This Is Your Life: No Apology Needed: The Working Woman's Common Sense Guide to Guilt-Free Joyous Living

THIS IS YOUR LIFE:

NO APOLOGY NEEDED

The Working Woman’s Common Sense Guide

to

Guilt-Free Joyous Living

an intelligent new way to be at home with yourself and the world

by

Terry Jean Taylor

Published by

McConnells, SC

Copyright 2011 by Your Recipe For Living Coach, LLC

All rights reserved.

Any unauthorized use, sharing, reproduction or distribution of these materials by any means, electronic, mechanical, or otherwise is strictly prohibited. No portion of these materials may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever, without the express written consent of the publisher.

Published under the Copyright Laws of the Library of Congress of The United States of America, by:

Your Recipe For Living Coach, LLC

1961 McConnells Highway – PO Box 66

McConnells, SC 29726

terry@YourRecipeForLivingCoach.com

www.YourRecipeForLivingCoach.com

ISBN: 978-0-9858609-1-2 (epub)

ISBN: 1-59712-233-5 (print)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2009931720 (print)

Category: Self-Help

Cover Design: Robert Pike

Cover Art: Arthur Taylor

QED stands for Quality, Excellence and Design. The QED seal of approval shown here verifies that this eBook has passed a rigorous quality assurance process and will render well in most eBook reading platforms.

For more information please click here.

This book is dedicated to those of you who love your life

and to those of you who don’t, but wish you did.

Legal Notice

No self-help book, including this one, should be considered a substitute for psychological counseling or legal advice. While all attempts have been made to verify the information provided in this book, neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility for errors, omissions, or contradictory interpretation of the material provided herein. Nothing in this book is intended to advise any particular individual on how to conduct his or her personal life or professional affairs. These are general comments to be used at each individual’s own discretion, since individuals and their situations each have their own special considerations.

Guarantee

Understanding and applying the ideas in This Is Your Life: No Apology Needed should enable you to go after your goals guilt free, with confidence and joy. If reading this book doesn’t help you address your confusion and enable you to live with more confidence and joy, simply return it for a complete refund.

A Word of Caution

In the event of psychological illness, this self-help book is not meant to take the place of professional care. Despite the benefits, looking at your belief system can be an earthshaking experience, and you do so at your own risk. It takes courage to face the possibility of being uncomfortable while you uncover your bottom-line beliefs to discover the source of your conflict, confusion and guilt. And it takes courage to revise your beliefs and start living by your revised beliefs. The information in this book is intended to help you get to the root of your conflict so that you can love living your life, but it is not a guarantee that you will do what you need to do to get rid of your inner conflict. Nor is this book a substitute for going to a good therapist if you are feeling helpless, depressed, or out of control.

Contact Information

For questions or information about booking a speaker, scheduling coaching, or ordering more books or the Reclaiming Your Life CD Program, contact terry@yourrecipeforlivingcoach.com, or visit the website at www.YourRecipeForLivingCoach.com. Mail address is PO Box 66, McConnells, SC, 29726.

How Reading This Book Can Help You

This Is Your Life: No Apology Needed will open your eyes to your relationship with the world, with yourself, and with others – and put you in control of your life. By taking a realistic look at the bottom-line beliefs that are running your life right now, you will see which of your beliefs are compatible and which are not. This will enable you to revise the beliefs that are causing you unnecessary conflict, confusion and guilt. This is the most powerful way to free yourself to achieve the things you want for your business and personal life. And it is the only way to direct your life according to your vision and to live guilt-free, with genuine confidence and joy.

Here’s what some of the women Terry has worked with have said:

Terry taught me the importance of having a good relationship with myself when I didn’t even know I could have a relationship with myself. She taught me that affirming my own values empowers me to more fully appreciate and support the values of my loved ones.

Christine VanBrunt, professional writer, author and working mom

Terry made me realize I’ve been drowning doing for others more than for myself. She’s challenged me to own up to my convictions, accept the truth, and come alive once again.

Beverly Biggs, business owner and mother

Terry’s process helps me identify and change my subconsciously held beliefs. I’m going to get on top of this. It’s already a pay-off.

Ilene Dillon, psychotherapist, author and mother

Terry helps the abused, humiliated, or hurting individual to reflect, to ask questions, and to move away from shame by growing toward self-respect.

Dr. Martha Benn Macdonald, author, performer and professor of English

Terry put me in touch with more of my goals and made me aware of the ones I’ve already achieved. I am so thankful!

Cheryl Connelly, artist, business owner and mother

Terry really put me on track. She really got me thinking about my life and making some rewarding changes.

Sandra Crawford, business owner and mother

I was thinking of going to a therapist, but Terry was able to ask the questions that got me to face the issues and answer my own questions. Terry really knows how to help me discover what’s most important to me in my life.

