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If you suspect there could be more to life than what you're getting...if you always knew you could do anything if you only knew what it was, this extraordinary book is about to prove you right!
A life without direction is a life without passion. The dynamic follow-up to the phenomenal best-seller Wishcraft, I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was (the New York Times Bestseller) guides you, not to another unsatisfying job, but to a richly rewarding career rooted in your heart's desire. And in a work of true emancipation, this life-changing sourcebook reveals how you can recapture "long lost" goals, overcome the blocks that inhibit your success, decide what you want to be, and live your dreams forever!
You will learn:
* What to do if you never chose to be what you are.
* How to get off the fast track—and on to the right track.
* First aid techniques for paralyzing chronic negativity.
* How to regroup when you've lost your big dream.
* To stop waiting for luck—and start creating it.
Based on the principle that love is what we do best, the bestselling author of Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want offers expert, reassuring, concrete advice on getting to the heart of what we really want in life and dissolving the inner blocks that prevent us from achieving it.
This book is designed to help you find the good life. By that, I don't mean swimming pools, mansions, and private jets — unless those are really your big passions. But if you picked up a book called I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was, you're probably looking for a lot more than a swimming pool.
You want a life you will love.
A friend's father got it right when he said "The good life is when you get up in the morning and can't wait to start all over again."
Is that you? Or does his idea of the good life sound like an unreachable paradise? If you aren't the kind of person who jumps out of bed every morning excited about the day ahead, I know you desperately long to find a goal that will make you feel like my friend's father. You crave work that will spark excitement and energy; you yearn to find the place where you can make your mark. Albert Schweitzer found his place, so did Golda Meir, and so did the kid next door who practiced guitar day and night. They knew how to live. They believed in what they were doing with all their hearts. They knew their work was important. When you get near people who are pursuing their heart's desire, you can see the intensity on their faces.
Life is just too short to live without that kind of focus.
In the early 1980s, two Harvard psychologists completed a study of people who called themselves happy. And what did happy people have in common? Money? Success? Health? Love?
None of these things.
They had only two things in common: They knew exactly what they wanted and they felt they were moving toward getting it.
That's what makes life feel good: when it has direction, when you are headed straight for what you love.
And I mean love.
I don't mean what you're skilled at. I don't really care what your skills are. When I was a single working mother with two babies, you know what my skills were? I could clean house like a demon; catch a moving bus with my arms full of laundry, groceries, and kids; and squeeze a dollar until the picture of George Washington screamed for mercy.
I do not want the career that uses those skills, thank you.
I don't believe you live the good life by doing what you can do; you live it by doing what you want to do. I don't even think your greatest talents necessarily show up in your skills. All of us are good at things we're not madly in love with. And all of us have talents we've never used.
Relying on your skills to guide you is simply unacceptable. That's why I don't intend to give you personality tests or skills assessments to find out what you should be doing.
I know what you should be doing.
You should be doing what you love.
What you love is what you are gifted at. Only love will give you the drive to stick to something until you develop your gift. That's the way really big things get accomplished in this world — by people no different than you and I who know what they want and put everything they've got behind it.
If you don't know what you want, you can't get out of the starting gate — and that's discouraging. But you're not alone. Recent figures show that as many as 98 percent of Americans are unhappy in their jobs. And it isn't only financial considerations that keep them where they are; they simply don't know what to do instead. What you may have thought was your private little nightmare turns out to be heartbreakingly common.
Well, I have a surprise for you.
You do know what you want.
Everybody does. That's why you feel so restless when you can't find the right track. You sense there's some particular work you are meant to be doing. And you're right. Einstein needed to formulate theories of physics, Harriet Tubman needed to guide people to freedom, and you need to follow your original vision. As Vartan Gregorian said, "The universe is not going to see someone like you again in the entire history of creation." Each of us is one of a kind. Every living person has a completely original way of looking at the world, and originality always needs to express itself.
But many of us get stopped. Every time we resolve to change our lives, every time we go to pick up the baton and get into the race, something happens. For some mysterious reason our determination melts. We look at the baton and think "This race isn't it." And we put down the baton, uneasy because time is slipping away, frightened that we'll never find "it."
There are two reasons for this.
