The Life You’ve Always Wanted…Simple As A,B,C

In the previous post, “Have You Filed Your Flight Plan?”, I attempted to encourage you to think about your life and what you wanted out of it other than to merely be known as your child’s parent.  My hope was that you would take a moment out of your daily grind to map out, put detail to, the life that you desire – like the FAA requires of airlines.

However, since publishing the post, I realized that simply telling you that you should have a Flight Plan a.k.a. Life Plan was insufficient.  So bear with me over the next few posts as I detail a process you can use to make sure your life takes on REAL meaning beyond being that of just a good parent. I want you to make sure that you get the life you’ve always wanted.

It’s a three part process that I call the ABC’s of Success.  The first stage is step A.

A Stands for Admission

To have the life  you’ve always wanted, you must begin by admitting where you are in your life.  If you were in an airplane imagine this as the first leg of the journey.  You start out at the departing airport, A, flying on plane X which has filed a flight plan to arrive at airport B (assuming of course that you can get a direct flight).  I affectionately refer to this part of the ABC process as the “Getting Naked” stage.

In order to have the life that takes you where you have always dreamt and imagined, you must “get naked”.  As you know when you are physically naked, all of your blemishes and imperfections are exposed.  Give it a try.  Get naked today.  Take off all your clothes then stand on the scale in front of the mirror.

I promise you that you won’t be able to lie to yourself about the double digit pounds you need to lose any longer.  There will be no denying that Dunlap tires are not exclusive to the tires on your car.  The numbers on the scale and the view in the mirror will force you to admit that your belly has dun-lapped over.

Outside of your physical well-being, ‘getting naked” means that if you are not where you hoped to be in your life (financially, educationally, professionally, romantically, etc.) this is the time to acknowledge your current position so that you can begin to chart a course to get you to the location where you have always wanted and need to be.  This is the time and place to peel away all those bogus and pretension layers that you so smugly wear each and every day.

There is no need to deny the obvious or lie to yourself one more second.  Unless you are schizophrenic and suffer from an inability to tell the difference between what is real and not real, you already know the truth about what is real and where you are in your life.  Either you are living the life you always envisioned or you are not.  It’s that simple.

If you need to lose weight, do you think wearing black and/or larger clothes magically evaporates the pounds that you need to lose?  Uh no!  When your finances have eroded, do you think buying new cars and clothes on credit and at the highest possible interest rate makes it appear that you have no financial issues?  Absolutely not!

When you are overweight you know it and so do others most notably those who care the most about you and who will certainly bear the burden of caring for you as your health continues to deteriorate.  When your money is funny, you know it and so do others closest to you especially TransUnion, Equifax and Experian.

Trust me chances are that you aren’t fooling anyone.  You are merely making a fool of yourself.  Why would you want to waste your time and energy trying to fool anyone anyway?  Is this the way you would want to spend your last day?  In case you forgot, tomorrow is not promised.

However, if by some slight chance you manage to fool someone who is of particularly importance to you all that you have done by refusing to “get naked” is create an inauthentic relationship.  A relationship that is not sustainable.  A relationship with a person, place or thing that is only an illusion.  FYI: you are not Harry Houdini!

At some point you will have to get naked.  If you don’t like what you see more than likely neither will the other party.  Your scale, your doctor and/or your significant other won’t like your weight.  The auto dealership, home builder, department store, your child’s college/university and/or other lending institution won’t like your finances.

A Doesn’t Stand for Acceptance

Fortunately, the “A” in admission does not stand for Acceptance.  You don’t have to accept your current health, wealth, professional or romantic station.  You simply have to acknowledge your current location; admit where you are.  Without admission, you will be like a plane lost in fog and turbulence that is being flown by a pilot who did not bother to file the Flight Plans.

Now that he is lost he is either too dumb or too stubborn to admit that he has no idea where he is or how to get where he wants to go.  Not only does he not know how to get to the designated destination, no one even knows he has departed.

The scenario of the missing pilot flying blindly is synonymous with the way many of us live.  Until the pilot acknowledges that he is lost and sends out an S.O.S., no one can get his coordinates to provide directions.  Without the pilot admitting his shortcomings he cannot be saved.  In all likelihood without “getting naked” the pilot is going to die and potentially cause the death of others.

Don’t be like the lost pilot.  Be completely honest with yourself, admit where and who you are.  Get naked right now so that you can make plans to get where you have always wanted to be.  The life you have always wanted is within reach and it is waiting for you.

Trust me getting naked always works.  Naked never lies, people do!  You can have  the life you’ve always wanted but the first step is admission.

Find out the next step here: The Life You’ve Always Wanted…Simple As A,B,C (Part 2)