Nancy M. Werany, entrepreneur and mother

I wish I had talked with Terry when I had my first kid. But even at this late date, she helped me reclaim some of my life.

Lisa Joyce, working mom considering a home business

Terry should have been a shrink! She really helped me figure out what was going on – and helped me identify my goals, confusions, conflicts and next steps.

Jan Piner, business owner and mother

About The Author

A passionate motivational speaker and life coach with a new reality-based, no-nonsense approach, Terry Taylor is the designer of a unique strategy for reaching your goals and loving your life. Her 8 Steps For Reclaiming Your Life CD Program shows you how to break free from conflict, confusion and the control of others so you can go after your goals guilt-free, with confidence and joy. A personal coach for over thirty years, Terry has helped women in all walks of life break free from the contradictions in their beliefs that lead to conflict, confusion and guilt. Both her CD program and her book, This Is Your Life: No Apology Needed, were designed to help working women stop apologizing and start living.

Terry’s Survey: Before designing her CD Program and finishing her book, Terry conducted a survey of businesswomen and working mothers to discover what helps and what hinders them in going after their goals. Terry discovered that the women with the most conflict, confusion and guilt harbored serious contradictions in their deep-down bottom-line beliefs.

Terry’s Years As A Corporate Executive: As Vice President of Ekra Laboratories for ten years, Terry worked with the inventor of the artificial sweetener Sweet ‘N Low, negotiating contracts with many large companies, including American Home Products and Campbell Soup. During this time she struggled to achieve her personal goals in the arts and at the same time maintain her professionalism at work.

As Director of Media Services for the Start Corporation, Terry provided advertising and marketing services for a wide variety of businesses, manufacturers and national professional associations. She witnessed businesswomen striving for respect as they rose through the ranks and she witnessed working mothers trying to be present for their children while maintaining their professionalism on the job. She herself struggled to care for her aging parents four hundred miles away while still being responsible and present at her work.

Terry’s Years As A Life-Improvement Coach: The oldest of four and a babysitter for families of one to six children from her early teens, Terry started coaching at a very early age. She graduated to being a college dormitory counselor for three hundred women at the University of Delaware. Through the Virginia Extension Service, she coached teenagers in career exploration and adults in family relationships and home management. As a social dance instructor in New York City, Germany, Kansas City and the Carolinas, Terry coached adults of all ages in self-confidence, self-respect, and mutually respectful male-female relationships.

For T. C. Dance Club International, Terry wrote The Staff Connection, a guide to hiring employees with healthy, non-contradictory beliefs to prevent conflict in the workplace, which was used for training staff members all over the world. As a teacher of Etiquette and Social Dancing for Teen Cotillion in Charlotte, North Carolina, Terry re-designed the etiquette program and taught young people how to treat both themselves and others with a healthy respect in a variety of social situations. As a Behavior Breakthrough Counselor for NutriSystem, Terry taught women who turned to food for comfort how to refocus their lives on the things that were most important to them.

What amazes Terry is that, even in her interim work (as a Retention Specialist for a psychological firm in South Carolina, as a banquet server at a fancy North Carolina resort, as an inventory analyst for a New York City fashion company and as a dance performer for a Touring Soldier Show in Germany) men and women from all walks of life have come to her seeking advice for their lives, saying You are so ‘together’ and happy – how do you do it?

Terry’s Self-Help Calendars: To answer the above question Terry created a series of This Is Your Life self-help calendars. Some women were so moved by these calendars that they begged Terry to write more about these subjects. That is how Terry’s book got started. Terry said, Seeing so many women struggling to find a way out of their conflict, confusion and guilt was very painful to me. I thought the world would be more wonderful for me if more women were enthusiastically striving for their goals rather than suffering from such unnecessary stress. So did the men who bought the calendars for the women in their lives!

Terry’s Own Struggle And Triumph: Terry is no stranger to dealing with conflicts that arise from holding contradictory beliefs about ourselves and the world. She spent the first half of her life in conflict between what others told her to do and what her own best judgment told her to do. At stake were her career, her marriage, her decision about children, and her happiness. Through long study and thought (she found that agonizing and hair-pulling didn’t work), she was able to resolve her conflict and achieve the life of her dreams: she loves where she lives, what she does, the man she lives with and the kind of person she has made herself to be.

Terry’s Products And Services: Terry’s speaking and coaching services, along with her book and CD Program, offer you an intelligent new way to be at home with yourself, with others, and with the world. Terry’s passion is to enable you to love living your own life.

What Terry Says About Her Work:

"I have found that businesswomen and working mothers are so torn between doing for themselves and doing for others – and so confused about how to do justice to all their values – that they feel guilty no matter what they do and they end up apologizing for living.

"I wrote my book and designed the CD Program to provide working women a step-by-step way to transform such unnecessary conflict into a renewed zest for life. My goal was to help working women know that it is right for them to go after their own goals and achieve what they want for their lives.