One reason it's so hard to know what we want is that we have so many options. This wasn't always true. Our parents and their parents had fewer choices and clearer goals. It's a tribute to the success of our culture that so many of us have the freedom to search for our own life's work.
Freedom is glorious. But freedom also torments us because it requires us to create our own goals.
Did you know that fewer people get depressed during war than in peacetime? In a war, everything is important. Day to day, you know exactly what to do. Your life may be frightening, but the struggle to survive gives you direction and drive. You don't waste any time trying to figure out what you're worth or what you're supposed to do with your life. You just try to keep alive, save your home, help your neighbors. The reason we love to watch films about people whose lives are in danger is because every move is loaded with meaning.
When there's no emergency to rise to, we have to create goals that have meaning. You can create such goals if you know what your dream is — but this is a relatively new way of living. The old way to live was to let necessity create your goal; the new way is to use your dream to create your goal. We have had very little practice at this new way.
The second reason you don't know what you want is that something inside you is stopping you from knowing. Your dreams are obscured by some kind of internal conflict. It's not as easy as you might think to spot inner conflicts. Often they're disguised as self-reproach. "Maybe I have no talent," "Maybe I'm just lazy," "If I were smarter I'd have done more with my life."
If there's one thing I want you to get out of reading this book it's to know that not one of those statements is true.
The first goal of this book is to shine a spotlight on your particular inner conflict so you can see it clearly outlined. As soon as you see what's been in your way, you'll know exactly why you haven't created the life you wanted. You'll quit reproaching yourself. You'll understand that you've been unable to get moving for a reason.
Our culture is full of simpleminded myths of blame, such as "If you really wanted something badly enough, you'd go out and get it," and "If you're sabotaging yourself, you lack character." Nobody ever asks the obvious question: "Why would anybody want to do himself harm by sabotaging himself?" It takes curiosity to find the answer to that question, and judgmental people always lack curiosity.
In the following chapters we're going to stop all this blaming and swap it for honest, nonjudgmental curiosity. I have the deepest respect for sincere curiosity — and very little respect for self-righteousness. The useful answers, the answers that help us solve problems, are always the more forgiving ones. They're based on a line of inquiry that assumes there is always a good reason for everything. There is certainly a good reason you lost direction, and this book is going to help you find it.
Until then, just remember, whatever you were doing until you picked up this book, you were not being lazy or stupid or cowardly. Even self-improvement programs, no matter how helpful, are often judgmental. They are often based on the assumption that you don't have what you want because you haven't developed the right way of thinking. They assume you've got to get fixed before you can get what you want.
Well, forget that.
You don't have to become a better person or develop a different attitude to have a life you love. As you are, you are good enough. In fact, the smartest thing you can do is to go ahead and get what you want before you do anything to improve yourself. Getting your life on track will do wonders for your "bad" attitude.
I have no intention of suckering you into some program that tells you to stand up straight and be a different person. Life just isn't that simple, and wishful thinking won't make it so. I don't think people solve problems with positive thinking either. Propping up your thoughts, pretending to feel different than you really do, is not a sturdy enough system for the long haul. Creative visualization has its limitations too. I've met a lot of people who can't visualize, and others who feel strongly conflicted even imagining what they love. And "create your own reality" sounds empowering, but its flip side is that you can end up blaming yourself for everything that goes wrong. That's not fair. You're not big enough to take on fate single-handedly, and you don't need to.
What you do need is to understand why you don't know what you want. Once you begin to understand the perfectly good explanation for your confusion, you will finally be able to do something about it.
The second goal of this book is to show you how to do something about it. I've put tools and strategies in each chapter to help you extricate yourself from your internal conflicts every time you need to—now and in the future.
The first three chapters of this book are for every reader. They're the chapters that shine a light on your conflict and illuminate its contours for you. Once you see the general shape of your problem, you'll be able to flip to a chapter in the book that will give you strategies for doingwhatever you've got to do to get past your particular kind of conflict.
It's not hard to learn what your inner conflict is about, because once you learn to listen for it, you'll notice inner conflicts make a lot of racket. One side of the conflict is arguing in favor of your getting what you want, and the other side is determined to stop you. All you have to do is listen carefully to the louder voice: It will lead you straight to the strategies that can help you.
