You are in control!
Life doesn’t happen to you—you happen to it.
You can’t foresee everything that might come at you, and you can’t micromanage your life to setback-free perfection. But you can control your choices, actions, and reactions. And that’s all it takes to build happiness, no matter what life serves up.
By now you have realized the tremendous importance of the power of choice, a recurring theme in this book. Here we will practice exercises for how to make powerful, positive choices to effect powerful, positive change.
Start by becoming aware of your unconscious decisions. Then you can bring your best intentions to those choices, to help direct your life toward your desired result. Remember, mindlessness is often the root of self-destruction. We go numb, we check out, and we’re unable to think through our actions and choices. Before long, we’re reacting unconsciously and/or subconsciously to life in ways that blow us way off course.
WORKING IT OUT
Here are a few exercises to help you take control of your destiny!
PRESS THE PAUSE BUTTON
Stop and question what you’re doing before you take action. This tactic works well for managing impulsivity and building willpower, but it also brings a basic thoughtfulness into your daily life, allowing you control over your fate. Take a brief pause before every action, and ask yourself the following questions:
What am I doing in this moment?
Is there a choice to be made here? If so, what choice am I making?
Will this choice bring me happiness and bring me closer to my long-term goals?
These questions are all you need to decipher whether something will hurt you or help you in the long run. Keep them in the forefront of your mind, and they can serve as your internal compass, your GPS, helping you stay on track throughout your day, week, month, year, and life.
A contestant on season ten named Jesse was feeling lost and out of control, so one day we sat down, and I asked him to identify a few key long-term goals. One of them, it turns out, was wearing a tie. He said he couldn’t wear a tie because he was “too big and didn’t have a neck.” Not being able to wear a tie hindered him on job interviews, he thought, and kept him from dressing nicely at events or on dates. Long story short, wearing a tie was the symbol of everything he felt was out of reach because of his weight. So I told him that before he made every choice that day, he should ask himself whether the end result of that choice would get him closer to wearing a tie. If the answer was yes, then go for it. If no, then make a different choice.
That morning Jesse skipped the almond butter toast for breakfast and opted for an egg-white veggie omelet instead. Then he decided to give up his chance to sleep an extra hour in order to squeeze in some cardio before his day began. He wrapped his ankle before his second afternoon hike to make sure he didn’t injure himself on the trail. That night he skipped the game-playing gossip and shenanigans that the contestants do behind closed doors before bed, and he opted for an early night’s sleep to help speed his metabolism. Having his goal in his mind at all times brought focus to his actions, even to the small ones that we often don’t think about.
Use this strategy to map out a clear course of action that puts you back in the game instead of walking on the sidelines. Oh, and by the way, Jesse was beaming from ear to ear at the Biggest Loser finale in his dapper bow tie.
TILT AT WINDMILLS
See every choice and action as a moral quest or a personally defining moment. Don’t brush off the smaller moments in life, as they add up to our ultimate happiness. Give every decision and action the respect it deserves. This doesn’t have to be overwhelmingly time-consuming. Many choices you make repeat themselves throughout your life, like brushing your teeth. Once you think a choice through, you don’t have to contemplate it each time. (That said, it’s important not to rush through brushing! Did you know that using the proper toothbrush and toothpaste, and spending the proper amount of time brushing, can help prevent heart disease and save you thousands in dental work?)
Again, this choice is so simple, but it can make a big difference.
LISTEN TO YOUR GUT
Literally. Often when you are about to make a bad choice, your body lets you know. Think of it as a built-in survival mechanism that warns you away from crappy choices that lead you down a crappy path. There’s also some actual science behind this theory. Your gut intuition is basically the act of tapping into your subconscious mind, the place where you store information that you don’t necessarily remember at a conscious level. So your gut instinct will register as a physical “feeling” that you can’t quite articulate. But just because you can’t articulate it doesn’t mean it’s not valid. If contemplating a possible option or decision makes you feel uneasy in your heart, pressure on your chest, or sick in your gut, don’t do it! Or take a step back and revisit the “press pause” advice.