My mission is to help working women reclaim their lives from conflict, confusion and the control of others – and start living their lives with radiant confidence and joy.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

INTRODUCTION: A Book About How To Love Living Your Life

PART ONE – THE PROBLEM:

Your Goals – And Your Life – Are at Stake

About The Problem

Question 1: This Is Your Life...Or Is It?

a question of self-ownership

Question 2: There Is No Apology Needed...Or Is There?

a question of self-accountability

Question 3: Your War Against Yourself...Where Does It Come From?

a question of self-persecution

Question 4: Goodness And Guilt...What’s The Bottom Line?

a question of self-preservation

PART TWO – THE DANGERS:

Twelve Life-Threatening Mistakes Working Women Make

About The Dangers

Mistake 1: Not Taking Your Own Life Seriously

making your choices without thinking about their consequences

Mistake 2: Not Taking Responsibility For Your Life

blaming others for what goes wrong, crediting others for what goes right

Mistake 3: Not Using A Reliable Measuring Stick

trying to live by an impossible standard

Mistake 4: Thinking Other People Are More Important Than You

betraying your own dreams and shaping your life to the wishes of others

Mistake 5: Giving In To Your Fears

letting your insecurities keep you from going after what you want in life

Mistake 6: Taking Someone Else’s Word For It

believing that others automatically know better than you

Mistake 7: Believing You Are Not Good Enough

thinking you’re not worthy or capable of living a fulfilling life

Mistake 8: Turning Your Back On Reality

refusing to honor the facts in the face of your feelings, faith, or fantasies

Mistake 9: Living By Arbitrary Rules Rather Than By Reality-Based Principles

conforming to man-made codes of conduct that can harm your life

Mistake 10: Giving Up A Higher Value For A Lower Value

turning your back on your most important values and goals

Mistake 11: Trying To Live Up To An Impossible Ideal Of Perfection

having unrealistic expectations and unhealthy restrictions for yourself

Mistake 12: Accepting A Harmful Recipe For Living

trying to live by a belief system that turns you against yourself

PART THREE – YOUR NEEDS:

What Does It Take to Love Living Your Life?

About Your Needs

YOUR ORIENTATION NEEDS

Need 1: To Have A Healthy Relationship With The World

being and feeling right with reality

Need 2: To Have A Healthy Relationship With Yourself

being and feeling right with your own personhood

YOUR NAVIGATIONAL NEEDS

Need 3: To Have A Reliable Way To Acquire Knowledge

being and feeling securely connected to the world

Need 4: To Have A Healthy Guide For Living Your Life

being and feeling like a good person

Need 5: To Have A Reliable Guide For Relating To Others

being and feeling fair and just in meaningful community with others

YOUR ACTION NEEDS

Need 6: To Choose Meaningful, Life-Promoting Values And Goals

being and feeling motivated, enthusiastic and purposeful

Need 7: To Strive To Achieve Your Goals

being fully engaged with life and feeling passion, excitement and joy

PART FOUR – THE SOLUTION:

Discover A Healthy Recipe For Living

About The Solution

Step 1: Uncover What Gets In Your Way

by taking a Simple Survey

find out how your needs are being blocked

Step 2: Discover The Recipe You Are Living By Right Now

by answering Five Easy Questions

see how well your Recipe serves your needs

Step 3: Consider The Basic Recipes You Can Choose From

by looking at three Time-Tested Recipes

discover which of the three Recipes best serves your needs

Step 4: Give Your Recipe For Living A Reality Test

by comparing it with Nature’s Requirements For Living

find out if your Recipe is at odds with reality

Step 5: Revise Your Recipe For Living

by eliminating the Incompatible Ingredients

break free from conflict by making all your ingredients work for you

Step 6: Practice Using Your Revised Recipe

by filling out a Nasty Criticism Form

develop confidence by using your Recipe to stand up to criticism

Step 7: Use Your Revised Recipe To Know What’s Up

by pinning the Result to the Recipe

understand where the people and events in your life are coming from

Step 8: Use Your Revised Recipe To Take Charge Of Your Life

by making changes with Ease and Good Will

go after your goals with confidence and joy

PART FIVE – YOUR REWARD:

Guilt-Free Joyous Living

About Your Reward

Component 1: Seeing The Big Picture Of Your Life

Component 2: Being Inspired By Great Role Models

Component 3: Becoming Your Own Ideal Woman

Component 4: Taking Charge Of Your Life

Component 5: Having A Healthy Recipe For Living

Reward 1: Having A Great Relationship With The World

understanding the world and getting the results you want

Reward 2: Having A Great Relationship With Yourself

earning self-respect by developing the character traits you admire

Reward 3: Having Great Relationships With Others

increasing your productivity, magnifying your joy, and celebrating your life

Reward 4: Going After Your Goals With Confidence and Joy

knowing that it is moral to strive for what you want in life

Reward 5: Loving Your Life

feeling gloriously happy and treasuring each moment of your life

EPILOGUE

REFERENCES AND NOTES

APPENDIX A

APPENDIX B

Acknowledgements

Three people stand out for helping me discover how to honor myself and achieve my goals and my happiness: my mother, Jean S. Taylor, who believed in me and taught me to respect the facts of reality; my father, Theodore W. Taylor, who challenged me and taught me to respect my mind; and novelist-philosopher-businesswoman, Ayn Rand, who taught me how to use my mind to make sense of the facts of reality in order to live a meaningful, fulfilling, joyous life.