Does your voice say something like "I'd have to quit my job to get what I really want and I can't do that — I'd starve"? If so, you'll want to read Chapter 4, "The Sure Thing," where you'll learn about the great risk you take when you avoid adventure.
Does your voice say "Every time I try to go after what I want, I drop the ball and I don't know why"? Then try Chapter 5, "Fear of Success: Leaving the Ones You Love Behind."
If your voice says "I want to do so many things, I'll never be able to pick only one,"Chapter 6 will show you how to have it all. (It will also show you how to focus on just one thing, if that's what you secretly wish you could do.)
Now, what if you're doing wonderfully in other people's eyes, you've got a skyrocketing career on your hands, but you're not happy? Is your voice saying "How can I walk away from success? And what will I live on if I do"? Take a new look at your options. Turn to Chapter 7, "On the Wrong Track, and Moving Fast."
When you think you know what you want, but your voice says "I want something I shouldn't want — it's trivial or unworthy," that's Chapter 8. You might have a "tribal problem" with your family, friends, or culture: you want something that puts you in conflict with everything you were taught.
If you've just finished high school or college or a training program and your voice says "I'm afraid to choose something. I might get trapped!" then pick up Chapter 9, "Help! I'm Not Ready to Be Born Yet." It'll show you how to avoid being trapped and start living.
Chapter 10, "Regrouping: It's a Whole New Ball Game," will help if you've just been through a big change — if you've just retired or if the kids have just grown up and left home — in which case you probably hear a voice saying, "I don't have Idea One what to do now."
If your voice says "What's the point? I'll only be disappointed. Nothing will ever match what I already had and lost," turn to Chapter 11, "I've Lost My Big Dream — There's Nothing Left." You'll discover that life is still worth living.
If you hear your voice saying "I've tried so many things and nothing does it for me," then look at Chapter 12, "Nothing Ever Interests Me." You've probably got a case of disabled desire.
If your voice says "It's not my fault I'm not doing what I want — the world won't give me a break!" you need to look at Chapter 13, "A Rage Against the Ordinary." And if you hear a voice saying "I'm trying to go after something, but my heart's not really in it, and I don't know why," your situation is not as big a mystery as you may think. Look at Chapter 14, "The Red Herring, or Trying Hard to Love Something You Don't Really Want." You might discover you really want something you're trying to give up.
If you can't hear any voice from your conflict now, don't let it worry you. You'll hear it by the end of Chapter 3. I guarantee it.
CAREERS IN THE NINETIES Once you begin to find your own path, you will have positioned yourself at the forefront of a massive historical change. In late twentieth-century industrial society, just about everybody — like it or not — is going to have to figure out what kind of work and life he really wants. Sooner or later everybody across every age group is going to have to ask "What do I want to do?"
The days are over when students took the path of least resistance to a banking career, say, or to law school and considered that one choice the end of their career planning. Last year's college graduates, according to one research firm, can expect to hold ten to twelve jobs in three to five different fields during their working lifetime. Like it or not, everybody's getting a second work life. Probably, a third life. Perhaps even more.
Corporations are continuing to downsize, and not only because of recent recessions: We're entering a new period in economic history. Global competition is forcing companies to make themselves lean and mean. Corporations are becoming about a third the size they once were, and they'll probably never get big again. Middle management is gone. Secretaries are being replaced by technology. The top twenty students from every college or business school may still get good job offers, but everyone else is on their own.
The wave of the future is clear: We're going to be a nation of experts — consultants and entrepreneurs — many of us working at home, all of us hired on a job-by-job basis according to our special talents.
And who's going to come shining through these cultural changes? Everyone who is willing to develop what he loves into a niche for himself — a niche where he can excel. Never have we needed to locate our own gifts more.
So let's get going. Let's see why you don't know what you want. And then, let's do something about it.
