"HOW TO GET WHAT YOU REALLY WANT (WISHCRAFT)" by Barbara Sher 

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Additional thought of Graham White in highlights.

PREPARE.  Get information, advice, instruction and practice.

LOWER YOUR STANDARDS - AT FIRST Begin in a risk-free arena and gradually work your way up.

USE YOUR FEAR  Use hard times to release fear and tension before and after a difficult step.  

FOCUS ON THE TASK  Focus on the task, not on yourself.

MAKE MISTAKES Making mistakes is less costly than not acting because you're afraid to make them.

REWARD YOURSELF Be nice to yourself at all times and extra nice to yourself when you've accomplished something difficult.

Information about what it really takes to win has not been made freely available in our society, there has been almost no way to learn it except by being lucky enough to get close to people who are doing it.  If you didn't grow up in a family of winners, there was really only one other way to learn the secrets of winning.  And that's the long hard way I did it -- by trial and error, against tough inner and outer odds fear, loneliness and ignorance.

Education is not the same thing as understanding.

Awareness is not the same thing as internalized wisdom.

Purpose is found in the service of others.

You can't save the entire world.  You must judiciously apply your expertise to where you can be most effective an remember to replenish your own reserves.

To start creating the life you want, you don't need mantras, self-hypnosis, or a character-building program.  You do need practical techniques for problem-solving, planning, and getting your hands on materials, skills, information and contacts.  You need commonsense strategies for coping with human feelings and foibles that aren't going to go away, like fear, depression and laziness.

You need ways of riding out the temporary emotional storms your life changes can cause in your closest relationships -- while still getting the extra support you need for risk-taking.

Don't Do It The HARD WAY!

First you have to know what you want.

Something does have to be taken away: the spellbinding cultural curse that says, "It can't be done," and the heavy weight of discouragement you may be carrying if you've tried for your dreams before and failed.  So many of us never were told how to make our dreams happen, after a few tries we assumed it was impossible or horrible difficult.  So we adjuster our sights downward and settled for what we thought we could get.

 

Who do you think you are?

That's a very interesting questions.  Or it would be, if the people who asked it when we were really young had really wanted a thoughtful answer.

The first thing you have to do before you can find the treasure is to find the map.

When it comes to picking out what you'll do with energy and joy, what you can be a smashing success at, your skills are not only unimportant -- they can get in the way, unless you assign them to a strictly secondary role.  For the moment, I'd like you just to forget about them.  Right now the focus is on YOU and WHAT YOU LOVE.

THAT IS YOU!  That is your core identity.  "Who you are" isn't passive or static or unchanging, your loves change and so will you.

All genuinely successful people have found their paths.  If you are low on energy, it may be because you have not found your purpose in life.  You will recognize your own path when you come upon it, because you will suddenly have all the energy and imagination you will ever need.  

We confer the horrific title "genius" only on those very rare people who we believe were born with a mysterious something extra: great brilliance, original vision, or incredible determination.  The truth is, you were born with your own unique kind of genius.  And I mean big "G" genius like Albert Einstein.  I.Q. only measure one very narrow range of knowing and doing.  I can personally attest to this, having a high I.Q. and suffering through significant failure in all areas of life until I learned how to manage areas of intelligence not controlled by IQ.

As long as you were too young to listen to reason or to be trained to do anything "useful," you had a marvelous freedom to be who you were.  By the time you were 5 or 6, if not even sooner, the precious right to make choices based on your own wishes began to be taken away.  As soon as you were old enough to control yourself and sit still in school, the honeymoon was over.

Schools are not designed to learn from you; they are designed to teach you.  Inadvertently, they probably gave the impression that your knowledge, tastes, opinions were of no value.  All they saw was a blank board that they were going to fill up with everything worth knowing.

Now if you walked into the world and somebody asked, "What are you good at?" you could easily say, "Nothing," meaning "Nothing anyone would consider important."  Or you might say, "Well, I'm good at math," or " I can type."  It would never occur to you to say, "I love plants.  I can remember all their names and I think I understand what makes them happy."