In addition, I extend my heartfelt thanks to all the working women I surveyed, for sharing their remarkable journeys, their invaluable advice, and their continued enthusiasm for this book. My very special thanks to my mentors, Steve and Bill Harrison of Bradley Communications and the late Brendanne Phillips for believing in me and helping me make this book digestible and enjoyable to read. Thanks, too, to Debra Englander at John Wiley & Sons and Joe Dec at Loftin & Company Printers for their caring, professional guidance. And my gratitude to The Start Group for their interest and encouragement along the way.

My profound thanks to Cynthia Collins for over two years of insightful criticism, formatting, and editing, and for her enormous support through tough times. Special thanks to my proofreaders, Kathleen Huber, Lynn Nelson, Martha Macdonald, Sharon Collins, Cheryl E. Hill and Carrie Rickard, whose corrections and suggestions made this a far better book.

I am forever indebted to Maralyn Hill for being my sounding board for both the early conception and the final stages of this book. My deep gratitude goes out to Mary Catherine Flythe for her valuable advice about organization and format and to Robyn Zakalik for enthusiastically putting me in touch with women to survey. And my enormous thanks to Patricia and the late Bill Wiley, T.A. Swope, Ethan VanBrunt, Tony Nolan, Lee Smith, Norm Hill, and the late Ted Taylor, who graciously took the time to wade through the original draft to give me the feedback that helped determine the direction this book would finally take.

I am at a loss for words to thank Arthur Taylor for his permission to use his beautiful water-color on the front cover, and Robert Pike for his magnificent cover design.

I can’t thank Lynn Nelson enough for sharing her courageous journey with me, and for providing, along with her husband Virgil, highly insightful feedback and suggestions.

And there is no end to my gratitude to Christine VanBrunt, whose sensitivity and awareness not only inspired the writing of this book, but whose innumerable contributions, expert suggestions and non-stop support have helped me see it through to completion.

Finally, my profound thanks to my dearest husband, Roy K. Bird, not only for his advice and support throughout this project, but also for loving his life, for being so wonderfully at home with the world, and for showing me what it means to live each day with No Apology Needed!

Introduction

A Book About How To Love Living Your Life

This is a self-help book about how to love living your life. But this is no ordinary love-me-and-leave-me self-help book. This is a meat-and-potatoes foundational book that will show you how to move from being an uneasy apologizer for your life to being the proud, enthusiastic owner of your life.

Reading this book will enable you to transform the way things are right now to the way you actually want them to be. You will discover who you really are – not just in terms of your feelings, wants, and what you are doing right now – but in terms of your deep-down core beliefs and the deep-down dreams you have for your life. You will discover how to eliminate all the unnecessary conflict and unearned guilt from your life and go full steam ahead after your goals. You will discover how to move from a so-so life to a life you can truly love living.

What I am sharing with you in this book is not based on empty musings. It is based on my own personal struggle as well as the experiences of the women I have coached, the women in my survey, and women throughout history.

This book is not a one-way affair. It is a two-way partnership between you, the reader, and me, the author. Just as I need to be your caring and informative guide, you also have to bring something to the table: an earnest desire to be your own best friend and to achieve the things you want for your life.

This book asks a lot from you. But it gives you back your life. Think of yourself as an artist or an athlete training to do something you love. The only difference is that, instead of training for a triumphant performance in just one area of your life, you are training for a triumphant performance in every area of your life!

As a businesswoman or working mom, you have professional goals in addition to your family and personal goals. Having professional goals can make you even more vulnerable to criticism, conflict, confusion and guilt. And it’s exhausting to be in constant conflict over your decisions for your everyday life.

I designed this book to help you handle criticism and conflict with ease and good will and to clear up the confusion and guilt that can hold you hostage and paralyze your action toward your goals. By the time you finish this book you will know how to stop apologizing and procrastinating and actually start achieving the results you want for your life!

From the outset, I am assuming that you want to live a healthy, fulfilling, happy human life. It is my goal to provide you with a solid, reality-based foundation for such a life. Living your life is a complex affair. You are brought up with all kinds of beliefs, and you are surrounded by numerous people having different ideas of how you should live your life. If you are like most people, by the time you reach adulthood you have accumulated a mixed bag of contradictory ideas that you try your best to live by. But trying to live by contradictory beliefs can cause you serious conflict and confusion over how you should conduct your life.

