How to Take Charge of Your Life
by Mildred Newman & Bernard Berkowitz

What motivates you?
You had better believe it-and more
No amount of determination, no amount of will power, of inspiration or exhortation is enough as long as you are in the dark about your own secret payoff.

To choose one goal means to give up others.
It means you can't have everything.
It means you can't do everything.
It means you can't be everything.
It means you can't please everybody.
Making a decision reveals something about you
What if everyone loves you but your sense of self is lost?

Leaving Home is Not Enough
Being in charge of your life not only means getting away, leaving your family-it also means putting your family outside of yourself.
Strange idea
It's like: You are about to fall asleep and you remember you haven't brushed your teeth. You feel so sleepy, you don't want to get up, but you know you should. You hassle yourself this way most every night. If you listen to the voices in the argument going on inside you, whose voice do you hear?
It's like: Whenever you get to know someone who might really be the "right" person for you, you suddenly lose interest. Why? Do you secretly think of all the things that "they" might say about that person?

They are the persons whoever raised you
It's not enough to leave physically-you can be thousand miles away and still hear their voices.
The emotional separation does not mean a lack of feeling. It does not mean being cold and distant.
It does mean: You are you, and they are who they are.
Giving up your fantasy family means you'll be gaining a real family-real people.
So there is no cause of guilt. You are not rejecting or hurting the feelings of real people-only those you have created in your imagination.

It takes two seperate people
OK-so you're not carrying them around with you.
Can you avoid getting pulled into them?
When you say, "My life is your life," you entrust the boundaries and shape and direction of your life to the other person.
But you are really not being generous and kind.
You are setting a trap.
You are setting up a situation in which you will inevitably feel
Abused,
Taken advantage of, and resentful.
When you expect another person to protect you from your own unwillingness to be in charge of what you can give, you are placing an impossible demand on that other person.
Instead of gratitude for all your self-sacrifice, you are much more likely to be rejected.
It is impossible to live with a self-sacrificing saint.
When you give up what you want, just to give in to the other person's needs, then you are not there.
And when you are not there, the other person is lonely.
And needs to look for company.

Protect Us from the Power of the Victims
The power of powerless people is remarkable.
Whether you know it or not, you are always influencing the behaviour of others by your response (or lack of response!)
It makes a world of difference to use your powers consciously and constructively, and you will discover that you no longer need to feel like such a victim.
Remember honey draws more flies than vinegar
You can take charge of your life.

Can you do it for yourself?
Your best bet is to know what you want, and go for it.
There is not way you can have this tailor-made exsistance unless you know your own dimensions, unless you know just who you are and exactly what you want to be.

You can take charge of your life
You do not have to take yourself as a prepackaged product coming off the assembly line. There are certain things you have inherited-your coloring, your sex, your bone structure, your height-but what you do with your biological inheritance is up to you. Much of what you are you have made, and it is your right, if not also your obligation, to remake yourself exactly as you see fit.
You know a lot more about what works and what does'nt work for you.
So take a good look at yourself.
If you see something you don't like, the chances are you put it there, and you can change it.

Introduce Yourself to You
It is not self-indulgent to entertain your own thoughts, because only then do you really have enough of yourself to give to others. Otherwise you are simply reflecting what you admire in others back to them.
Don't be afraid that if you really give of what is genuinely and essentially you, you will be depleted.
Quite the contrary. Once you have learned how to tune in on your inner self, you will have tapped a well that never runs dry.

How you feel about yourself throughout the day is life itself
You cannot take charge of the present if you are busy reliving the failures of the past.
Have the courage to confront and deal with your negative feelings.
It's not easy, but don't let the difficulty of all this deter you from the real job of filling in the picture of who you are and what you want for yourself.

Play your own Character
You know, the strength you take to live unhappily, if you take just half of that and put it into living well, you can have a pretty good time."

Getting Into Action
Anxiety is only one of the ways in which you can stop yourself from being the kind of person who is in charge of your own life.
A truly strong person is strong enough to let other people be who they are, and does'nt feel pushed around by the strength of others. A person who feels strong is much more likely to be mild-mannered and easygoing, with an air of quiet confidence.
People are hard on themselves when they should be easy, and too easy on themselves when they should be hard. The only way to avoid these pitfalls is to know yourself well.

How to get lucky?
Once you get on your own side, once you decide to act in your own behalf, you begin to see possiblilities and potentials that you never knew were there. Having learned how to deal with anxiety and doubts, you are free to see new and challenging things. You have the courage to use the strength and creativity you barely suspected you had. This openness to opportunities and possibilities that others may not see is what often goes under the name of "getting lucky."

William H. Murray put it beautifully and effectively:
"Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elemantary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that never otherwise have occured. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way."

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
Begin it, now.

God Loves You; So Do I



All Things Are Possible to him that believes.
Mark 9:23

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