LIFE STRATEGIES
— Phil McGraw
1: You either “get it” or you don’t. Be honest with yourself
2: You create your own experience. Take responsibility
3: People do what works. Look for the payoffs, for self, others
4: You can’t change what you won’t admit. Face reality
5: Life rewards action. [Ready, fire, aim!]
6: There is no reality, only perception. [ABC. Not AC]
7: Life is managed, it is not cured. Take charge of it
8: You teach people how to treat you. Look at payoffs
9: If you don’t Forgive, it will destroy you.
10: You have to name it to claim it. What do you want?
Get Real
The world is highly competitive and there ain’t no Santa Claus
There’s no point whining about it
What is needed is a clear, knowledge-based strategy
to overcome problems and fulfill goals
Society is a disaster, and people are not trained to manage their lives
No one is taught how to be married, a parent, to manage their life, etc
There are idiots with fancy degrees who don’t know how to get out of the rain
For a successful life, you must have a life strategy
Most are in denial about their problems
Are you sick enough of your life to be willing to change?
Most do not recognize and test their assumptions
they want them to be true
Inertia: you have to be willing to change, and make an initial energetic effort
Indicators: Frustrated, in a rut, bored, just hanging on, in a comfort zone, failing, lonely, depressed
Problems do not resolve themselves
Don’t just need insight—need them to change right now
Assignment 1: List the top 5 things you have failed to fully admit to yourself about yourself
Look for poor life-management skills
Assignment 2: Write “The Story I’ll Tell Myself If I don’t Make Meaningful Change”. Where will you be? Why? What will you rationalize?
Have to accomplish 3 things: Learn yourself thoroughly and honestly; Learn the real ways of the world; Learn a life strategy to set and obtain goals
Life Law 1: You either get it or you don’t
If don’t get it you will fail, and live in great pain
You have to know how the world works
You have to find what makes you and others tick, to get self and others to do what you want, connect with others, and predict outcomes
You have to have knowledge and skills necessary to create the results you want
If you don’t, you’d better get used to being a have-not
Assignment 3: Look at the patterns of things you do in all areas of your life. Make a list of everything you take on blind faith that does not work
Maya Angelou: “You did what you knew how to do, and when you knew better you did better”
Understanding someone: What do they value? Want? Experiences and beliefs? Fears and prejudices? Common grounds? Feelings about self?
Characteristics: Greatest fear is rejection; need is acceptance. Must protect self esteem. Get what they want; talk about what they want to. Respond only to what they understand. Like people like themselves. Are often petty. Have hidden agendas. Wears a mask
Most imp person to influence: you. Need to enhance positive characteristics, eliminate negative
Need to influence others so feel good around you and know will be lifted up and motivated
LL 2: You create your own experience
Acknowledge and accept accountability for your life. Fault is not relevant—do not assign fault
Yourself or anyone else. Overcome perfectionism and judgments
Give yourself permission to be less than perfect, and to have accumulated baggage
People who fail always have someone else to blame
Finding fault creates a negative physiology, and programs failure
Whatever attitudes, relations, job satisfaction, health, you are accountable
If do not believe this, then accepting that you have no control. You are a passive victim
If don’t believe this, then will misdiagnose every problem and event in your life
Recognize that everything is a choice and you are the result of your choices
Recognize the rule of reciprocity: you get what you give
Examine the style you have in dealing with people, and recognize how that affects their response
List the rough edges, and work at eliminating them
If believe you are right about non-accountability you can and will do nothing to change it
If people won’t listen, it is your responsibility they do not understand you
Whatever situation, must believe the solution is within you
Must stop saying, “Why are they doing this to me”, and say, “Why doing this to myself”. “What thoughts, communications, behaviors can I change to change the result”
Assignment 4: List the 5 most significant times in life when you were a victim. Describe in enough detail to capture the emotion of it. Determine how you contributed substantially to the result
Assignment 5: Make a written list of your top 10 negative tapes. Carry a card, and list each as it comes up. Stop the tapes!
