SYTB 5: Recast Yourself
How to regain perspective on your own life.
What I have been talking about up to now are belief systems that keep us from building better boundaries. There are often these hidden hindrances such as our misinterpretation of phrases like “honor thy mother and father” that keep us from building proper boundaries. There are also various ways in which people set us off through our own VACS which I explained yesterday. Last, I spoke of how to regain peace in our daily lives without having to cure every last hurt from our childhood.
Today, we are going to talk about what to do when you just can’t see yourself achieving great things and living the life of your dreams. Today, I am going to give you one practical tip you can do that will only cost you a dollar to get you past almost any hurdle you have barring your success.
Are you ready? Yes! Of course, you are! Let’s dive in.
Thought project: Think of a person who has already gone before you who achieved what you desire. Now imagine that person stepping into your shoes and living your life for you from where you are now. Map out all their activities and steps along the way.
If you haven’t done so before, I recommend you start with a board of directors. This is a project you might make on your computer, but I recommend getting a poster and cutting out photos of people who you feel inspire you, are living dreams very similar to yours and overcame obstacles to greatness. Paste photos of these people on a large poster board (last I checked still cost $1 at the Dollar Tree) so this will be economical. Keep that board in a handy place so you can literally talk to these people and journal what answers from “them” come up for you.
Now, imagine consulting with each one of these individuals about your situation. Where are you today? Cast them in your shoes and picture them getting themselves out of your position and in to where you want to be. Grab a notebook and pen and journal their course of action in your shoes, step by step. Become them for a day or for a conversation. Hear their voice coming from your mouth when you talk to people. What would they say? But most of all, I say this to the single people struggling with dating and giving people “chances,” what would someone on your board of directors tolerate? Really think about this. Also, what is their mindset? How is it different from yours? Why? What are they thinking in the back of their minds or believing to be true about themselves? How do these beliefs in themselves prevent them from putting up with the behaviors and abuses you may be settling for in your life experience?
A very dear friend of mine, who I won’t name, but for the sake of this story, we’ll call her “Dawn” recently told me she was dealing with a boyfriend sharing private photos they took together, intimate photos, with his friends. Then, Dawn’s boyfriend’s friends who had seen the photos approached her and asked her very inappropriate questions about the photos. I was immediately saddened Dawn was still referring to this guy as a boyfriend and not as an ex-boyfriend. I don’t even know what made these men think they could approach her and say such things. Moreover, why did they think Dawn was approachable in the first place?
Dawn could play the victim and not ask herself these questions any more than rhetorically. Or, she could look for serious answers to these questions which might cause her to rethink how she is playing out her own life.
Sometimes we lose the plot of our own life because we lose perspective on ourselves as the main character in our life story. We start to take a position of silent observer. We are the fly on the wall, watching people behave in various ways around us. We become the victim in our story when we stop asking how the people around us got in our picture to begin with. We often forget to question whether they belong in our story. Instead, we just keep asking how to make ourselves fit back in our own picture with the same (un)supporting cast. We are silently watching what happens to us as non player characters (NPC’s) in our own story. We forget we have the power to step up and be dynamic and make choices that will radically alter the outcome of our life story. We forget who this show is really about, who is in control of casting and who writes the checks. Yes, your attention is valuable and if you give one minute of air time to one of these clowns, it’s worth something. Time is money, honey.
Why are the people on our board of directors special to us? What success have they gained? Could they have come so far if they played their lives as observers and victims of what we see going on in our life? Not for very long. So it’s time to recast yourself in your picture with a dynamic, motivated mover and shaker and see what happens next and why.
In a situation like Dawn’s, a situation that seems to be lacking in class and grace, I would try to imagine someone with the most class and grace and poise I could think of. For this exercise, let’s imagine Grace Kelly in the role of Dawn. Now, try to imagine Grace Kelly living Dawn’s scenario? First, I doubt Grace Kelly would date a bum who would take pictures of her and share them with his friends. Why? Because Grace Kelly can get whatever guy she wants. She doesn’t have to suffer low-lifes. If you were Dawn, you’d write that down. That’s what a writer would refer to as the character’s motivation. You want to start acquiring and sharing the motivations, the can-do attitude of your mentors so you can apply them to the roles you play out in your life.
The problem for Dawn is unbeknownst to her, she’s been playing the “Cash Me Ousside” girl. She’s been dating guys that girl might date. How ‘bout dat? She needs to recast and then, she needs to take informed, dynamic action as the new character.
I had a client who I will refer to as Matt for the sake of his privacy. Matt chose to do this work with Chris Hemsworth. I asked Matt if Chris Hemsworth would be tolerating the same behavior from the woman Matt was trying to date? “No. Of course not.” Matt said, “she’d never treat the mighty Thor like that.”
I asked, “Why?”
Matt answered quickly, “because Chris Hemsworth could have whatever woman he wants. But,” Matt said, “I can’t. I don’t look like him. I’m overweight and much older.”
I thought for a second, “Well, the first part of that equation is your weight. You can do something about that, a lot in fact. If your weight is holding you back from having someone treat you with respect, then Chris Hemsworth is telling you that it’s time to respect yourself enough to do something about your weight.”
