Reinventing Your Life: The Breakthrough Program to End Negative Behavior and Feel Great Again (39 page)

1. Assess Whether Your Feeling of Failure Is Accurate or Distorted.
The first thing to do is assess the accuracy of your feeling of failure. As we have noted, most of the time, like Kathleen, you will have a lot of realistic evidence. You have in fact failed relative to your peers. But sometimes, like Brian, your perception of failure is inaccurate, and you will find little evidence to support your view.

List a range of people with whom you went to high school, college, or graduate school. Be sure to choose people from the bottom, middle, and top of your class. Write down what each person has accomplished within their chosen fields. How far have they progressed? How much are they paid?

How much responsibility do they have at work? Where do you stand in comparison?

2. Get in Touch with the Child Inside of You Who Felt, and Still Feels, Like a Failure.
Try to recall memories of being criticized, humiliated, compared, or discouraged by your family or peers. Understand the origins of your lifetrap.

When something happens in your current life to trigger your Failure lifetrap, take some time to explore the event through imagery. Sit in a dark, quiet room and close your eyes. Get an image of the current event. Make the image as vivid and emotional as possible. Then let an image come of when you felt the same way as a child. Do not force the image. Just let it float to the top of your mind.

Here is an example from a session with Kathleen.

KATHLEEN: Oh, I really messed up. I feel so bad. I can’t believe it. I told my boss the wrong time the moving men were coming with the set pieces. He hired all these guys to come in and work overtime to help move the stuff, and they all came at the wrong time. My boss had to pay them anyway. He was really mad at me. Oh my God, I feel so bad about it. I can’t stop thinking about it. (Starts to cry.)

THERAPIST: Do you want to do imagery about this?

KATHLEEN: Okay. (Cries.)

THERAPIST: Then close your eyes and get an image of this situation that just happened with your boss.

KATHLEEN: All right. I see myself in my boss’s office. He’s about to come in to talk to me about what happened.

THERAPIST: How do you feeP

KATHLEEN: Oh, I feel frantic, really panic-stricken. I’m pacing around, I don’t know what to do with myself. My heart is pounding. Oh, man. I’m so scared.

THERAPIST: Okay. Now give me another image of when you felt that way before, as a child.

KATHLEEN: All right. I’m in my sixth-grade classroom. My teacher’s there, and she’s going around the room, and each person’s presenting this book report. We had all had to read part of this book on Africa the night before and make up a little presentation. Only of course I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it, and now she’s going around the room and she’s gonna come to me, and I’m gonna have nothing to say.

Your images can help you understand the origins of your lifetrap. That child who felt like a failure is still very much alive in you.

3. Help Your Inner Child See That You Were Treated Unfairly.
Many times when we fail as a child, it is because we are being pushed in a direction that is not naturally ours. Some parents have their own agendas, and want a child to excel in certain areas regardless of what the child’s particular talents and inclinations might be.

Brian’s father was a first-generation immigrant who worked hard to give his children a good education. He wanted Brian to be a doctor. Even when Brian was quite small, his father would tell people that he was going to be a doctor.

BRIAN: The trouble was that science and math were not my thing. I was into more creative things—art and writing. My father always looked down on my interest in art. „That and fifty cents will get you a ride on the subway,“ he used to say.

I mean, I did try going pre-med at college. But I just couldn’t cut it. That was a really bad time for me. No matter how I tried, I couldn’t get more than a „C“ in any of my courses. I almost had a nervous breakdown.

When I switched to creative writing, my father was furious at me. He stopped paying for my education. I had to take out loans. He was really mad. (Imitates his father’s voice:) „It’s so impractical, you’ll never make a living.“

To this day my father criticizes my job. Even though I have a good job, I’m respected, I’m mentioned in the newspapers, I make a lot of money, he still gets down on what I do. He’ll talk about our neighbor’s son, who became a surgeon, and makes some real money.

What were some of your strengths and talents as a child? Were people’s expectations of you realistic? How well could you have done if you had been praised, supported, and guided in areas of achievement where you had potential?

Get angry at the people who made you feel like a failure. Talk back to your lifetrap. Stand up for yourself. You can do this by writing letters, talking to people directly, or through imagery.

THERAPIST: Tell your father how you feel in the image. Tell him how his attitude affects you.

BRIAN: Okay. Dad, when you put me down for my career and talk about how successful doctors are all the time, it really bothers me. First, it’s really frustrating for me to be a success in everyone else’s eyes but yours. Every time I see you, I end up feeling like a failure. And this is crazy! I’m doing well! Can’t you understand that?

Get an image of a parent or a peer, and tell the person how you feel.

It is up to you whether you confront the person directly, in real life. But if you decide to confront someone, make sure you are emotionally prepared for the person to respond by denying your accusations. Do not have false hope that the person is suddenly going to change because of what you say. If this is what happens, great—but do not count on it.

The important thing is for you to confront the person in a way that makes you proud of yourself. Behave well. Stay calm and composed. State your points simply and briefly. If the person argues, just keep restating your position until you have had your say. Tell the person how they make you feel, and how you wish they could be instead.

THERAPIST: What did you say to your father?

BRIAN: I told him that his criticism of me was unfair; that I was really far more talented and competent than I was given credit for as a child. I told him that he did a lot of damage to me by making me feel incompetent. He kept trying to interrupt me, but I just kept asking him politely to let me finish. I told him I wanted him to be more supportive in terms of my work from now on. I wanted him to give me some credit for what I’ve accomplished.

THERAPIST: How did it feel?

BRIAN: Well, it was hard to do, but it felt good afterwards. I still feelgood when I think about it.

