Yes, it is true. I record Dr. Phil and watch him regularly on the weekends. (I don't know why admitting that makes me feel like when I was a child and was mortified at the thought that someone might see me with my parent's at Kmart). I love love love the study of human behavior and so watching people's lives who are in shambles helps me learn how they got there, how certain events affected them, and what they need to do to recover. Here are some of my favorite of his "Life Laws" that he lists on his website. It's amazing to me how much free agency we have access to, but don't use simply because we don't realize the power is within us to choose the life we want. I truly believe in the quote by Albert Einstein, "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." There are a LOT of "insane" people that I have run across if this is the definition of insanity!
Life Law #2: You create your own experience.
Strategy: Acknowledge and accept accountability for your life. Understand your role in creating results. You cannot dodge responsibility for how and why your life is the way it is. If you don't like your job, you are accountable. If you are overweight, you are accountable. If you are not happy, you are accountable. You are creating the situations you are in and the emotions that flow from those situations.
Don't play the role of victim, or use past events to build excuses. It guarantees you no progress, no healing, and no victory. You will never fix a problem by blaming someone else. Whether the cards you've been dealt are good or bad, you're in charge of yourself now.
Every choice you make — including the thoughts you think — has consequences. When you choose the behavior or thought, you choose the consequences. If you choose to stay with a destructive partner, then you choose the consequences of pain and suffering. If you choose thoughts contaminated with anger and bitterness, then you will create an experience of alienation and hostility. When you start choosing the right behavior and thoughts — which will take a lot of discipline — you'll get the right consequences.
Life Law #3: People do what works.
Strategy: Identify the payoffs that drive your behavior and that of others. Even the most destructive behaviors have a payoff. If you did not perceive the behavior in question to generate some value to you, you would not do it. If you want to stop behaving in a certain way, you've got to stop "paying yourself off" for doing it.
Find and control the payoffs, because you can't stop a behavior until you recognize what you are gaining from it. Payoffs can be as simple as money gained by going to work to psychological payoffs of acceptance, approval, praise, love or companionship. It is possible that you are feeding off unhealthy, addictive and imprisoning payoffs, such as self-punishment or distorted self-importance.
Life Law #4: You cannot change what you do not acknowledge.
Strategy: Get real with yourself about life and everybody in it. Be truthful about what isn't working in your life. Stop making excuses and start making results. If you're unwilling or unable to identify and consciously acknowledge your negative behaviors, characteristics or life patterns, then you will not change them. (In fact, they will only grow worse and become more entrenched in your life.) You've got to face it to replace it.
Acknowledgment means slapping yourself in the face with the brutal reality, admitting that you are getting payoffs for what you are doing, and giving yourself a no-kidding, bottom-line truthful confrontation. You cannot afford the luxury of lies, denial or defensiveness.
Life Law #5: Life rewards action.
Strategy: Make careful decisions and then pull the trigger. Learn that the world couldn't care less about thoughts without actions. Talk is cheap. It's what you do that determines the script of your life. Translate your insights, understandings and awareness into purposeful, meaningful, constructive actions. They are of no value until then. Measure yourself and others based on results — not intentions or words.
Use any pain you have to propel you out of the situation you are in and to get you where you want to be. The same pain that burdens you now could be turned to your advantage. It may be the very motivation you need to change your life.
Decide that you are worth the risk of taking action, and that your dreams are not to be sold out. Know that putting yourself at risk may be scary, but it will be worth it. You must leave behind the comfortable and familiar if you are to move onward and upward.
Life Law #6: There is no reality, only perception.
Strategy: Identify the filters through which you view the world. Acknowledge your history without being controlled by it. You know and experience this world only through the perceptions that you create. You have the ability to choose how you perceive any event in your life, and you exercise this power of choice in every circumstance, every day of your life. No matter what the situation, you choose your reaction, assigning meaning and value to an event. Wow! I love this one!
We all view the world through individual filters, which influence the interpretations we give events, how we respond, and how we are responded to. Be aware of the factors that influence the way you see the world, so you can compensate for them and react against them. If you continue to view the world through a filter created by past events, then you are allowing your past to control and dictate both your present and your future.