Conversely, if a feeling of calm comes over you, it could be a sign to move forward or explore the choice in more depth. I’m telling you, there is something to this listen-to-your-gut stuff. It works. Respect it!
Conscious choice-making is an empowering art form that takes time to perfect, but it’s an integral tool in controlling your destiny, so be patient and stick with it. Practice the exercises, and I guarantee you your life will improve dramatically.
Remember, don’t let life happen to you. Make it happen for you.
You now have all the tools you need to start building the life you want and deserve. It’s time to throw down, lay it on the line, and “go for it.” But there’s just one more thing I want to leave you with …
OUTRO
WHEN TO LET GO, HOW TO STAY OPEN
We’re at the end, or the beginning, depending on your point of view, and this is my final message, my parting shot. Let’s say you follow every bit of advice I have doled out in this book to the letter. You give the steps a reasonable amount of time to sink in, take hold, and become real in your life. But one of your dreams still hasn’t come true. What then?
Now, you know me, I’m not one to ever say die. The very mention of the word quit makes my stomach turn. That said, there is a time to let go. There’s a huge difference between quitting in the sense of surrendering and letting go but staying open to alternative outcomes. To quit means to stop trying, and to surrender means you accept defeat. “Screw that!”
This said, there are some things you’ll never be able to change. The solutions to your problems don’t lie in defying the laws of nature, but in accepting them, and changing your actions to adapt accordingly.
Patience, diligence, and resilience are eventually rewarded with success. We are meant to chase our dreams with zeal and fervor until we catch them. We’re supposed to exhaust every option, try every avenue, in pursuit of the life we want. In fact, a huge part of success is a simple matter of showing up and refusing to give up. There may well come a point, however, when you have done all that you can, yet success continues to elude you.
At this point it becomes a matter not of quitting but of letting go and staying open to an outcome you may not yet have in mind. This is about trusting yourself, and trusting in the universe/God/fate/whatever you believe in that’s bigger than you, to do right by you and your intentions.
This principle holds true for every level of the journey, including the point at which you have done everything possible but still come up short. To continue pursuing the same goal in the same way unsuccessfully is madness, right? We want to avoid making the same mistakes, and concurrently make sure that we are staying open to “divine intervention,” whatever that might mean to you personally.
When you trust in yourself and the universe, you open your life to infinite possibilities that you may never have thought of. And the more open you are, the greater your ability to receive happiness.
Life is constantly changing. That’s the definition of life, isn’t it? With every breath is change. And as you evolve, your commitments, beliefs, and energies will need
to continually be refocused and redefined. So will your goals. Be fluid and open. Nothing is stable, nothing is permanent. And yes, for my last cliché, pretty much the only thing that’s constant is change and perhaps conflict. But that keeps life interesting and keeps us mixing it up creatively. Occasionally the things that we think are best for us may not be our destiny, and when we stay open, our true path reveals itself. Remember that every seed of good intention you plant will yield fruit. Maybe not at the time or in the form you expect, but it will manifest. Think back to the story I told you about how I ended up on The Biggest Loser. I had to fail in one career to find my destiny in another. Stories like that happen every day. Oprah started out wanting to be a news anchor, and Ellen DeGeneres a stand-up comedienne/sitcom star. Massive failures derailed those plans and set them both on a different path, one where their energies and efforts could bring the result that fate intended: huge success.
The reason I’m leaving you with this thought is that sometimes, when we pursue a dream and it doesn’t work out, we perceive it as failure. We perceive ourselves as failures. But I want you to always remember that failure is just an opportunity for learning, and in many cases a stepping-stone on an unexpected path of success that you can see only in hindsight. From it you can learn a necessary lesson, or create a building block to step forward onto your trajectory toward triumph, whatever that particular triumph may be.
Be brave and be patient. Have faith in yourself; trust in the significance and purpose of your life and your passion. You are strong enough to weather this journey. No matter what, keep looking, keep listening, keep learning. Stay open. At every moment, your destiny is awaiting you.
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