Your beliefs are not something to take lightly: your beliefs run your life. Your beliefs determine what kind of person you become and what you do with your life. That’s why I call your belief system your Recipe For Living. Your Recipe For Living can be either healthy or unhealthy – it can be your best friend or your worst enemy. In this book you will discover how to make your Recipe For Living your best friend.

If you read this book as an active participant you will discover how to rescue your life from confusion, conflict and the control of others. You will uncover who you are, what you stand for, and what you want to do with your life. You will find out what gets in your way and what helps you along your way. You will discover your own Recipe For Living and learn how to adjust it to achieve the results you want in every aspect of your life.

This Is Your Life: No Apology Needed is the result of my own thirty-year conflict between doing according to others and doing according to my own best judgment. Like so many other people I knew, I suffered from an inner tug-of-war between living my life for others and living my life for myself. I felt I was ripping myself apart, with half of me wanting to go after the dreams approved of by my family, and the other half wanting to go after the dreams I had for myself.

Sadly, many of you find yourselves facing this same kind of conflict. We are all brought up with double-belief systems of sacrifice and fulfillment. Feeling constantly torn between these two belief systems puts us into an ongoing state of confusion, conflict and guilt. Because their beliefs told them that it was the right thing to do, most of the working women I surveyed said they wasted from one-third to three-quarters of their lifetime living for the goals of their parents, spouses or children, while turning their backs on their own special interests and talents and the goals and dreams they had for their lives.

What leads to this tragic state of affairs? In trying to resolve my own conflict, I turned to the study of philosophy, religion, psychology and history. I read books, attended conferences, and talked with everyone I could. After a long, hard struggle to resolve the contradictions between my childhood beliefs and my adult beliefs, I was able to break free from my confusion and achieve what I wanted for my life: work that I love, my ideal lifestyle, a beautiful romantic relationship, close family and friends, and an outlook on life that makes me eager to greet each new day.

During the course of my life many people – especially working women – have asked me how I was able to be so happy. I found myself genuinely wanting to help these people find their own happiness without having to go through the years of inner turmoil I suffered. Writing this book was not a sacrifice; it was a very selfish, self-fulfilling thing for me to do. Because when you are happy, you want other people to be happy, too. It wears you out to interact with unhappy people who are in a constant state of conflict. Being surrounded by people who are happily going after their goals not only inspires you, it also increases your own happiness as you go after yours.

Drawing on my own struggle, my conversations with other working women and my thirty-plus years as a personal coach and counselor, I realized I had some worthwhile insights to share. To make sure I was on the right track, I conducted a two-hour interview with each of seventy-five working women to learn what helped and what hindered them in going after their goals. The women were of all ages, from different parts of the country, and from rural, urban and suburban settings. Even though this sample was small, some of my findings challenged some of my earlier conclusions. I will be sharing these findings with you throughout this book.

Here’s the plan:

In Part One you will discover why you experience confusion, conflict, and guilt in your everyday life. You will look at the things inside yourself and in our culture that hinder you in going after your goals. You will confront the war you are waging against your own self, and take a look at the bottom line on goodness and guilt.

In Part Two you will discover twelve life-threatening mistakes working women make. You will explore each one, so that you won’t have to make, or continue making, these mistakes yourself.

In Part Three you will discover what you actually need for your life as a full-fledged, flourishing human being. This will help you stop wasting time going after things that detract from your life and start going after what actually promotes your happiness and fulfillment.

In Part Four you will discover a healthy Recipe For Living. You will uncover the Recipe For Living you are using right now and learn how to revise it to take full charge of your life. And you will discover the Recipes other people are living by so you can have a better understanding of where the people in your life are coming from.

In Part Five you will see what it’s like to have ALL OF YOU back again, thriving under your own care and soaring on your own dreams. You will see how you can change your life from being scattered in too many directions to being centered on your most important goals. And, perhaps to your surprise, you will discover that being centered on your own goals turns out to be the best way to encourage and inspire others to go after their own goals.

Happy traveling to a magnificent destination: living your life fully, and loving it!

Part One

THE PROBLEM:

Your Goals

– And Your Life –

Are At Stake

Your Greatest Treasure Is Your Own Life

PART ONE – THE PROBLEM:

Your Goals – And Your Life – Are At Stake

Do not be disturbed at being misunderstood. Be disturbed only at not understanding.

This quote from Apples Of Gold, compiled by Jo Petty, warns us against being more concerned with being understood by others than with understanding the world in which we live. Have you ever worn yourself out worrying about what other people think? Do you spend time pondering over how other people see you, rather than trying to understand the best way to live your life? Do you get all wrapped up in trying to win other people’s approval, instead of going after your own goals and striving to make your dreams come true? Why does this happen?

