Are You Wishing Your Life Away?

By Charles Hughes

About the book:

Have you ever made a New Year’s Resolution? Have you ever kept a New Year’s Resolution? New Year’s Resolutions are almost always about what you “should” do. At best, they are about what you think you can do.

Real goals are not about what you should or can do; they are about what you want to do.

At age twenty-two, I became a computer programmer. I loved it. I use to say, I get paid to solve puzzles. After fifteen years, I started leading projects and I changed my job description to “I get paid to plan problems.”

Ten more years zipped by: good paychecks, good benefits, good grief! I was bored and, worse, I was being out distanced by twenty-two year olds that knew the newer technologies (e. g. the internet) better than I did. Bored and out of date are a bad combination, leading to a loss of self-esteem and a general bad attitude toward the world.

In 2002, I returned to school for a Masters Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. I did more than that. I decided that I was going to get licensed and open a private practice, that would allow me to set my hours, decide my own priorities and be the captain of my own destiny.

I had been setting goals for corporate projects for twenty years. I started using that expertise to plan my life. This is how it works: first you make a commitment to a goal, then you deal with your fears and doubts.

In this book, you will start by learning to turn your fears into enthusiasm. Then you will move on to the five steps of setting and achieving goals. Using the same principles that major corporations use to manage projects, you will stop worrying about what you should or can do, and start doing what you want to do.

If you are ready to turn your fear into enthusiasm and reach your dreams, stop wishing your life away. If you are not working toward your dreams, exactly what are you doing?

About the author:

Charles Hughes worked for thirty years in the corporate world as a computer programmer and project leader. In 2002 he returned to school for a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. Now in private practice in Oak Park, Illinois, he brings to this book his understanding of anxiety and his beliefs about commitment and how to achieve goals. His passion is helping people overcome fear and follow their dreams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Charles Hughes
• Release date: Nov 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301632251

Charles Hughes

Charles Hughes spent thirty years in the corporate world as a computer programmer and project leader. Good pay; good benefits; good grief! Bored and feeling out-of-date, in 2002, he returned to school for a Master’s Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. He is now in private practice in Oak Park, Illinois. He brings to this book, both his understanding of anxiety, and his beliefs about commitment and how to achieve goals. His passion is helping people overcome fear and follow their dreams.

Book preview

Are You Wishing

Your Life

Away?

From Anxiety to Enthusiasm:

Setting Goals for your Life

By Charles Hughes, MA, LCPC

Are You Wishing Your Life Away?

Copyright 2012 Charles A. Hughes

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 9781301632251

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First Electronic Publication

Almond in Your Head Books

November, 2012

For my dad, Glen Ellsworth Hughes (1909 – 1990),

who loved to tell me stories.

Acknowledgments

My thanks to my buddy and motivational speaker, Greg Risberg, MSW, CSP, for listening to my idea for this book, encouraging me and suggesting the book’s title. For more information about Greg, see www.GregRisberg.com Humor, With a Message.

My deep gratitude to many other people who blew wind into my sails when I had doubts about changing careers, writing this book, trusting the future. Doubts are the foul winds that blow us off course. Without the support of others, we are lost.

Please visit my webpage:

www.chughes-cms.com

and my blog

www.almondhead.wordpress.com

Please note that any hypothetical examples I have provided in this book are fictional. Any similarities to facts communicated to me by clients are purely coincidental.

Contents

Introduction

Walking the Earth

Part 1: Getting to Know Your Fears

The Almond in Your Head

How the Almond Works

Ignoring Your Fears (How to be a happy fool)

Step 1: Recognize the Fear

Step 2: Take Responsibility for the Fear

Step 3: Name the Fear

Fear type 1: Ostriches

Fear type 2: Bogeymen

Fear type 3: Heebie-jeebies

Fear type 4: Webejamins

Step 4: Ignore the Fear

Mantra for Ignoring My Fears

You’re Back

Stuck Point 1: The Cause of My Fear is Outside Me

Running from the Bear

A Bit of Buddhism

Grasping and Avoiding

Stuck Point 2: All My Fears Are Real

The Monster in Your Closet

Facing Your Real Fears

What Are We So Worried About?

Stuck Point 3: If I Stop Worrying, Bad Things Will Happen.

Warding Off, Believing in Magic

It’s Lonely at the Top

Part 2: Setting Goals and Getting on With Life

You Can Do Just Fine Without Goals

It’s About What You Want to Do

The Five Steps to Achieving Goals

There is No Such Thing as Failure

Why We Don’t Set Goals

Achieve – Gesundheit!