LL 3: People do what works
You have to identify the payoffs that drive your behavior and that of others. They have to be there
Control the payoffs to control your life. Have to control the cause and effect relationship
Payoffs are addictive, especially if they allow you to avoid pain
The real payoff may be very difficult to identify. Some are extremely unhealthy, some are good
Often we do things knowing that it will not be for our best. Recognize that at some level they work
Cannot eliminate negative behavior without knowing why it is done. To “get it” have to know
The payoff may be unconscious, even though we consciously know it is negative
Must look for the unconscious and conscious payoffs, and relative strength
E.g. parents may teach a child to scream and demand by rewarding that behavior by responding
Examine your relationships and determine what negative behavior you are rewarding
Look for the negative payoffs in your own life. Must stop paying yourself for negative behavior
When you sabotage yourself, there is a payoff. Must find and break it to stop the vicious circle
Often when found the power disappears
Assignment 6: Describe in detail the 5 most frustrating and negative behaviors in your life. Analyze the payoff you are getting from each, how your needs are “met”. May be acceptance, rejection, fear, avoiding risk or work, immediate vs. delayed gratification
LL 4: You can’t change what you don’t acknowledge
You have to be truthful and stop making excuses about what is not working in your life
Most do not want truth, they want validation—reinforcement whether right or wrong
People want to be right more than anything else
If you won’t take ownership of your role and responsibility you can do nothing
Bad habits become more and more entrenched
Have to be honest about where you are right now or will destroy your whole strategy for life
Lies come either by misrepresentation or by omission. They can even kill you
We lie to ourselves unconsciously, through denial, so have to make a real effort
Must look for and analyze warning signs in attitudes, behavior, and results
Need to look at every area that is not working in life. Must be absolutely brutal
If don’t do this, we are cheating ourselves. Doing so is our first positive step
If admit a problem, and responsibility for it, living with it becomes very difficult. You’re half there
Acknowledge: your problem, need knowledge, getting a payoff, personal characteristics leading to failure. If this causes pain that is a good thing—it will motivate change. Use it to advantage!
It’s difficult to make meaningful substantial changes. You cannot do it without total honesty
LL 5: Life rewards action
Make careful decisions, then pull the trigger. No one cares about intentions, they just look at results
The only thing that matters is action and results. It is the only way to measure yourself
When you choose the action you choose the consequence. It needs to be purposeful and directed
Assignment 7: Are you in a rut? List and examine your recurring activities
Do you make promises to yourself and others and not keep them? Do you let others do that?
Procrastination: Ever moment you fail to act is another moment wasted. If not now, when?
BE committed, DO what is necessary, HAVE what you want
Knowledge, insights, and understanding must be translated into action
The difference between winners and losers is winners do the things losers won’t do
Faith without works is dead. If you don’t have it’s because you don’t act
Begin, and new possibilities will come. Be willing to risk, and persist
Assignment 8: Make a list of the 5-10 most important people. Write down for each what would be left unsaid if one of you died now
Assignment 9: List the top priorities in each of the following categories:
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LL 6: There is no reality, only perception
You need to identify the filters through which you see the world
Those with really bizarre filters are insane
No matter what happens to you, how you interpret it is entirely your choice. You give it meaning and value. Choose the one leading to your goals
Recognize the perception other people are placing—and that there is invariably a difference
Perception is not that something bad is good, fair or unfair, but that you can deal with it
Conclusion you draw from your filter is either you can or cannot deal with it
The cards you are dealt in life are what they are. All that matters is how you play them
If you choose to look through the filter of the past you cannot deal with the present
You may be allowing an event in the past to control and destroy your life now
Identify and analyze the filters, e.g. prejudices, that are controlling your present life
Your strategy may be entirely correct, but if your filter is wrong it will fail
You have to test your operating assumptions before relying on them
The filters through which we view ourselves are the least accurate
May fail to recognize negatives, particularly our own accountability
Undoubtedly fail to give credit for qualities and abilities
Look for yourself in the mirror held up by others, but pick the right mirrors!
