Have you been wriggling around in your life somewhere between almost happy and fully happy? Are you itching to make a major life change — yet the obstacles are all you see and the self-voiced excuses are all you hear? Consider that it is fear and lack of a plan that may be keeping you stuck.
In her accept-no-excuses book, Now What? 90 Days to a New Life Direction, Laura Berman Fortgang outlines a 90-day path to a major life change. But this book is not for sissies or slackers. In fact, if you read it and don't take action, you may feel worse about your life than before you read it. Fortgang's book is not for “readers", but for "doers".
If you are not an action-oriented person, you may find this book unsettling because the self-coaching program dissolves the comfort you may feel from the hopelessness, sense of impossibility, overwhelming obstacles, and the paralyzing fear you embrace as "reasons" for not trying. The author provides detailed coaching so you CAN be successful in major life changes. She provides snippets of success on people who did complete the 90 day program.
My favorite section of this book is Chapter 3, Most Limits Are Self-Imposed. In this chapter, readers will find a way to identify the source of beliefs, assumptions, desires, choices, and the many unproductive thoughts and emotions which hold us back. The author identifies that parents are a significant source for many limiting beliefs.
In my work as a therapist, I ask my clients to identify what I call the members of the "committee in your head". Parents are nearly always on this committee in our head. It is critical for us to understand both the positive and negative influences of all of our committee members.
We often feel pressure from the committee in our head to make certain choices. In addition to parents, other members who may rotate on and off that committee are grandparents, relatives, friends, spouses, former spouses, coworkers, employers, teachers, and coaches. Fortgang uses the term "package" as a broad term for self-concept or image, which is typically shaped in our committee.
The author encourages readers to understand and selectively accept influences from their committees. Like Fortgang, I suggest that clients remain at the head of their committee while taking the initiative to unseat unsupportive members and invite others on board. The exercises and question sections in Chapter 3 are very helpful.
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