People we call "geniuses" are men and women who somehow escaped having to put that curious, wondering child in themselves to sleep.  (Often because their genius was in an area we deemed important and so allowed to grow.)

That is the first important clue to your life design - to the discovery of what you'll be happiest doing and what you'll be best at.  Those who we see today as great accomplishments recognized what they were good at and pursued it, even though it wasn't a "conventional" pursuit.  

The difference between them and you is that they continued the pursuit of their genius while you put yours aside to pursue things that were more conventional.  So the first thing we have to know is, who was that genius you were as a child?  

What especially attracted and fascinated you when you were a child?  What sense - sight, hearing, touch - did you live through most, or did you enjoy them all equally?  What did you love to do, to daydream about, no matter how "silly" or unimportant it may seem to you now?  What were the secret fantasies and games that you enjoyed or never told anyone about?  Does it feel like there's still a part of you that loves those things?  What talents or abilities might those early interests and dreams point to?

The difference between a genius and you and me is in our environment -- and that means our first environment, our childhood family.  It's that simple and that rare.

It's hard for us to believe in ourselves if no one has ever believed in us, and it is almost impossible for us to stick to our own vision in the face of overwhelming discouragement.  We cannot so much as build a bookshelf if no one ever told us we could do it, gave us the materials and showed us how.  That's our nature, that's how we are.

We wouldn't order a spider to spin an exquisite web in empty space, or a seed to sprout on a bare desk top, and yet that is exactly what we have been demanding of ourselves.  We expect that our potential will flourish in an environment of emptiness.

As a result, most of us are not aware that we didn't grow up in an environment that nurtured genius.  We just think we aren't geniuses, and blame heredity or our own lack of character for the spot we're in.  Whatever was amiss with the environment we grew up in, we figure "geniuses" had it just as bad or worse.  They just had the mysterious fortitude to overcome it.  We don't see that grandmother or special teacher who was there with the right kind of love and help at the right moment.  We wouldn't recognize the key features of a nurturing environment if we fell over them.

Those who are successful, had the unconscious advantage of these opportunities.  Those of us who didn't, must work so much harder to develop that environment for yourselves.  It is possible, but the reality is that is much harder.  We don't have the examples and the support, we must create them, build them from scratch.  This is far harder than growing up with those supports around us.

The fact is that very few of us were lucky enough to grow up in such an environment.  It wasn't our parent's fault, they weren't raised in that environment either.  Given their background, it's profound that they provided us with what they did, because they loved us.

When you were growing up, were you treated as though you had a unique kind of genius that was loved and respected?

I hope you are lucky enough to be able to answer "Yes".  Unfortunately, most of us weren't treated as if we were precious and special, but if you let it slip that you thought you were pretty hot stuff, you probably got cooled down fast.

The sad thing is, our parents sometimes did this because they loved us, and they wanted to protect us from the kinds of disappointment and humiliation they had suffered.  A lot of them went out there with nothing on their side but their own frail, brave convictions of specialness and they got clobbered.  And they figured maybe if they cut our expectations down to size for us, we could avoid the pain.

For some of us, there was a darker motive.  How dare we hope for more?  Our parents couldn't have what they wanted, so why should we?  They squelch our dreams so that they won't have to face the fact that they had to give up theirs.

In either case, as very small children, we sense that message.  We'd rather forget our destiny than risk hurting or angering the person whose love is life itself to us.

Were you told that you could do and be anything you wanted - and that you'd be loved and admired no matter what that was?

To truly cherish someone's genius is to give it complete freedom to choose its own mode of expression - and then to support and honor that choice.

This means that when you came home from school and said, "I've decided I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up," or whatever you decided you wanted to be, your parents said with real enthusiasm, "That sounds great!  I think you'd be really good at it."

Instead, what most of us heard was something like, "A doctor?  Well, you might become a paramedic, but probably not a doctor.  You need better marks to be a doctor."

A steelworker's son born to be a brilliant scholar may be in trouble.  So may a lawyer's daughter who dreams of being a jockey.  Many families believe that certain occupations are either "beyond them" or "beneath them" and pass this preconception on to their child.  The range of possibilities are restricted from the start.

