FSB Author Article
Excerpt
The following is an excerpt from the book Traveling Hopefully
by Libby Gill
Published by St. Martin's Press; October
2004;$23.95US/$33.95CAN;
0-312-32394-8
Copyright © 2005 Libby Gill
Traveling Hopefully
The Five Steps to Jumpstart Your Life
It took me a long time to realize how much of my personal story -- that is, my beliefs about myself, my value system, and decision-making process -- had been shaped by my family’s story. Finally, at age forty, when I found the courage to admit that I was flat-out miserable and that the image of the successful professional I presented to the outside world had little relationship to who I was on the inside -- I realized I had merely fulfilled a legacy designed by my family instead of by me. That insight was the first step in a profound process of self-healing that I’ve come to call “traveling hopefully.”
Following are the Five Steps to Jumpstart Your Life that helped me get past my past and create the life I really wanted. As you’ll see, all Five Steps are inextricably intervwoven but require separate explanation so that you can firmly grasp the concepts before you begin to combine them to create the life you want.
The Five Steps to Jumpstart Your Life
• Step One: Dissect Your Past so You Can Direct Your
Future
If you are living in denial about who you are and where you came
from,
it’s going to be difficult to assess your current status and make the
necessary
changes to rewrite your future. Maybe you’re the adult child of an
alcoholic
and have minimized your parent’s addiction. Your reluctance to see the
situation
as it is, or as it once was, doesn’t change those circumstances, it
just
makes it harder for you to figure out how they’ve shaped you and how
you
can begin to change. Or maybe you don’t consider your childhood
especially
traumatic, but you remember all too well the sting of the little
slights
and offenses and have begun to comprehend how even those minor wounds
taken
to heart over a lifetime have left their scars.
• Step Two: Learn to Link Internal Clarity with
External
Action
The potent combination of internal clarity and external action will
be the cornerstone of your transformation. The problem is most of us do
one
without the other. We develop a heightened sense of internal awareness,
what
you might call trusting your gut or following your intuition, but don’t
act
on it. Or just the opposite: many of us are constantly on the go, but
we
haven’t taken the time for the internal homework, so we don’t really
know
where all that movement is supposed to take us. We’re in motion for the
sake
of motion, like my son’s pet mouse inside its little Plexiglas ball,
just
rolling around and bumping into the furniture. Once you learn to link
internal
clarity with external action, you’ll have the insight to know where you
want
to go and the action steps to get you there.
• Step Three: Recruit a Support Squad
Is this all starting to sound a little trickier than you bargained
for?
Relax, you don’t have to do it alone. If, like me, loneliness has long
been
a part of your personal story, you may be used to telling yourself that
you
have to do everything alone because:
• Nobody ever wants to help me
• I don’t know where to turn for guidance
• I can’t let anyone see how needy I am
• I can’t trust anyone to do anything the way I would
Now let’s rewrite that lonely story and imagine a life populated with generous folks who have your best interests at heart: your own personal Support Squad. Whether it’s two people or twenty, it’s much easier than you might think to create a support team to offer insight and inspiration, to help hold you accountable, and to celebrate your success.
• Step Four: Create a Traveling Hopefully Personal
Road
Map
Here’s where the proverbial rubber meets the road on your hopeful
travels.
The first step has helped you understand how your family legacy has
contributed
to shaping the life you’re living. The second step has shown you how to
develop
your internal clarity, then translate it to external action. The third
step
shows you the value of a support system and how you can establish a
custom
team to keep you motivated. This step guides you in creating a detailed
road
map with very specific, measurable goals to which you, or others, can
hold
you accountable.
• Step Five: Keep Moving Toward What You Want and
Away
From What No Longer Serves You
This positive momentum is the essence of hope -- something you must
never
be without—because even in your most desperate, frustrating, or
challenging
times, you need to, as the old expression goes, “keep on keeping on.”
The
fifth step will teach you what all winners know -- that perseverance is
everything
-- and show you how to make perseverance a habit.
It took me a lifetime to learn the lessons I’m sharing with you, but it doesn’t have to take you that long. In fact, you’re beginning right this very minute by learning the Five Steps to Jumpstart Your Life. As you move forward on your own hopeful travels, you’ll shed the old baggage to which you’ve been clinging, consciously or not, and discover the joy in replacing that outdated legacy with a level of awareness and self-compassion you might never have experienced before.
Libby Gill is a life-change coach, lecturer and author of two books, including the newly released Traveling Hopefully: How to Lose Your Family Baggage and Jumpstart Your Life. Libby can be reached online at www.libbygill.com or at 866-77-LIBBY.
Copyright © 2005 Libby Gill