Let’s Talk More About Happiness

What Goals Are

Here are My Goals

True Goals are Win-Win Situations

Meanwhile, Enjoy the Ride

What Do You Want?

My Gutless Goal

Unchaining Your Unconscious

What Goals Are Not

Goals Are Not a To-Do List

Shoulds Are Not Goals

The Four Rules of Project Management

Rule One: Is the Juice Worth the Squeeze?

Rule Two: Things Change

Rule Three: Do the Next Right Thing

Rule Four: Plan the Work, Work the Plan

Keeping Yourself on Track

Rewards

Your Day-to-Day Goal List

What Do You Do Now?

Include Enjoyment Goals

Major Goals – Your Commitment Statement

Your Battle Plan

Chamberlain’s Charge

Holding Yourself Accountable

Tell People About Your Goals

Being in Charge of Your Life

Appendices: More About Anxieties and Goals

The Threat Circuit

Simple Strategies for Fear and Anxiety

Strategy 1: Just Stop!

Strategy 2: Mindfulness

Strategy 3: Reframing

Strategy 4: Targeting your FEAR

The Breath of Life

Stop Being Anxious and Start Being Anxious

Believing in Magic

Living with Uncertainty

What You Can Do With Your To-Do List

Speaking of Behavior

Why We Do What We Do

Setting Goals When You are Unemployed

Further Reading

Who wants to live a life imprisoned by safety?

—From the movie Amelia, attributed to Amelia Earhart, first woman to fly solo, non-stop across the Atlantic.

Winning isn’t everything. But wanting to win is.

—Vince Lombardi, coach of the Green Bay Packers, winner of the first two Super Bowls

No battle was ever won according to plan, but no battle was ever won without one.

—General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in WWII and 34th President of the United States

I have been absolutely terrified every moment of my life—and I have never let it keep me from doing a single thing I wanted to do.

—Georgia O’keeffe (artist and author)

Introduction

In 1972, at age twenty-two, I became a computer programmer. I loved it. I get paid to solve puzzles, I used to say. After about fifteen years, I started leading projects, so I changed my job description to, I get paid to plan problems.

Ten more years zipped by. Good paychecks, good benefits, good grief!—I was bored, and even worse, I was out-distanced by twenty-two year olds who knew the newer technologies (for example, the Internet) better than I did.

I went back to school to update my skills in computer science. To my dismay, I discovered I was bored by the new technologies. Bored and out of date are a bad combination, leading to a loss of self-esteem and other not-so-good things.

I thought about changing careers. What did I do?

I sat on my fanny for another four years until September 11, 2001.

The victims of 911 woke up that day thinking they had their lives to realize their dreams. There is always tomorrow. As I recovered from the shock of our national complacency, I also recovered from mine.

In 2002, I went back to school for a master’s degree in Marriage and Family Counseling. I did more than that. I decided I was going to get licensed and open a private practice that would allow me to set my hours, decide my own priorities, and be the captain of my own destiny.

People ask me how I chose counseling after thirty years in corporate information technology. How you choose a new career is a different book. I will say this. I understood that when I was twenty, technology interested me. When I was fifty, people interested me.

The hard part, of my career change, was letting go of my fear of being on my own, with no company providing the illusion of security. The hard part was to decide to rely on myself and commit myself to a goal. That is what I want you to think about, for your life, as you read this book.

The hard part was to decide to rely on myself.

In my practice, I specialize in helping people with anxiety and its ugly stepsister, depression. They go together. The best anti-anxiety medication in the world is not a GABA Enhancer (like Xanax). My Rx for depression and anxiety is a GOYA (Get off your ass) pill.

I have compassion for people who have suffered for years from anxiety and depression. I understand that for many of these individuals life seems colorless, tasteless, and full of risks. That is why I chose to work with these clients. I don’t claim that anxiety and depression are not real. The experience of anxiety or depression is real.

I want to change the way you think about fear and anxiety. I want you to stop thinking of it as a normal response to life, or as an abnormal problem (disorder) that eventually comes to ruin your life.

I want you to start thinking of anxiety as a way of avoiding life. The technical psychobabble for that is a defense. A defense is a thought, behavior, or feeling that lets you avoid a more uncomfortable thought, behavior, or feeling.

What is more uncomfortable than anxiety? That is the question you should be asking. What emotion or behavior is so uncomfortable that you would rather be scared or anxious instead? The answer will be unique to you and it may surprise you.

Yet, if you find that answer, you will have the