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Chapter
Six
What To Do
Next
Okay, you have conducted
your inventory.
You have liked some
things you have found out, and were shocked by others. What can
you do? Try building new habits of thought and action which will
begin to move your life in a different more consistent and positive
direction. Thinking comes first of course, so let us look there.
Cultivate a more open way of thinking. Do not be dragged down
by authors you have not examined before. Create "think-tanks"
with friends or business associates who might like to share some
of their ideas with you.
Once it has been established
as a habit, thinking in a positive and uplifting way can become
second nature just like old habits used to be. After all. Your
behavior started somewhere. Didn’t it? So "unstart"
the parts of it that you don't like! Substitute bad habits with
good ones, since something has to replace the vacuum. You cannot
worry and plan for the future at the same time, so plan for the
future. You cannot be morbidly sunk in dwelling on the past and
be actively engaged in some present activity. So cultivate the
present project or enterprise. Develop new patterns of thinking.
The behavior will come next.
Although it may not
always feel like it. We do have the power to change our habits.
They will not leave all at once, but moment-by-moment, step-by-step,
they will leave you. We become what our habits make us. Why not
elevate yourself by improving your habits? It is either that
or continue to be dragged down by them. Once more we do not have
the choice of not choosing. We are going to he shaped by habits.
Knowing this the wise person is selective in his habits of thought,
word and deed. Does the average person seem to you to know this
simple fact? Take a long look before you answer. Then turn the
mirror on yourself. Do you like what you see? Or are you tempted
to look away?
If you do not like
what you see. Or there are at least some features that could
stand a hit of work, start simple. Take a little habit and revise
it just a bit. Smoke one less cigarette an hour, for example.
Walk just one block more today than you did yesterday. Substitute
non-fat ice cream for that hot fudge sundae which made you feel
bloated for hours. Rather than always thinking what might go
wrong, try imagining the reverse. Put yourself to some tests.
Grab a newspaper and try to read every article on the front page
from at least two points of view, from a grimly pessimistic one.
Emphasizing all the worst that has happened or is just around
the corner. That should be easy with the newspaper! Then reverse
the approach. Try to see what good there is, even in a disaster.
This may not be easy
at first because we have been trained for years to look for the
dark side of things. We suspect people's motives, even our friends.
But this is just another habit, no matter how well entranced
it may have become. Remember, there was a time when it did not
exist in you. When you were a baby, you trusted those who reared
you. You were open to all that lift offered, even to that part
that could harm you. But you were closer then to reality, to
the true joy of living. You were excited by the novelty of each
new day.
I saw a bumper sticker that read: "Look for the good and
praise it." This is a beautiful thought. It does not ignore
everything else. It just emphasizes what is right, true and beautiful.
Accentuate the positive, as the old song tells us. Why? Because
this brings more of the good into our experience. It prepares
our mind, and then our heart and spirit, to first perceive, then
to savor the beauty around us.
Does this really create
a different world? Yes! Not all at once perhaps, but by gradual
stages. We are responsible for far more of our daily experiences
than we know.
This must be changed if we are to come into contact with our
power, if we are to rise in the ranks of leadership if we are
to exercise the kind of realistic control over our personal and
professional lives which is one ingredient of success. You cannot
see yourself as the helpless victim of your experience and still
feel powerful. You cannot feel surrounded by an evil universe,
and still be trusting, open and warm towards others. This is
especially true towards strangers.
From it will flow
all sorts of actions and renewed confidence, faith, and sense
of personal worth and power.
We choose our habits,
not the other way around. But we can only experience this as
true it we alter out ingrained habits of thought. If we start
looking and thinking about things in quite a new way. We will
see how we can choose better for ourselves. This will probably
take quite an effort at first. There are years of negative habits
to overcome. There are mountains of rubbish to scale. But the
view from the top is marvelous! Just ask anyone who has been
there.
When we recognize
that we choose our habits, how does it affect us? You can "unbuild"
whatever has been built. You have really had more of a hand in
forming your life than you knew. This knowledge allows for change,
even radical change.
This way of thinking
encourages hope, optimism and openness for all new possibilities,
combinations of possibilities or new discoveries. If you have
chosen your habits well, then you can be an active participant
in your acts of choosing a better life.
It is easier to see yourself as a victim, the passive stooge
of others whims, than as the force behind it all. Preferable
to finding excuses for every act is standing tall and facing
the responsibility of your life. There is a doozie of a catch,
however. If you look at yourself as a victim, your freedom slips
away. Not all at once, but gradually freedom leaves you. In locating
all your power outside of yourself, you lose sight of the power-base
within you. What seems to be reward turns out to be a punishment.
The flight to escape
responsibility also diminishes freedom. The effort to evade the
burden of choice ultimately creates a lifestyle in which freedom
shrinks to a tiny, abstract point.
By blaming others you never have to change yourself. You get
to stay just the way you are. No matter how unhappy you arc.
Some reward, huh? This is self-defeating. 1 low can you feel
both powerful and play the part of the victim? You can't. How
can you feel in control and at the same time never experience
or celebrate your choices? There is no way.