About The Problem

If you felt loved and secure as a child, you probably saw life as a great adventure. You felt wonder, awe and curiosity – and wanted to learn everything you could about yourself and the world. You couldn’t wait to be all grown up and do wonderful things. Full of energy, enthusiasm, and exuberance, there seemed to be no end to the happiness you could achieve.

But along your growing-up journey, you were bombarded with a very different set of messages: messages that made you question your abilities and self-worth, and messages that threatened to crush your dreams and hijack your life. You heard messages that told you to ignore your own mind and go by the say-so of others, messages that told you to turn your back on your dreams and live for others, and messages that said you are depraved by your very nature and that you should spend your life trying to redeem yourself. These messages put you at war with your own self and made you feel that you should apologize for living!

You emerged into adulthood with the shining promise of childhood crashing head-on with the grim duties of adulthood, and you could not help but feel that growing up had come as an enormous let-down. Confronted with this conflict between being good by being true to your goals and your dreams and being good by turning your back on yourself for the sake of others, most of the women I have coached and surveyed placed their goals and their dreams on hold in order to perform the adult duties they felt bound to perform. Many women spent years trying to be good by living for others, ignoring their own hopes and dreams for their lives.

With mixed messages screaming at us from all directions, we each have had to deal with these conflicting views of life and come up with our own answers. What we women fail to realize is that by trying to live by the mixed messages of society, we put our goals – and our very lives – at stake. When one set of messages says to go for your dreams and another set of messages says to sacrifice your dreams for others, what do you do?

The first thing to do is to ask four crucial questions about you and your life to see how seriously your own goals and your own life are being jeopardized. Let’s begin!

QUESTION 1

This Is Your Life...Or Is It?

a question of self-ownership

Torvald (husband): Before all else, you are a wife and a mother.

Nora (wife): I don’t believe that any longer. I believe that before all else I am a reasonable human being, just as you are...

The above husband-wife conversation from Henrik Ibsen’s play, A Doll’s House, illustrates a huge conflict we struggle with even in these modern times: are you, as a woman, defined solely by your role as a wife and mother, and are you duty-bound by society to stick with these two roles? Or are you first and foremost a human being, free to choose whether or not to even become a wife or a mother, and free to choose to become whatever you want to be?

In other words, does your life belong to all the people who are part of society, or does it belong to you? Don’t be ridiculous, you might say. No woman in a free country thinks her life belongs to others! But my life experience, my survey, and my years of coaching tell a different story. Even though our country was built on the sacred right of each person to his or her own life, I found that confusion over whether or not her life belonged to her was the biggest obstacle to a woman going after her own self-chosen goals.

Before writing this book I surveyed dozens of working women to see what got in the way of going after their goals. Some of the women have given me permission to share their revealing stories. I have used fictitious names to protect their privacy; any resemblance to someone you know is purely coincidental.

One of the first working women I surveyed was Susan. Let’s look at this remarkable woman’s struggle with the question of who owns her life.

Susan’s Story: A Life Of Duty

Two days after her wedding Susan knew that she should not have married her husband. She told me that despite her bad choice, "My Southern Baptist upbringing made me feel that it was my duty as a good person and a good wife to stay with my husband."

So Susan resigned herself to staying in her marriage, and she proceeded to make her husband’s wishes her goals. They had two sons and she stayed with her husband for eighteen years, even though he showed no interest in their children and contributed nothing from his own generous paycheck to the household income.

In effect, Susan raised her sons as a single mother. Her husband expected her to work full-time outside the home to pay all the household bills—in addition to raising their children, doing laundry, shopping, cooking, cleaning house, and always being the understanding listener cheering everyone else on with their goals. Susan said she had never felt so alone. She started feeling resentful, invisible, unappreciated and used. She was forever doing for everyone else, and she felt like an unpaid servant. Her resentment turned to anger, and then she felt like a bad wife and mother for being so angry. She turned her anger against herself, experiencing an unrelenting guilt for no longer being able to sacrifice for her family in the right spirit. She found herself constantly apologizing and asking herself, What’s wrong with me?

Gradually, Susan realized how anxious and unhappy she was. She knew deep down that she had betrayed herself by staying in a marriage with an uninterested, non-contributing husband, who was more like a stranger than a soul mate. Her guilt for staying in this kind of marriage started to gnaw away at her, but she was afraid of the guilt she would feel if she left!

As Susan was promoted at work and began to earn more money, her husband’s jealousy made him more demanding and controlling – even violent. Susan finally realized that her life was at stake, and she had to muster the courage to set herself and her children free. With the encouragement of a friend, Susan took the initiative and was able to break away to freedom.

After all her years of living according to the dictates of her parents, her church, her community, and her husband, Susan finally took charge of her own thinking and her own life.

But wait – that’s not all!

Reclaiming Her Life: A New Susan

After her divorce, Susan signed up for a real estate course. Despite failing her first course, she stuck with it, and got so good that within a few years she was building shopping centers!