Your parents may have had some very definite ideas about just how you should earn a living.  They wanted you to be a success -- their kind of success. You had to get into a good college or make the Law Review, or take over the family business.

As a result, as early as the age of five you may already have had a full-blown case of amnesia about what your unique talents and interests were.  I suspect that there are a lot of poets and chefs and dancers walking around out there disguised as lawyers, even from themselves.

How might you and your life have been different if you had been lovingly told that the whole world of human possibilities was open to you to take your pick?  Where might you be today?

Were you told you could be whatever you wanted and told how to do it?

Were you encouraged to explore all your own talents and interests even if they changed from day to day?

Were you allowed to complain when the going got rough?

Were you given help, bailed out when you got in over your head -- without reproach?

Were you surrounded by winners who were pleased when you won?

The environment that creates winners is almost always made up of winners, people who are contented and curious, open and vital, who trust life and respect themselves.  Were the people in your family people who had really gotten what they wanted out of life -- who had gotten their chance and taken it -- so that when you won, they felt great about it?

Parents who are "winners," so far from "not having time" for their children's interests, are the most likely to encourage them to experience the satisfaction of doing things they love.

Imagine that you had grown up in a family that:

• treated as though you had a unique kind of genius that was loved and respected
• Told that you could do and be anything you wanted - and that you'd be loved and admired no matter what it was...
• Given real help and encouragement in finding out what you wanted to do and how to do it...
• Encouraged to explore all your talents and interests, even if they changed from day to day...
• Allowed to complain when the going got rough, and given sympathy instead of being told to quit...
• Bailed out when you got in over your head -- without reproach
• Surrounded by winners who were pleased when you won.

What do you think you would be doing now?  What would you already have done?  What kind of person would you be?

Pain can come in as it dawns on you how much you might really have done if your circumstances had been different.  But uncomfortable as it is, that is a good sign.  It means you are beginning to cherish and respect yourself -- and without that, you'll never know how much you still can do.  So just let any anger or pain lend your imagination defiant wings.  Your capacity to do will depend on your capacity to cream, so prove that that capacity, at least, has survived intact.

Examine your answer carefully.  Make sure you're not pulling your punches, settling for the "possible" or the "realistic".  If you are, stop and readjust your sights upward.  Remember, this is fantasy. We're talking about you as you would have responded to a loving, encouraging, instructive environment expressly designed to cultivate your genius.

Would you still like to do them?  Or a lot of other things that are just as grand?  You still can!

Untying all those emotional knots takes time.  (After all, it took years to tie them).  We never lose the capacity for growth - or for new learning.  Understanding is one thing and action is another.  The first think all "self-motivated" people do is to set up a structure that will not only help them, but make them do what they want to do!

Style:

What is your style?  Look at your movies, your books, the music you listen to, the clothes you wear.  Style seems like the last place you'd be likely to find the key to success, and yet style is what gives you the clues to your childhood, to the genius that you "lost".

Just because it isn't "important", style is the biggest field of freedom you have left.  Clues to your imagination and identity can be found in your style.

There are a few loopholes in the taboos that force us to define ourselves in the narrow scope school tries to force us into.  Magazine quizzes are one place, astrology is another.  That's why they're so popular.  Notice they don't say you're perfect, they talk about your good and bad qualities and you love them all.  Your "sign" gives you an excuse to say, "I'm a Leo, I'm a ham."  Your ethnic background can do the same, "I know I have a temper, I'm Irish."

If you pretend that you're someone else - your mother, your father, a famous baseball player, an Eskimo, a beagle - you tap into a deeper knowledge and you'll discover that you know all kinds of things that you didn't know you did.

Perspective:

Write down a list of people you admire.  They can be people you have met or not, famous or not, alive or not.  When you encounter a challenging problem, pick the one you think would best be able to solve it and think from their perspective.  If you want to get even more creative, pick others from the list and try it from their perspective.

Write down 20 things you like to do.  It doesn't matter how trivial, just write down 20 without stopping.

What did you learn about yourself ... the kind of life you're living now ... and the kind of life you'd love to live?