Yet people try to
do just that all the time. Their inability to find success is
only the most obvious price to pay. To succeed, you must accept
the burden of individual choice. I low can anything really be
yours if you have given it all away? If you have shoved your
choice onto the shoulders of others, how can you claim this is
really your life? You can't. Success is only for the brave: for
those courageous enough to admit that the choices made in their
life are their own.
Refusing to admit
failure is really your fault, you cannot claim success as your
doing. If you side step blame, you also avoid praise at the same
time. At most this creates a lifestyle where the best that can
be said is. "No hits, no runs, no errors." This is
a pathetic epitaph for a whole lifetime, isn't it? Yet that is
just what is true of many people. They have hidden their choices
and the responsibility which they imply so long that they come
to believe their own propaganda.
Play the victim long
enough, and you will eventually be one. There are plenty of would-be
leaders ready, willing and eager to make up your mind for you.
Their motto is, "Step aboard the bus, ladies and gentlemen
and do not worry about the destination. Leave that to me."
Politics, business and religion are full of such individuals.
History is jammed with their exploits, whether glorious or gory.
If you are ever to
feel successful you must be in touch with who you are. You must
know your motives, your driving forces, and your internal values
quantities. This is what you sacrifice when you give away your
freedom and sensitivity to others. When you let others feel for
you, you lose your feelings. When you let or even encourage them
to decide for you, you decrease your chances of ever being successful.
It takes courage to insist on doing it for yourself, and requires
a brave spirit to define the terms of your success and then work
to achieve it.
This is especially
true when others mock and ridicule you. That is why you must
be prepared to work in isolation when necessary. It is not only
"lonely at the top." it is also pretty lonely on the
way up. You have friends, lovers, and associates and you will
not lose them. It is just that you will not be able to shift
the burden of your decisions to anyone else. This lonely process
is what one French philosopher had in mind when he spoke of the
"burden of freedom." He said, "We are condemned
to be free."
The path to your success
is very narrow. It is only one person wide, in fact. No matter
how many are on the path to success, each has to travel it alone.
If you are not ready to accept this and to accept the consequences
of what it means, say so now. Stop fooling yourself and trying
to fool others. Admit, once and for all, that you simply do not
have what it takes to succeed. If you are timid, give up this
idle dream. Those who prefer to have others live for them should
go DO further on this safari.
If you have what it
takes to be a leader, be willing to step forward. Have the courage
to decide on a destination. If some of the passengers grumble,
let them grumble. Strike out on your own. The road signs might
be obscured, bridges may be washed out and the roadway ahead
may be a wind-driven swamp. You may not know whether you can
do it until the very moment when you seize control. But that
is soon enough. Only cowards think they have to have all the
answers ahead of time. This is why they never act. It is why
their lives never really go anywhere or add up to much.
As nice as it might
be to have all the answers in advance, real life seldom allows
us a luxury. We must act on what we know in total or only partially.
This is why courage is needed. The special kind of courage it
takes to commit yourself to a course of action when you cannot
know how it will turn out. The timid rarely commit themselves.
They prefer having an excuse if things take an unpleasant turn.
Of course this means hedging all their bets. And that is just
what they do. Their decisions are half-hearted, limp and flabby,
because they always want a way out. They want an escape route,
which will let them say, "Well, you know that really was
not my idea." The trouble is that the same device which
allows them to evade blame also robs them of any possibility
of praise. But this seems to be a price such people feel is worth
paying. Their lives prove it. Only the timid and cowardly will
argue what actions really mean.
The courageous leader
is willing to fall. This is the price paid for any decision of
consequence. The desire to cushion your failure can only have
one effect. It will rob all of your decisions of their clarity
and power. The person obsessed with the possibility of failure
becomes paralyzed with even the smallest decision.
A person can stand
in front of a magazine rack and be so afraid of choosing the
wrong one, that they choose none. This person was certainly aware
of options, even hyper-aware of the merits and flaws of each
magazine. The choices became overpowering. This person is cautious
to the point of rigidity. They are dominated by fear of making
the wrong decision. This is not a happy person.
Taking foolish and
extravagant chances is not what being a leader is about, either.
Life is precarious enough without going out and asking for trouble.
You must be willing to announce, "Here I stand." It
just means being willing to admit the decision is yours. You
admit authorship to your choice.
This may not sound
like much of a demand, but some people cannot decide to take
responsibility for their lives. Some people become leaders by
default, because they make decisions other people are too timid
to make themselves. The leader announces, "This is what
I have decided, follow me!" The herd typically follows them,
relieved of the burden of making a choice. The decision this
leader makes may not be a good one. History is full of shortsighted
and inept leaders. What they share in common is not the wisdom
of their choices, which often cannot stand up to any rational
examination. Rather, they were simply willing to step in and
fill a vacuum left by others who were not willing to choose for
themselves. All real leaders know this as fact. They either realize
it in advance or discovered it in the process of becoming a leader.
They welcome the prospect. They embrace the opportunity to lead;
they do not shy away from it. Do they have all the answers? No.
The potential leader knows that the decisions he has the courage
to make become the right ones. He does not trouble himself with
"what ifs." This is the leader's special kind of wisdom.
Any would-be leader who gets caught up in justifying his decisions
in advance will soon find that they are in the dustbin of history.
Chapter Six - Part 2
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