Meanwhile, Susan had done some thinking about why she’d stayed in a marriage she knew was bad for her. Susan was convinced that the only way men are able to dominate women is because women allow it. Susan said that the reason women allow men to dominate them is that they think they are lesser human beings who are supposed to love, honor and obey their husbands, no matter what.

Susan decided to use her business talents to help other women learn how to honor themselves and break out of this vicious cycle of submissiveness to, and domination by, others. She started building convenience stores all over her state and hired young women literally at the end of their rope: former strippers, prisoners, drug users, abused women and financially-strapped single mothers struggling to make ends meet. Not one of these women had ever heard of a goal.

After training these women, Susan said they had more money than they knew what to do with. Susan obtained cars and insurance for them and went to court to help them collect child support. She taught them manners and how to dress for success. Then she told them, This is my investment in you. Don’t prove me wrong. If you lie or steal, I will work just as hard to put you in prison.

Susan believed in the power of real-life education, and she believed in these young women. She encouraged them, and she had expectations of them. Most importantly, Susan gave these young women a way to succeed.

The Rest of the Story: Susan’s Reward

Susan developed herself into a brilliant, successful businesswoman. She told me that to this day there are people in her life who want the old Susan back. They criticize her for being too strong and too domineering. They tell her she is too ambitious and too independent. But the way Susan sees it, the richer she becomes, the more stores she can open and the more battered women she can transform into self-responsible, successful, happy mature adults. Today Susan has the most loyal, ethical employees you could ever hope to hire.

Susan said that going after her own goals made her feel fully alive and wonderfully rewarded. Besides her business rewards and life-affirming friendships, the new Susan attracted and married a wonderful man who appreciates her talents and has become her greatest cheerleader. Throughout our interview, Susan’s eyes sparkled and she showed all the signs of being an extremely happy woman. Her confident, smiling, cheerful face, together with her energetic enthusiasm for what she has done and for what she still plans to do, was an inspiration to behold.

Did Susan Own Her Life...Or Had She Turned It Over To Others?

Susan started out thinking she had to live by the teachings, preachings, wishes and demands of the other people in her life. She allowed her parents, preacher and husband to set the terms, standards and direction of her life. She treated her life as if it belonged to these other people, and she discovered that a woman could ruin her life when she renounces ownership of it.

When Susan started to think for herself, she discovered that a woman could feel fully alive only when she honored her life as her own. She discovered that she had to take the time to think about what she wanted to do with her life and then actually go about doing it. She also had to revise her ideas about the proper relationship between herself and the other people in her life.

How Do You Treat Your Life?

Do you treat your life as if it belongs to you or to someone else? You can find out by answering the following questions. Just circle the number beside each question that you answer with a yes. Be totally honest with yourself; that’s the only way you can know where you stand right now and where you might want to make improvements for the future.

Do you think that what you value doesn’t count?

Do you put most of your efforts into helping others with their goals?

Do you feel that your goals are a burden or a duty?

Do you habitually put your goals off for another day?

Do you go by what others think?

Are you the supporting actress for someone else’s life, but never the star of your own life?

Do you look to other people to tell you how to direct your life?

Do you look to other people to take care of you?

Are you turning your back on your own fulfillment and joy for the sake of somebody else?

Are you adapting yourself to someone else’s lifestyle?

Do your relationships with other people weigh you down and drain you?

Do you allow other people’s needs to interfere with your getting proper nourishment, exercise and rest?

Are you forcing yourself to do work you don’t like?

Have you settled for living in a less desirable place and climate to accommodate or please someone else?

Do you feel like you have to act in ways that compromise your best self in order to placate or please somebody else?

Do you know what you value?

Based on your values, have you chosen life-promoting goals for yourself?

Are you excited about your goals?

Are you actively going after your goals?

Do you do your own thinking?

Do you love and respect yourself as the heroine of your life?

Do you unapologetically affirm your freedom to direct your own life?

Do you happily shoulder your responsibility for your own life?

Are you pursuing what brings you meaning, excitement, fulfillment and joy?

Are you happy with your lifestyle?

Do your relationships with other people uplift and inspire you?

Do you keep yourself in good health?

Do you enjoy and feel challenged by your work?

Are you happy with where you live?

Can you act in a way that is true to your best self?

If you circled most of the questions numbered 16-30, you are living by the idea that your life belongs to you and you are in charge of your own life. If you circled most of the questions numbered 1-15, you are living by the idea that your life belongs to somebody else and you are not in charge of your own life. If you circled questions from both groups, you are torn between treating your life as your own and treating your life as if it belongs to others. Having this information about yourself is crucial to making a better life for yourself.

Is Your Life YOUR Life?

How about you? Is your life your life?