**Filters are made up of fixed beliefs, negative ideas that have become entrenched in your thinking. They are dangerous because if you treat them as fact, you will not seek, receive or process new information, which undermines your plans for change. If you "shake up" your belief system by challenging these views and testing their validity, the freshness of your perspective can be startling.
Life Law #8: We teach people how to treat us.
Strategy: Own, rather than complain about, how people treat you. Learn to renegotiate your relationships to have what you want. You either teach people to treat you with dignity and respect, or you don't. This means you are partly responsible for the mistreatment that you get at the hands of someone else. You shape others' behavior when you teach them what they can get away with and what they cannot.
If the people in your life treat you in an undesirable way, figure out what you are doing to reinforce, elicit or allow that treatment. Identify the payoffs you may be giving someone in response to any negative behavior. For example, when people are aggressive, bossy or controlling — and then get their way — you have rewarded them for unacceptable behavior.
Because you are accountable, you can declare the relationship "reopened for negotiation" at any time you choose, and for as long as you choose. Even a pattern of relating that is 30 years old can be redefined. Before you reopen the negotiation, you must commit to do so from a position of strength and power, not fear and self-doubt.
Life Law #9: There is power in forgiveness.
Strategy: Open your eyes to what anger and resentment are doing to you. Take your power back from those who have hurt you. Hate, anger and resentment are destructive, eating away at the heart and soul of the person who carries them. They are absolutely incompatible with your own peace, joy and relaxation. Ugly emotions change who you are and contaminate every relationship you have. They can also take a physical toll on your body, including sleep disturbance, headaches, back spasms, and even heart attacks.
Forgiveness sets you free from the bonds of hatred, anger and resentment. The only way to rise above the negatives of a relationship in which you were hurt is to take the moral high ground, and forgive the person who hurt you.
Forgiveness is not about another person who has transgressed against you; it is about you. Forgiveness is about doing whatever it takes to preserve the power to create your own emotional state. It is a gift to yourself and it frees you. You don't have to have the other person's cooperation, and they do not have to be sorry or admit the error of their ways. Do it for yourself.
4 comments:
There is a lot of truth in what Dr. Phil says. In theory we should all think positively, especially those that have the gospel and come from healthy families. But, what about the child that is battered and abused emotionally and physically by their own parents? How do they learn accountability and taking charge of their lives if they don't have the gospel and can't afford therapy? I have taken care of hundreds of people in this situation. Of course, I tell them that they have power over their lives and that they are important and good people. But, the reality of it is that most of them go back to the same situation because they are so hurt by what has transpired since their birth. So, in theory dr. Phil has good ideas, but some people will never be in a situation to ever hear these ideas. They live in quiet desperation.
We are all screwed up! We all carry the burdens, traumas, and scars of our past as well as the heavy chains of our present. It would do us all good to be able to sit in councelling to work out our issues, to lay our lives out on the table and be taught how to reprocess and address our world (or at least honestly study and apply the life lessons here stated). How exhilarating it would be to free ourselves from unnecessary guilt, self-pity, and doubts. How much more productive and rewarding our lives would be to know who we are and where we are going and what we truly what. These are really powerful statements that will take some time to process. Thanks for sharing.
I need to take these life laws and apply them in my own life, especially the one "you create your own life experience". I find myself sometimes being very resentful about things, especially frustration with finances, Zack working in a family owned business and feeling no way to progress in his job, and a house that is in dire need of repair. I can easily pit the blame on anyone else but me. But the fact of the matter is that I made these decisions a long, long time ago and now I need to learn how to work with it and be happy with what I DO have, and I probably need to realize that I will most likely not be able to be a stay at home mom, raising my kids, living comfortably. That probably can't happen in my life unless Zack takes over his dad's company, which will never happen because his dad will never retire. I would love it that were the case, but right now that's not realistic for us to assume. And that's why I thank the good Lord that I have my education.
Very thoughtful reflection on living. Good advice. I don't need to listen to Dr. Phil because I have you to give pearls of wisdom. Great thoughts to ponder. You can follow your dreams and remain close to your family because you inspire each one of them, through your words and choices to follow their dreams too.
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