 

Designing your ideal life:

Dreams are not impossible, we've just been brainwashed into thinking they are.  To shape time and space to fit your needs, first you're going to design an environment so perfectly tailored to you that in it all your best qualities will emerge.  Then you are going to imagine your ideal day.

Your total environment is often shaped less by your needs and preferences than by whom you live with and what you can afford.  How you spend your days is largely determined by your responsibilities.  We assume that these factors are pretty much unchangeable -"hard realities."  Sure, we could live exactly as we pleased - if we won the lottery or deserted our families!  The first is improbable and the second is unthinkable.  So we may sometimes daydream, but we know those dreams are "self-indulgent" and "unrealistic".  THAT'S WHY DAYDREAMING IS IMPORTANT!

If someone asked you what it would be like if you had a million dollars, you'd probably answer something like, "I would have a house by the sea, a sailboat and an airplane..."

Stop right there!  Any response with the word "would" in it is not real daydreaming.  It is happening!  You are experiencing it!

Real daydreaming is present-tense, first person, visual and sequential.  "This is fantastic, I'm sitting on my yacht in front of my oceanfront mansion..."

In what imaginary environment would your best self emerge?

What are they physical surroundings?

What is the human environment: the kinds of people you'd like to be surrounded by; how much privacy you need and how much interaction; what kinds of help would you like?

Do you need to be challenged or listened to?  Do you want to be a teacher, or maybe a leader?  Maybe you'd prefer to be part of an group effort, it's entirely up to you.

If you're disorganized, or you need a lot of love, or you're shy, or you tend to procrastinate, don't think of those characteristics as weaknesses that need changing.  Think of them as design problems -- challenges to your ingenuity to develop solutions for.  Create an environment that fits and supports you as you are, so that you are comfortable, secure, and free to turn in your best performance.

Personally, as an old pro at procrastination, I'd like my ideal environment to include a total boss who knew exactly what I wanted to do and would make me do it.  A real tyrant who would make me tow the line.

 

Your Ideal Day:

What are you doing - what kind of work, what kinds of leisure activities?  If it's something you don't already know how to do, in this fantasy you do.

Where are you?  What does it look like?

Who is in the live with you?  

Don't put down what you think is possible -- put down the kind of day you'd live if you had absolute freedom, unlimited means and all the powers and skills you've ever wished for.

When counseling, ask what the person really longs for, then keep asking "Why, what would that get you" until you get down to the very core of what they desire.  Those are the key desires.

Fantasy analysis:

(Basically a form like the marriage planner for, except for life.  What would you be doing?  Where would you be?  Who would be there with you?  Indispensable, Optional, Frills.  Take time to design all the details about your ideal life, the same way you'd design your ideal dream home.  The more detail you put in, the more precise the picture, the more likely you will have those things in your life.)

What stands between you and your modified daydream - the minimum "what, where and who" that would make you happy?  The only person you have to satisfy is yourself.

SAI it, write down your Mentor for I.

The sooner you start getting some of what you really want, the more energy you'll have to go for the rest of it.

Are you willing to work for it?

If your goal is worthy of you, if it really challenges you, you're bound to be scared.  The real question is, How badly do you want it?  If the answer is, "Enough to do whatever it takes," you have your answer.  

You can't bypass responsibility.  You earn the right to delegate.  Even if you're rich enough to buy it, you're missing something when you haven't earned the right.

What if you decide that the price in time and work simply outweighs the satisfactions of the goal?  Come up with something better suited to you than the original goal!  Set goals that apply to you.  You don't have to win the Olympics, you can simply enjoy running.  You don't have to scale Mt. Everest, you can simply plan a day hike in the mountains.

 

Five Lives And How To Live Them All

In Mexico, they have an expression, "La vida es corta, pero ancha."  "Life is short, but wide."

I have not decided yet what I'm going to be when I grow up, and I promise you that when I'm 80 I still won't have decided.  What I plan to do is as many things as I can.  What I plan to get is whatever I can get my hands on.  As far as I'm concerned, there's only one answer to the question, "What do you want?" and that is, "Everything!"