Anonymous
Posted February 12, 2003
There are many books about how to know what you want or how to find your purpose but this one offers a workbook format that asks questions and then gives solid examples and information in each of the topic areas. You journey through this book feeling good about the process instead of feeling like you are entering mission impossible. There is something for everyone in this well thought out guide to one of our most difficult questions....what do I really want? If you are seeking answers and meaning that come from within, then I Could Do Anything is definitely for you.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 11, 1999
I picked up this book on curiosity, and it has changed my life. Part of the premise is that we all have a dream: some great talent with a deep, personal desire to fuel it towards success. Sher's philosophy is that we can find our talent, and by using it, we will find more success and happiness than we thought possible. I have used the techniques within this book and have learned remarkable things about the talents hidden within myself-- but just as importantly, I have used this book as a learning tool to help friends also see what disabling techniques they also use to sabotage their success, and how to overcome those mind sets. This is a perfect gift for any age, for someone who is graduating from college, high school, or even graduating from a first or second career. Anyone who is searching for their dream job and doesn't yet know what it is: This book is written for you! When you find success because you are so passionate about your dream, you will be thrilled you put the techniques in this book into practice in your life.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted July 6, 2006
There are perspectives in this book I never would have thought of. After helping the reader define his/her dream job, the book takes a very wide look at numerous possibilities of why the reader hasn't achieved that dream job. It is very interesting and quite thought-provoking. Sometimes the emotions are difficult, but with relief following soon thereafter. The book does not address the impact that changing careers could have on immediate family. The focal point for me on this topic is already living on meager means and changing careers to a dream job that pays 1/3 of what I'm making. When both jobs/careers require a full work week I'm still not sure how to get to that dream job. Otherwise, it is a good book and I do recommend it. Most people probably fit the numerous profiles addressed in the book and would benefit from reading it.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted August 16, 2003
Heard a comedian once say the reason adults keep asking children what they want to be when they grow up is because we're looking for ideas. I bought this book years ago and didn't crack the spine. It sat on my shelf. The one day I found myself opening it and devouring every word. What is it they say? When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Write another one soon Ms. Sher!!!
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted June 7, 2003
This book is nicely written, full of helpful and insightful exercises. It mainly focuses on resistance, why you are not getting anywhere or why you can¿t stick with things or why you are unsatisfied. There is a scenario for everyone, from the seemingly successful individual to the average person. The author is very loving and caring. She makes it very safe for us to 'explore' what we really want, but mostly how come we don't have it yet, even if we don't really know what it is. I have been able to discover the underlying resistances (and yes, I have quite a few!) that have been plaguing my life, preventing me from living to my full potential, and to understand the motivation/behavior behind my major life decisions. By understanding how I behave, it will be a lot easier to stick with the things I discovered I liked. However, even though I now have a very good understanding of how my patterns of resistance work, I am still unclear about what I want to do exactly. Lots of items on my list, but somehow, couldn't make them come together under one major theme. No, Aha! for me yet when it comes to finding true meaningful work or a new and exciting career. But at least now, I have elements to point me in the right direction and mostly when I do find my niche, chances are excellent that I will not sabotage myself. That alone is well worth the price of this book!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted February 4, 2012
This book was asome.
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Posted August 4, 2010
This book is a must read for anyone truly ready to discover, or rediscover themselves. True, self analyzation, and confronting old belief patterns can be difficult and emotional. But the result is growth and a new understanging of yourself, family, friends and personal history.
The book brings to light that a new path can be formed, without having to suddenly give up the security of a current path.
As for me, the book helped me increase my belief in myself and my abilities, and confront and resolve negative (often unrealistic) fears.
I followed my dream and now use my "safe" day job to fund my growing retail business.
I've purchased this book for several friends, and I know when the time is right for them (when they really have the pull to move forward), they will find it as inspiring as I did.
Anonymous
Posted June 6, 2007
This book is especially designed to get you off dead center.
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Posted September 4, 2004
This book was helpful in defining goals and figuring out what to do with your life. The writing was very personal and had a one-on-one conversational tone to it. Very good and highly recommended.
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Overview
If you suspect there could be more to life than what you're getting...if you always knew you could do anything if you only knew what it was, this extraordinary book is about to prove you right!
A life without direction is a life without passion. The dynamic follow-up to the phenomenal best-seller Wishcraft, I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was (the New York Times Bestseller) guides you, not to another unsatisfying job, but to a richly rewarding career rooted...