Master Your Destiny

Master Your Destiny

by

Ray D. Gragg

Published by Larry D. Braley & Ray D. Gragg at Smashwords

© 2011 Larry D. Braley & Ray D. Gragg

Table of Contents

Preface

1 Permission to be Human

Emotional Maturity

The Freedom of Responsibility

The Power of Responsibility

2 Discovering Your Inner Power

The Power of Emotions

The Power of Choice

3 Why do You Shoot Yourself in the Foot?

How They Develop

What are Self-defeating Behaviors?

Changing Self-defeating Behaviors

4 The Power of Self-esteem

A Self-fulfilling Prophesy

9 Principles

5 Building Healthy Relationships

What Constitutes a Healthy Relationship?

Communication

6 Business – Job or Career?

Purpose, Passion, & Power

Job-Mindedness vs. Career-Mindedness

Defining Success Factors

Creating Raving Fans

Dangers of Burnout

7 Addiction

Why this Chapter?

Understanding Addiction

8 Self-Awareness

Preventive Maintenance (the process)

Define Your Vision

Set Your Goals

Manage Your Time

9 Investing in Yourself

Living with Integrity

CORE Competencies

Clean Out the Crap

10 Tools for Mastering Your Destiny

Conclusion

Many people wander through life lost, never reaching their full potential – oblivious to the miracles surrounding them each moment of every day - to the wonder life offers. Remember when you were a little kid and the world was a wondrous, magical place? Well here’s the biggest secret of all

it still is.

Preface

(What this book is about)

What’s the difference between just existing and a life filled with awe? Simple……YOU!!! What if I told you that you have the power to define your life and direct your destiny? What if I told you that you’ve always had this power, but like most of us – you give it away?

My name is Ray Gragg and I am the author of this book. I’m not famous or important. I don’t have a wall filled with nicely framed certificates, diplomas, or degrees. There has never been an article written about me. In other words, I’m just an average guy.

What I do have is half a century of experience as a loser - an outsider who never really quite fit in - a might-have-been who has failed in one business attempt after another – all in all, a failure at life. There have always been good reasons (or excuses) why things never worked out for me – the economy, business trends, other people, prejudice, etc. If it weren’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have any luck at all.

Regardless of how hard I worked, I was never able to succeed at anything until one day, at the age of fifty; I discover what the real problem was - I discovered that I was my own worst enemy. I learned that the problem wasn’t the economy, fate, or the fact that the world was out to get me - keep me down. The problem was me. Without even realizing it, I was the one who had been systematically sabotaging my own self my whole life.

Life had become a task that had to be gotten through instead of an adventure that gets to be lived. And that’s the day I began changing fifty years of loneliness, fear, disillusionment, failure, blame, and disappointment into a life worth living – a life in which each day is filled with beauty, wonder, majesty, and awe.

This book is about what I have learned and how I put it into practice to change my life. It’s a process of self-discovery, healing, and growth that changed my life and can change the life of any person who believes there’s got to be something better.

Many people go through life wondering, Is this all there is? Some people seem to constantly get frustrated over little things and don’t know why. Others keep shooting themselves in the foot. They get into the same old relationship patterns, lugging their baggage along with them. They hope it’ll be different, but secretly know it’ll turn out the same – and it does.

We have the power to direct our lives and define our destiny, but we give that power away. We give it away to situations, things, and people who didn’t ask for it, don’t necessarily want it, and most of the time, don’t even know they have it. It’s time to reclaim our inherent power and take charge of our lives.

In this book, we’re going to look at why and how we give our God-given power away. We will look at how, when we’re young, we develop beliefs that direct and shape our entire lives. We will look at how we live at the mercy of other people’s thoughts, behaviors, and opinions. We will learn that the only power others have over us is the power we give them. And we will learn how to reclaim this power, allowing us to direct our lives and define our destiny.

Most of us are slaves to our emotions, making us victims of our own making. We will look at our emotions and how we can use them to nurture ourselves. We will learn that by understanding the motivation behind our emotions we can embrace our emotions and use that power in healthy ways.

We will look at self-defeating behaviors; how they develop and the power they have to direct our behavior and define our destiny. We will learn red flags that help us identify when we are headed for trouble. We will learn attitudes that lead to mediocrity and walls that cause us to settle for less. We will learn the symptoms of burnout, how to avoid burnout, and what do when you find yourself on the road to burnout.