There's a lot more room in your life than you think-room for everything in your "five lives" and then some.  Finding that room is simply a matter of making effective use of time, and that means planning.

You're not signing any contracts in blood.  As you move through life, your perspective an priorities will change; new interests will appear on your horizon, and some of the old ones fade.  Your life plan five or ten years from now may not bear much resemblance to the one you draw up today, but it's always a good idea to have one.  It's a way of reminding yourself that the time ahead of you is yours to create in your own image, however that image may change.

Be a doctor, then work with the Red Cross overseas, then consult, then become a general practitioner in a small town.  Use your gifts, but change your focus.

Hard Times, Solving Problems

Make up a list of the challenges between you and the life you want to be living.  

Glance through your Problems List.  I can tell you without looking that some of them are real and perplexing problems that will take some energy to solve.  and now I'm going to tell you something that will surprise you.  Those are the easy ones!  Those are the fun ones.  They're purely a matter of strategy and game plans.

Suppose you want to get from point A to point B, and there's a river in between.  What do you do?  Well, you get a boat.  You can't afford to buy one?  You borrow one.  You don't know how to row?  You get a friend to row it for you.  OK? OK.  You've got a solution.  It's as simple as that.

That is a strategic problem - the kind where you're asking, "How can I do it?" and you really want an answer.  Strategic problems are hardly any trouble at all. they're discouraging right now only because you don't know how to find the answers.  But there are answers.  There is not strategic problem that cannot be solved.

I happen to believe in the efficacy of complaining.  Pain and fear can make you fighting mad.  The pain and anger you feel is a sign of life!  After all, what you gave up was everything you loved best.  And if that doesn't hurt, it's because you're numb!

What you really are is scared.  You're probably embarrassed to admit it, even to yourself, because you're a grown-up and you're not supposed to be afraid of anything.  But there are a few thousand reasons to be scared when you start going for what you want.

There is nothing in this world that's worth doing that isn't going to scare you.  The moment you make the commitment to going for your dreams, you've begun to venture into the unknown.  And the human organism's natural response to novelty and risk is adrenalin.  Butterflies in the stomach, wobbly knees, pounding heart.  It's commonly called stage fright, and it's just nerves, but it feels like a heart attack.  Comfort is one of the things you can forget about right now.  You're not going to have it any more.  Excitement, company, help, and support, yes.  Comfort, no.

So what do you do?

You do what every actress worth her salt does before she goes out on stage on opening night: you have a fit.  You kick, stomp, and cry, "They lights are ghastly, the lines are awful, the playwright should be shot, the director's an idiot - I'm not ready, I can't go on, I won't go on, I'm leaving!"  And then you walk onstage under those lights... and you're fine.

The Power of Negative Thinking - Get it off...and then get on with it.

If we can't cure another person's ills, we don't want to hear about them and that's because we don't know that listening is enough.

There are plenty of time when all you need is to tell somebody how hard it's been.  You don't want your problems solved, all you want is to see that click of recognition in another person's eyes that says your pain is valid and what you've lived through is real.

Planning towards your goal

Winners are people who assume that rules were made to be broken, so they don't even stop and ask, "Can it be done?"  They just ask, "How?"

You'll discover that some of the things you thought you needed to reach your goal -- the really tough ones, like a lot of money, or a Ph. D. -may not even be necessary. You can invent alternative routes that are not only quicker and more direct, but closer to your path and a lot more fun.

The most destructive piece of conventional "wisdom" there is: "You've got to make it on your own."  Nobody can.  Nobody does.  And yet we often hesitate to ask anyone for help, advice, or even instructions to the corner store for fear that it means we're "dependent".

It's true that no one will do it for you, but that doesn't prevent you from asking for help or direction to the appropriate resources.

 

In case you didn't know it, school is a big business.  It's also a save have for those who just love to be in rehearsal.  We can go to school until we're ready, and then go to school some more until we're really ready instead of jumping in the water and starting to swim.  

