Beyond Behaviors

Rock bottom is good solid ground, and a dead end street is just a place to turn around.  ~Buddy Buie and J.R. Cobb, “Rock Bottom” (song)

In Part 1, I asked the readers to think about several questions:

• “Am I controlling my life or is my life controlling me?”
• “Do I want to steer my way through life or let it steer me?”

In this “answers” (part 2) post, I’ll ask 2 more questions:

• “How badly do I want to change?”
• “What am I waiting for?

Thus, from those questions, the “how” to control your life would go like this:

1. Life is not a spectator sport. Jump in and take control of it.
2. Only you and you alone can influence how your life will turn out.
3. You have to want to change.
4. Take action. Do it now.

In a previous post, I wrote about George Badillo and “Inside Outside,” a documentary about eight people with mental illness who were institutionalized. The film follows their transition from nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals into the community. George shared, both in the documentary and to me personally, that the catalyst that spurred him to change was him wanting a better life. He was walking around the grounds of the mental hospital when it hit him that he’s wasting his life away. So, following the 4-Steps to Taking Control of Your Life, this is how George did it:

1. He realized that he was not in control of his life, that he was watching it unfold but not the one in control.
2. He then acknowledged that he and only he can influence how his life would turn out.
3. He told himself that he wanted to change, that he had to change.
4. Finally, he took actions: exercising daily, working with his doctors to lower his dependence on medications, taking classes offered, and doing whatever it took to get himself up and out of that hospital.

This is a man who had been institutionalized 17 times! He took control of his own life instead of letting it control him. The key, and perhaps the most difficult step, is to transfer the “wanting to change” into “doing the change (taking action).”

Here was a man who had, and still lives with, mental illness. He was in the mental hospital 17 times during much of his adult life. He then made a conscious decision to turn his life around. He took the steps necessary to ensure his success and then took a giant step from wanting to change into taking proactive actions toward that change.

“My dreams are worthless, my plans are dust, my goals are impossible. All are of no value unless they are followed by action. I will act now.” —Og Mandino