Keep an open mind about yourself—our perceptions create our limiting beliefs
Like the elephant at the stake, we cannot go beyond them
If you can control your perceptions, you can control your interpretations and attitudes
That is power
You need to really shake up your belief system. Challenge all your views about yourself
The world, and you, can look completely new
Assignment 10: Search for your limiting beliefs. You have to really dig: they are really imperceptible and insidious. They probably go way back. Your “tapes” are examples
LL 7: Life is managed, it is not cured
Learn to take charge of your life and hang on. Think of yourself as the manager of your life
Is he doing a good job, or do you need to get after him?
Is he doing a good job for the others for whom there is responsibility?
Job Description: Acknowledge the life laws apply to you; commit to resolve rather than endure problems; face the “what-if” questions and answer them, e.g. “What if I get fired?”; refuse to live with unfinished emotional business, causing overreactions to small issues; honor your agreements with self and others
Life has momentum and direction. Take conscious responsibility for those
Define wants in terms of goals and give them project status. Create a To-do list and priorities
Assignment 11: Write down all your conscious life decisions. What do you demand of yourself; What are you willing to accept from yourself? Looking at your actions, are you living in a comfort zone? Make a decision to ramp up, and consider each day how to do that
Consider for each area of your life. Apply the laws of life to each
We need to try to make the right decisions, but sometimes we need to make a decision right
Poor choices test maturity and resolve
LL 8: We teach people how to treat us
Accept responsibility for, rather than complain about, how people treat you
Have a right to be treated with fairness and respect, but must teach people to do it
Be sure, by reviewing the life laws, you’re not at fault—the principle of reciprocity
Relationships are mutually defined, by an intrinsic negotiation in the relationship
In therapy for couples, they want a referee, not understanding. Want to be defined as “right”
Must determine the payoffs you are giving people for how they treat you. Is it healthy?
Even a long-standing pattern can be changed, but you can expect change to be resisted
Must be negotiated from a position of strength, requiring knowledge and resolve
If you cave in the behavior is reinforced
Acting as a victim or basing a plea on guilt will fail. Guilt is often used to resist change
LL 9: The power of forgiveness
Look at what anger and resentment can do to you. You give up your power to someone you hate
Hate, anger, and resentment are the most powerful emotions, and most destructive
Like fire in a forest, they consume you. Destroy all ability to love, feel peace, other positives
The physiological reaction makes the whole body negative. Misery is inevitable
The emotions are so strong they will change who you are. They completely change your perspective
Others may behave wrongly toward you, but it is up to you how you react to that
It isn’t about them, it’s about you. Release yourself, not them
Recognize you are locked in a bond with them, and they are taking your power
Assignment 13: Identify those whom you need to forgive and do so
LL 10 You have to name it to claim it
With your life manager (you) decide exactly what it is you want. Be bold, but realistic
This sounds easy, but few really know. Most know what they don’t want
Be sure to separate the means from the end. E.g. a job may be a means or an end
Indecision creates inaction. Most you’ll ever get is what you ask for
Tough enough to get the world to give you what you know you want
Need to be careful to go for what really is important and lasting
Create what you want in your mind: see it, feel it, experience yourself enjoying it
What is the price you will pay to get it? How many ways are there to get it?
Assignment 14:
Once you have named it, put together a plan to claim it, and don’t give it up
A Guided Tour of Your Life
Create a life strategy to achieve your goals
Diagnose your current life in each of the charted areas. Look at the whole you, to know self
The Seven Step Strategy
1. Express your goal in specific events or behaviors
2. Express your goal in measurable terms
3. Set a timeline
4. Set a goal you can control
5. Plan a strategy that will get you to your goal
6. Define your goal by steps