Rather than simply going to school to become whatever it is you have in mind, do a little role model research on the careers of the most interesting people in your field.  Ask those people what they would recommend.  Find out if what they're doing matches your impression of it.  Save yourself time if it's not exactly what you had in mind.

FIVE WAYS TO LEARN WITHOUT GOING TO SCHOOL

• Nerve- Just go out and do it!
• Volunteer- and develop experience and expertise over time.
• Apprentice- learn the skills as you apply them.
• Start from scratch- Weight Watchers was started by a lady who wanted to be thin.  She wasn't a doctor or nutritionist.  She designed a package for other people like herself and turned it into a multimillion-dollar business.
• Become a Promoter- Many professional people can use help communicating their ideas to the public.  They're specialists in physics or nutrition or law, not in the graceful use of language or social relations.  Sometimes they can't even speak to each other.  They need someone to help promote their great ideas.

BRAINSTORMING TECHNIQUE

A "barn-raising" is the closest thing I know to a magic wand.  It turns the most "ordinary" group of people- friends, family members, do-workers, even strangers - into a gold mine of helping hands and minds.  Brainstorming and barn-storming together will give you the steps to your goal - steps you can start taking tomorrow.

 

"I can't because I don't have X" is a dead end.  You must ask

• How can I get X?
• How can I get it without X?
• How can I get X without knowing I'm good enough?
• What needs to have happened before I am able to do X?
• NOT How will I know when I'm successful?  You need a target for the question - a clearly defined action or event.

You might define your "good enough" question this way, "What needs to have happened before I am able to do X?

You need three items to brainstorm: a pad of paper, a couple of pencils and a problem.  Sit down with your pencil and paper where you can daydream undistracted.  Across the top of the first sheet of paper, write the problem.

Write down every idea that pops into your head, and I mean every idea.  Don't rule out anything, no matter how far-fetched or frivolous it seems.  At this stage, don't edit or judge your ideas.  It could inhibit your imagination and you might miss a good one.  Take as long as you like; keep going until you run dry.

Imagine yourself as someone else who might be able to solve the problem.  Imagine the problem from their perspective and write down how they might solve it.

Brainstorm With A Group

The people you call don't even need to know the first thing about the area you've got the problem in.  In fact, the less they know the better!  You want inexperienced people, because experts in a field only know what can't be done.  Naive people come up with the best ideas in the world.  That means children too.  The one rule you must be sure to establish is that at this stage there are no rules.  The weirdest idea is welcome.  Once you've put the problem on the table, your job is to sit there with your pencil and write every idea down.  Don't let one of them escape.  It might be the one you're looking for.

Your next job is to pick the one or two best ideas and start bringing them down to earth.

Now you have:

1.  Idea (Get A loan to pay for school)

2.  Useful elements (procedure exists)

3.  Problems (years of debt)

4.  Further Ideas (get a private loan with no interest or a grant)

 

Work backwards from the goal to your current situation.  If you know what comes just before the goal, you can figure out what comes just before that step, etc.

RESOURCE PARTIES

Once you have your brainstorming done, very often the members of the group will spontaneously offer solutions.  If you regularly meet with a group of 5 to 8 people, you can greatly increase the likelihood of coming up with good solutions for each others sticking points.

If you need help, call up a few people and say, "I've got such and such to do, and I could sure use some help.  I would love it if you could come over and help me along with a few other people problem solve.  The group is there to help everyone figure a way past their own problem, so feel free to bring one of your own."

There are two rules:

• Be as specific as possible about what you need.
• Ask for the most specific information you can get.  Names, addresses, phone numbers, book titles, etc.

What you are aiming for are ideas you can act on today or tomorrow.  You're going to follow up on the leads tomorrow and the next day.  That's what makes your goal really happen.  Just be certain that you allow time to help the others in the group with their problems too.  A time limit for each is a good idea.

Everyone has the right to say "No."  No to an idea, no to an offer to help, no to using a recommended friend, no to letting someone help far more than they should because they have a helper mentality.  People loved to be asked for help as long as they know they are free to say "Yes" or "No".