If your answer is, "I don’t know if this is my life," you might be torn between going after your own goals and living for others. That’s how I felt for the first part of my life, and because of my confusion, I postponed pursuing what meant the most to me. As a result, I lost precious time and had terrible guilt. To keep this from happening to you, you might wish you could clear up your confusion and get on with your life.

If your answer is, "I don’t care if this is my life," you may have given up on yourself and resigned yourself to just living from day to day, giving in to the need or desire of the moment, but dispensing with any personally uplifting goals or dreams. You might wish you knew how to begin loving yourself and having dreams for your life.

If your answer is, "No, my life is not my own," you may think that some other person or cause is more important than your own life. You may have accustomed yourself to turning your back on your own life and substituting someone else’s thinking, values and goals in place of your own. You may feel confusion over what that somebody else wants you to do, or you may feel guilt, restlessness or resentment for putting all your energies into somebody else’s dreams while betraying your own. You might wish you could reclaim your life, but you are afraid of the reaction and criticism of the somebody else you have put above yourself.

If your answer is "Yes! My life is my life," you are already well on your way to going after your goals and making your dreams come true. But others may try to make you feel guilty for caring for yourself. You might wish you could reassure your critics with ease and good will, and eliminate all the undeserved guilt from your goal-striving and your relationships.

Even if your answer is Yes! My life is my life, do you ever feel like you never get around to living it? Do you suffer from To-Do Lists that don’t have any relationship to the things you really want to do? Do you spend most of your time doing things you don’t want to do rather than doing things you do want to do?

Did you ever ask yourself why you don’t do more of what you really enjoy doing? You might think it’s because you just have too much to do. But that’s not the real reason.

Torn Between Two Messages

What causes the gap between what you’re doing now and what you really want to be doing? What is preventing you from going after the kind of life you really want?

Like the woman in the song Torn Between Two Lovers, most of us know how agonizing it can be to choose between two things that seem to be of equal value: we feel paralyzed and unable to make a decision. Just think how much more agonizing it can be to be torn between two different belief systems! Have you ever met a person who was brought up by parents who had completely different sets of beliefs? My college friend, Wanda, told me she was forever trying to blend the beliefs of her parents in order not to offend either one of them. And because the two sets of beliefs didn’t blend well, she felt torn whenever she had to make a decision. She had trouble choosing her friends, her activities and her career. Even now as an adult she agonizes over prioritizing her work, raising her children, and even making shopping decisions.

You might be thinking, I’m glad I didn’t have to grow up with that dilemma! But not so fast! You did grow up with that dilemma. From cradle to grave, our American culture sends out two different messages, and most of us are caught in the middle.

Joan’s Story: Caught Between Two Different Messages

Joan works a full-time job and at the same time is raising three children with her husband. Every day when she comes home from work, she cooks dinner for everyone, cleans up and then helps her children with their homework.

One night when she was finished with her evening routine, Joan wanted to get off to herself and read a book about starting her own business. Before she could open her book, her husband asked her to go look at new cars with him. Inside her head, Joan was screaming, No, no! I need some time for myself! But on the outside, she smiled and said, Okay, Honey.

Do you, like Joan, feel as if the things to do keep pouring in, with no let-up? You might think that is just the way things have to be when you’re a working woman with a family.

But that’s not so.

Let’s look again at Joan. What makes her turn her back on her own goals and keep doing endlessly for others? Joan thinks the reason she has these conflicts is that there isn’t enough time in the day, but we all have the same amount of time in our day. What is Joan’s real problem?

Joan has conflicts because she is torn between two different sets of beliefs that give her conflicting messages about how she should live her life. Here are the two messages Joan is hearing:

Message One: You should be true to yourself and go after your dreams.

Message Two: You should deny yourself and live for others.

Let’s take a closer look at each of these messages:

MESSAGE ONE: You Should Be True To Yourself And Go After Your Dreams

This message is based on the idea that each person has the sacred right to his or her own life, and that each person has the liberty and responsibility to pursue his or her own happiness. Therefore, this is your life: to live, to dare, to do, to accomplish, and to love, and it is moral to strive to live up to your full potential, to go after your dreams, and to live a healthy, fulfilling, joyous life. This gives your life meaning and enables you to love living your life. At the same time, it enables you to enrich and inspire others as they follow their own dreams.

Joan adopts this message because she believes that a good woman is true to her dreams, and she wants to reach her full potential as a healthy, productive human being in order to live a meaningful and fulfilling, happy life.

MESSAGE TWO: You Should Deny Yourself And Live for Others

This message is based on the idea that your life does not belong to you; it belongs to others. Therefore, it is your sacred duty to turn your back on yourself and devote yourself to serving others; to lose yourself by living for some other person, group, or cause that you think is more important than yourself. This gives your life meaning and enables you to feel like a moral person. At the same time, it enables you to inspire others to sacrifice their dreams to a cause they believe is more worthy than themselves.

Joan adopts this message because she believes