the idea of admitting I might need more help in this area of my life than just going it alone.
During the first appointment with the therapist, she mentioned there is this thing called The Emily Program that is for people who struggle with eating disorders.
I scoffed a bit but when reading this ...
Binge-eating disorder is characterized by recurrent binge-eating episodes during which a person feels a loss of control over his or her eating. Unlike bulimia, binge-eating episodes are not followed by purging, excessive exercise, fasting, or other behaviors to “compensate” for the binge. As a result, people with binge-eating disorder may become obese. They also experience guilt, shame and/or distress about the binge-eating—which in turn can lead to more binge-eating episodes.
There is truth in that paragraph. And my attitude toward food is fucked up. I'm obsessed with it. What my next meal is going to be. Do I have enough money for food? My life revolves around food and my desire for it. Not just as nourishment and to keep me going but always worrying about do I have enough. Making sure I eat enough to make me beyond full because unless I'm full, I'm not satisfied. And thinking that the portion sizes are too small for me.
And honestly answering the questions...
- Do you feel like you sometimes lose or have lost control over how you eat? Yes.
- Do you ever make yourself sick because you feel uncomfortably full? Yes.
- Do you believe yourself to be fat, even when others say you are too thin? Ha. Nope, this one doesn't apply but it's the only one here that doesn't.
- Does food or thoughts about food dominate your life? Totally.
- Do thoughts about changing your body or your weight dominate your life? Yes.
- Have others become worried about your weight? Yes (even though they might not be saying anything in the face of my stubbornness and refusal to admit I need help.)
But the reality is that there is a big disconnect between what I think I look like in my head and what is reflected back when I see myself in a mirror or in pictures.
While I want to just accept myself as I am, I want the picture I see in my head and that's of myself when I was a size 16 or so. So maybe it's time I try not doing it alone or without professional support for a change.]
Principle 6: Hate Well
What we hate says a lot about who we are, what we value, what we care about. And how we hate says much much about how we will succeed in love and life.
Character is in part formed by what we hate, because we move to be different from whatever that is.
Go hard on the issue, and soft on the person.
Things that you do not like are going to happen, and you are going to experience negative feelings. The question is this: will that response be constructive or destructive?
Principle 7: Don't Play Fair
If a person with whom I had a relationship made an error or did something detrimental to the relationship, I would want to help him or her see it, fix it and do better. I would want to be a force to help raise them up, not drag them down.
Give back better than you are given.
People who succeed in life do not go around settling scores. They do not even keep score.
...turn the world and others into one of them-the kind of person who wants the best for everyone and wants everyone to do better than he or she is doing.
...not forever held up in the past, bitter, or dragged down by old hurts and grievances that are still alive in their souls. Forgiving and letting go have set them free.
Principle 8: Be Humble
Pride is concerned with who is right. Humility is concerned with what is right. Ezra Taft Benson
1. Successful people show kindness, understanding, and help to others who fail.
2. Successful people are not derailed by their own failures; they accept them as a normal part of the process.
Self-confidence and belief in yourself comes from accepting flaws and mistakes and realizing you can go forward and grow past them, and that you can learn from them.
...do at least two things very well....
1. They admit it quickly when they are wrong.
2. They receive correction and confrontation from others well.
It is really true that we do not know it all, we do not have all the answers, we do not always get it right, we are just as imperfect as the next person, and we are not right or good all the time.
Principle 9: Upset the Right People
I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure, which is try to please everybody. Herbert Bayard Swope
...do not make decisions based on the fear of other people's reactions...
...[boat] autopilot does not allow external actions to alter its course...
...kept someone happy, but they have lost their own way...if they had not been afraid of getting a little wet or plowing through bumpy water...the bump would be behind them, and the sea would eventually smooth out and return to calm. [If it did not, then there was a deeper problem in that sea of relationship to begin with, and no amount of pleasing or appeasing is likely to help.]
What you should do, and what someone's response is going to be, are two very different issues.
...and he's listed twelve steps (!) to applying the 9 things...
1. Do Not Go It Alone
2. Receive Wisdom
3. Receive Feedback and Correction
4. Find Models
5. Review Your Patterns
6. Deal with Impediments
7. Add Structure
8. Practice, Practice, Practice, and Fail
9. Change Your Beliefs
10. Quarantine Your Weaknesses
11. Put Your Vision and Goals on Paper
12. Pray, Pray, Pray
So I finished reading it and jotted down these things and now it's all swirling around in my head. I think I'll just let it all sit for a bit ....though I'm already ...pulling teeth. And I know I'll be happier once some of them are pulled.
*sigh*
And so ... Onward.