Your time belongs to you and your goal first.  It's fun and exciting to be involved in other people's projects, but it must not be at the expense of your own.  The time you can offer or trade to others should be spare time, after you've done your goal work and anything else you need or want to do.  True giving is from surplus and the only way to keep your reservoirs full is to take good care of yourself.

 

GET PREPARED

If you're getting ready to do something you've never done before, you're going to be scared.  Being scared makes you feel even more inadequate.  Pushing past your fear using Will Power usually fails because you're scared for a reason, you've never done this before!

Fear is not simply a weakness, it is our warning signal.  The worst thing you can do is to push through using Positive Thinking.  A positive attitude is a poor substitute for knowing what you're doing.  No amount of positive thinking is going to make you be able to fly if you don't know how.  What you need to do is to get PREPARED.

You need to gather information, get instruction, and rehearse the solution.  You aren't born knowing everything, so the first step is finding out what you need to know.

The fact is, no matter how prepared you are, each time you move to a higher level of performance or a more exacting audience, you're going to be scared all over again - like a diver who's gotten very comfortable on the three-foot board, but feels sick the first time he has to go off the ten-footer. 

You can't be over-prepared.  It's also true that you'll never be ready.  That's why you have to set definite dates for each step in your plan.  The moment comes when you've got to act, ready or not.  You need the experience of moving right through the fear.  

The only way to truly fail is to stop because you're too scared. If you look back in your life, you'll realize that your cop-outs have cost you much more than your worst mistakes.  When you failed, at least you learned that you were tough enough and resourceful enough to make it through.  But when you quit, you didn't learn anything.

Information & Instruction

This is where you can use your resource group.  Ask them for information in the areas that you are lacking it.  Don't reinvent the wheel, ask someone who has done it before.  If no one you first talk to knows, ask them for a suggestion of where to look for someone who does.  The hard part is searching out the experts.  The easy part is asking the questions and getting their answers.  What should you wear?  What should you say?  Write down exactly what you need to do.

Rehearsal

While it might feel funny to practice something like an initial contact call or an interview, knowing how to hold yourself and how to answer before you actually get into the situation will give you the confidence to do it right when you're actually in the situation.  Anything that is new to you is bound to be even more difficult under pressure.  You may forget answers you have thought of if you haven't anchored them in place by going over them out loud at least a couple of times.  Find the most qualified person you can to rehearse with and give you feedback on your performance.  Actors don't walk out on stage after reading over their lines once and neither should you.

Role-play

Go over the worst-case scenarios with a partner.  Lawyers do this all the time with their clients to prepare them.  Do it yourself to develop the strength of character to achieve your goal.  If you don't know the answers, get together with someone who does and you play the part of the person asking the questions you're afraid of.  Write down what they say, then go back and rehearse them so that they become part of your vocabulary.

 

LOWER YOUR STANDARDS

The World Is Kind To Beginners

Children have a natural advantage in that nobody expects them to be exceptional at the level of an adult.  Adults set the bar higher for themselves, simply by presenting themselves as competent and then trying to achieve that high standard.

Leave your ego at the door and tell people you're just starting out.  They're much more likely to help you if you don't present yourself as being better than you actually are.

Fail First

There is a strange and comforting relationship between failure and preparation.  It's a common assumption that if you really try your hardest to get something and don't get it, you'll be shattered - so it's safer not to risk going out at all. (I bet this comes from when we were cavemen and the price for mistakes could be death.  We have evolved the defense mechanism to not try anything new unless we know for certain what we're doing, or we think we might die UNLESS we attempt it.  i.e.. We're scared we're going to starve to death so we try eating a new berry that might poison us or hunting an animal that might kill us.)   That is totally false.  The exact opposite is true.  If you've prepared for every contingency you can imagine, and then it doesn't work out, you won't feel so bad.  You'll just say, "Damn!  Well, I know I did my best, now I have to figure out what went wrong and try again."  You may be disappointed, but you don't blame yourself.

If you didn't try your hardest and you fail, you feel terrible, because you never really know whether you could have done better.  Win or lose, all-out efforts leave you feeling good about yourself.