“Your age… Well, you may need to recast again. Perhaps pick George Clooney and see if the result is any different. You will likely come to the same conclusion. I can think of a gazillion older, extremely coveted men who you could still never picture groveling for the attention of a lady who yelled at them for no reason like a psycho in a mental ward who forgot her meds. There would have been no opportunity for a date after that much less two dates wherein she stood them up on both counts. They wouldn’t keep calling her hoping she’ll change her mind and make another date. I don’t care how hot you think she is. The bottom line is, you need to start acting like Chris Hemsworth or George Clooney acts, treat your body with even one tenth the respect these men treat theirs and you will start to get more of the respect that they get from others.”
People who make a personal investment in themselves reap the yields of their investments. When a person starts to invest in himself, it changes how he views his net worth. If someone invested 100K into your net worth, you’d be worth 100K more than you were worth yesterday. That’s simple math. You might start to think of yourself differently if your net worth grew by $100,000. But, time is money. What would it cost you to hire a personal chef to cook all your nutritious meals customized to your nutritional needs and a fitness trainer to work with you privately every day for a year? That could easily cost you $100k or more. When you look into nutrition and start to train yourself, you are still putting that same amount of investment behind your worth. You see? If you invest your time in working out, giving yourself the right foods that nourish your body and really caring for yourself, those little investments add up ultimately to more value than $100k or even $1M can buy. In fitness, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Here’s why. Even if you had paid the trainer and the chef, you still might flake and not show up or cheat and eat at the drive-thru. The real investment required is that you show up, you eat the food you should, and you do all the work required of you including getting to sleep on time and filling your thoughts with positive things. Changing your relationship to your body to that of an investor can change your whole life. What changes can you start to make to grow your net worth today?
I want to make this clear, you will never be a perfect ideal. There are all kinds of body shapes. You can get fit as you, and still not become a tall and thin person. Not everyone is meant to be tall and slender at their fittest. It doesn’t matter to the bottom line. The thing that motivates your characters is often that they care about themselves enough to make the differences they need to make. They see themselves as Grace Kelly rather than Cash-Me-Ousside-what’s-her-face. They show up and do the work. The result is that they hold themselves above a lot of the Jerry Springer or Dr. Phil scenarios we as mere mortals seem to get ourselves into and settle for.
Start recasting yourself in your life picture and looking for new character motivations. Ask your board of directors in the theater of your mind what you can change to become more like them, to love yourself more, to see yourself in a new light so that you begin to amplify their abilities. Soon enough, you, too, will exude confidence which is the world’s greatest aphrodisiac. Like I said, it doesn’t matter that you aren’t some perfect ideal. It won’t matter if you are 5’4”, 55 years old, curly red hair, have a big, goofy nose and look like Howdy Doody. I can promise you. I literally dated that guy when I was a banging hot, 24 year old. That guy was hot as fuck, too! He was a seriously fit, power yoga instructor, world traveled meditation coach, corporate VP, owned houses everywhere, architecturally designed all his homes from the ground up in his spare time, made amazing salads, taught me how to cut an avocado (haha, it’s true) accomplished, very accomplished. Nothing stood in his way, and he could date whomever the fuck he wanted.
When you start loving yourself and taking care of yourself and going after your dreams, nothing will stand in your way either. Your specific body shape, your nose, your hair or lack thereof doesn’t matter. All these stupid little things that you see as reasons for why you aren’t doing what you want are just excuses. I can think of 15 “weird” looking actors who live incredible, full lives with great relationships and attractive spouses. But better than that, YOU can think of them. Start googling what Kevin Smith’s wife looks like or Paul Giamatti’s girlfriend. What woman wouldn’t fuck Peter Dinklage after watching him throughout Game Of Thrones? We can all see his appeal. It’s a lot more than just drinking and knowing things. It’s about being honest and deeply open about who you are, unafraid of it. It’s about making the most of your assets. Yet, not sulking in your honesty or using things you feel bad about as limitations or excuses. Grow the muscles of sincerity, confidence, self-care and last of all, personal achievement.
This works just as well for women. I know we imagine woman are held to higher standards aesthetically than men in our society, but this doesn’t change what I am saying. Whoopi Goldberg dated Ted Danson at the height of his stardom and beauty. In fact, his affair with Whoopi cost him $30 million in divorce court, and he had smokin’ hot wife at the time. Whoopi as we all know is a very eyebrowless lady who dressed as aesthetically unattractive as humanly possible for her entire career. But she’s one of the funniest, most comfortable in her own skin women on earth, regardless of her asinine political views. All your misperceptions about your physical appearance as limitations are erroneous.
The thing is, you might not be single. You might be tolerating less than the best treatment from other people in your life. Go to your board of directors. Recast yourself as someone else, someone you see is successful in the areas that are important to you or the opposite of the quality of the situations you seem to be currently attracting into your experience. Look for character motivation. Ask yourself what changes you need to make to bridge the gaps between who you are now and who you need to be. Most importantly, start making those changes today.
The thing I’ve always said with dating is that when you get really focused on what you want one of two things can happen. The people in your life will either step up and shift to fit the life you have envisioned for yourself or they will step off and out of the way for the right person to enter. In either case, stay focused and committed to your vision and the changes will start to happen without you ever having to say “no” to anything except what you know with 100% certainty is not what you truly desire.
My old voice teacher told me a story once about being in Metropolitan Opera Company, catching laryngitis, losing her speaking voice but still singing. In another story she told me, an opera singer’s hair caught on fire and she kept singing as the set crew attempted to put out the flames.
The moral of the story is to get on with it. Don’t let anything stop you. Your show must go on.