You will find that it feels good to confront people if you can do it in this controlled, assertive way.

Regardless of whether you confront people directly, it is vital for you to confront them in your own heart. Write letters that you do not plan to send, or do imagery exercises. Give a voice to the strong part of you that can reject the label of failure.

4. Become Aware of Your Talents, Skills, Abilities, and Accomplishments in the Area of Achievement.
Remember an important principle: there are many kinds of intelligence. The intelligence you need to do well in school is not the only kind. There is verbal intelligence, mathematical intelligence, visual-spatial intelligence, musical intelligence, physical intelligence, mechanical intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, etc. All kinds are valid.

What are your special abilities? Do you have a flair for drawing? Are you mechanical or logical? Do you have a gift for sports or dance? Are you creative in some way? Do you get along well with people? It is the rare person who truly has no talents.

Review what you have achieved in each of your talented areas. Try as much as possible to view yourself objectively. We know this will be hard for you—you have a strong tendency to minimize your achievements and maximize your failures. Resist doing this. Stop accentuating the negative. Recognize your own value as accurately as possible.

We need an accurate picture to see whether you have been capitalizing on your own talents. We believe that the people who are most successful are those who can find their natural talents and capitalize on them.

Make a list of your talents, skills, abilities, and accomplishments in the area of achievement, especially your natural talents. Review this list each day to remind yourself of your potential. Get help from friends or significant others in making this list.

Here is the list Brian made:

MY TALENTS AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS

1. I am a good writer.
   
2. I have good ideas. I am creative.
   
3. I can argue persuasively.
   
4. I am highly self-educated about politics.
   
5. I have a good sense of humor, especially about politics.
   
6. When my anxiety isn’t too high, I accomplish a lot at work.
   
7. I am a prominent figure in the New York political scene.
   

For those of you like Brian who have an
inaccurate
sense of failure, steps one to four should be sufficient. These steps should bring about a change in the way you think and feel about yourself.

But this will not be true of most of you. Most of you have a more accurate sense of failure. You will go through steps one through four, and your cumulative conclusion after everything will still be that you are a failure. You can recognize your talents and abilities, you can confront the people who hurt you, you can learn compassion for your inner child, and you can accurately assess what you have achieved thus far. But the conclusion from it all may still be that you feel overwhelmingly like a failure.

Most of you need more. You need
behavior change.
You have to change your fundamental stance of escape and avoidance into one of confrontation and mastery. Even Brian had areas that he had not developed—he liked to write fiction and never pursued it because of his father’s attitude. And even Brian procrastinated and delayed when faced with anxiety-provoking tasks.

If you
have,
in fact, failed relative to your peers, continue with the following steps.

5. Try to See the Pattern in Your Failures.
Take a focused life history. Start from the very beginning. Go through your school and career life. Were you a failure from the start? Or were there indications of potential at the beginning that faded from lack of support?

How did your parents deal with your success and failure? Were they critical, supportive, reinforcing? As a child, did you avoid tasks or did you follow through on them? Did you avoid taking on challenges?

Try to see what your pattern has been in your career. Have you chosen an impossible career? Have you failed to commit to one career? Are you in a career that vastly underutilizes your potential? Have you been afraid to take responsibility, show initiative, or ask for a promotion? Have you procrastinated, shown a poor attitude, performed poorly at jobs? Have you avoided the discipline necessary to develop skills, get credentials, or receive adequate training?

Most likely, your pattern will boil down to the issue of Escape. You will find that your failure is the direct consequence of your tendency to avoid—rather than the result of some innate deficiency, lack of talent, or ineptness.

Kathleen found a lot of evidence of Escape in her history. Because she was sick a lot, she fell behind at school and never caught up. School became a humiliating experience for her.

KATHLEEN: I remember so many times being called on by the teacher and not knowing the answer. I would get so embarrassed. Kids made fun of me. They used to call me „dumb“ in the playground.

The more aversive school became, the more Kathleen avoided it. Her frequent sicknesses and her failure at school were like the chicken and the eggs. Each one caused the other in a spiraling vicious cycle.

Kathleen’s natural talent was for art. She had a good visual sense and a good sense of design. As a child, for example, she used to redecorate her room, and draw and paint. But she was unable to capitalize on this ability at school. School was too fraught with anxiety.

KATHLEEN: I remember once, in high school, this teacher asked me to design the sets for this school play they were doing. We had had a homework assignment to design something, and he liked the job I did.

But I told him, „No.” I wanted to, but I was really just too scared to do it.

It is true that there were subjects at school for which Kathleen had little aptitude. But she could have worked around her weaknesses and played on her strengths, and she did not. The trauma of failure at school led her to avoid everything.

6. Once You See Your Pattern, Make a Plan to Change It.
At its most basic level, this will involve taking steps to overcome your avoidance. You must start to face challenges instead of running away. Acknowledge your real talents, accept your limitations, and pursue areas that play on your strengths.

Think through how you can begin to pursue the areas where you are most competent. You may have to start a new career to do this. Or you may merely have to change direction slightly in your current career.

What do you have to do to meet your goal? List the behaviors to change in the future. Develop a timeline for change. What is the first step? Stop making excuses and commit yourself to stop Escaping. Risk failure. It is the only way to succeed.

Set up small tasks for yourself. We believe the old cliche, „A journey of ten thousand miles begins with a single step.“ Develop a manageable hierarchy. Make each step reasonable and achievable one after the other. Start with a task you can do; if you start with a task that is too overwhelming, you are unlikely to succeed.

You have potential, but you have not actually developed it. Because you have avoided so much, you may have some real gaps in your learning. You may have to start at the beginning of your field and develop basic skills. You may even have to go back to school.