The first time you attempt anything you haven't done before, you will probably fail.  If you start out with that attitude, you might actually succeed because your mind starts addressing all the reasons it's not going to work and then actually solving the problems.  If you do fail, you were expecting it anyway and it doesn't crush your ego or prevent you from trying again.  

We often feel that one failure, setback, or mistake will be a sign of ultimate defeat and worthlessness.  But look at any child learning to walk!  That child will have to fall down at least a hundred times before it masters the art, and instinctively it knows that.  She has a fit - not so much in pain as in impatience and fury.  Then she crawls over to the nearest chair leg, pulls herself up, and tries again.  If that child fell down once and gave up, she would never learn to walk.

That's a beautiful model for every kind of learning.  You will never learn, accomplish or create anything of value if you cannot let yourself make mistakes.

When you're starting a first creative project or beginning to study something new, lower the standards you set for yourself until they disappear.  (SAI)  You're not supposed to be good when you begin, so you might as well give yourself the liberating gift of joyously expecting yourself to be bad. 

First steps are supposed to be small and manageable.  That's what makes them possible to do.  "Write a bestseller" or "Become a millionaire" are not manageable steps, they're major goals.  If you ever want to reach those goals, start out with "Write one bad page per day" or "Start reading books on how to build wealth".  You will tighten up your standards later - when you have the experience to match them.

Gradually Raise Your Standards (SAI)

Raising a talent or ability is like raising a child.  When you start out, you need to be allowed to make any kind of mess you want.  No one should criticize you - least of all yourself.  As your competence grows, it can be given simple tasks to master, then gradually harder ones; it can be introduced little by little to wider and more discriminating audiences.  You've got to pace new challenges and demands so that your skills get stretched a little more each time, but never snapped or hopelessly outdistanced.  A good basic principle is: "Your reach should always be one step ahead of your grasp."  You can build this kind of graduated risk right into your planning.

 

FEAR OF CHANGE AND SUCCESS

Success can push you away from those you love.  You worry that they won't love you as much if you move out of their circle of reference.  In order to support yourself and maintain momentum, have a mentor and support partner in place.  Your relationships with friends and family likely will change.  If you don't have at least one strong relationship that can withstand the changes that success bring, you may quit and actually go back to being less successful, simply because it provides more security.

Let Them Be Mad

What is sometimes hardest is not what you have to start doing for yourself, it's what you have to stop doing for others and them letting you know how they feel about it.  Nobody likes change.  There may be things you need to do that upset your spouse, your children, your parents or your friends.  They liked you just the way you were.  They counted on you to be available for certain things at certain times and now your busy doing something new.  They won't like giving up what they had.  It's alright for them to be uncomfortable, but the fact that they're uncomfortable shouldn't stop you.  

Give them the right not to like it.  Let them be scared and mad.  Let them throw tantrums.  Instead of getting upset, let them know you understand what they're feeling.  Give them time to get used to it and tell them you know they'll love the new you even more once they get used to it.

 

MAKING IT ALL HAPPEN

Use Sunday night (or whatever night works best for your schedule) to meet with yourself and prepare for the week ahead. It may take an hour or even more, but it's vitally important.  No sensible business would proceed without planning-meetings and you've got to learnt to treat getting what you want as top priority business.

Step One:  Looking Back-  Review what you got done the past week.  Go over the goals you wrote down and see what you accomplished, didn't accomplish and why.  

Step Two:  Review What You Are Ultimately Trying To Accomplish- See where you are in relation to what you are trying to do with your life.  Make sure that your goals are actually moving you in that direction.

Step Three:  Check Your Dates- Review the dates that you have set to have things done by.  Are you on target?  Do you need to work faster?  Were you being unrealistic?  Can you move the date ahead?

Step Four:  Solution Development- Begin developing solutions.  Brainstorm, set up a Resource Party, write down resources you will need to research.

Step Five:  Plan Your Week- Write down what you need to get done each day on a calendar.  Record goals, supports, rewards etc.  Make sure you look at your plan at the start of each day so you can plan to use your time effectively.  Never forget what your life's purpose is so that everything you are doing is taking you closer to what you really want, not something that you think you're supposed to want.

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