We will look at the power of self-esteem to define our lives and our destiny. Self-esteem is so much more than what we think about ourselves. We will learn how self-esteem is a self-fulfilling prophesy, how our self-esteem develops, and how to nurture our self-esteem. We will learn nine principles of self-esteem that will allow us to nurture ourselves and grow as individuals. We will also learn tools to practice that enhance our level of self-esteem.

We will look at relationships, what constitutes a healthy relationship, lies that we believe are love, destructive patterns that keep us committing the same old mistakes, and why we remain in relationships long after they turn toxic.

We will look at communication (the most important tool in any relationship) and learn the different levels of communication, the power of setting and maintaining boundaries to nurture our relationships, and the dos and don’ts of communication. We will how to read body language to better help us understand what others are trying to convey. We will also learn how to tell when someone is lying to us, allowing us protect ourselves from unhealthy people.

We will look at the power if self-esteem in business, how to define your purpose, how to inspire passion, and the power which results.

We will look at how addiction affects our lives. Addiction isn’t merely drugs or alcohol related. Addiction is a pathological relationship to any mood altering experience. Many of us suffer from addictive behaviors that keep us held down and limit our potential.

And finally, we will look at the power self-awareness has to help us discover the most wondrous creation of all…ourselves. We will learn the process of self-monitoring. We will learn how to conduct physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual preventive maintenance. And we will learn the power that comes from investing in ourselves.

In reading this book, it’s important to keep an open mind. You will be asked to wrap your brain around what may be new and unusual concepts for you. All I ask is that you consider what you read and then take what you can use (what makes sense to you) and discard the rest.

After all, this is your journey.

Chapter 1

Permission to be Human

Who am I?

Where am I?

Where Do I Want to GO?

Emotional Maturity

Emotional maturity seems to be elusive to most people. Physical, intellectual, and mental maturity are often developed through study and life experience – not necessarily so with emotional maturity.

Head (think) knowledge (Logistical)

vs.

Heart (believe) knowledge (Transformative)

Head Knowledge and Heart Knowledge are two separate levels of awareness. It’s a given that nearly everyone hired in a business who presents a resume and successfully completes an interview process will possess Head Knowledge. Our whole school system is designed to give a person sufficient Head Knowledge to lead a productive life.

Unfortunately, it’s much more difficult to discern if a person has Heart Knowledge. There are no diplomas, degrees, or certifications verifying emotional maturity and yet common sense, wisdom, belief, and understanding are the four most effective attributes to have when dealing with people. Anyone can learn how to crunch numbers, but people are not numbers – they don’t like to be crunched.

Because life gives us lessons (which will be repeated until the lesson is learned) most of us don’t develop emotional maturity until later in life – if we develop it at all. One Basic Law of Life is:

(concept)

People will only change

when it becomes too painful not too

Our resistance to change, or rather our fear of it, is why it is so difficult to accept and learn from our life lessons. It’s not until a person gets sick and tired of doing the same thing over and over and getting the same old painful results each time that they finally surrender to change.

But what if we learned to embraced change instead of fight it? After all, change is the only thing constant in the universe. What if we could view change as an adventure instead of a threat? Embracing change before it becomes too painful not to would save us from experiencing a lot of pain in our lives.

Who am I?

Living with Purpose is the process of discovering who you are. Self-awareness is a journey and it’s the journey itself that is important – not the destination. Do you know who you are? Or do you just guess? Or do you just think you are who you would like to be? Do you play the parts the people around you want you to play?

When it gets right down to it, most people have no clue who they really are. Busy with the process of life, they miss life’s meaning. Pleasing your spouse, keeping the boss off your back, tolerating the neighbors, satisfying your in-laws, impressing your friends, and evading the taxman becomes a full-time job. We give in a little here, take a little abuse there, bite our lip, force a smile, then we let this slide and that slide all in an effort to keep the boat from rocking. Before we know it, we find ourselves exhausted and spinning in circles.

We find ourselves playing many parts and doing many dances, playing the good spouse supporting our mate, the good parent ever involved at Little League and the dance recital, the good grandchild visiting the rest home, or the good citizen volunteering in the community. Then one day we wake up and...

"No man, for any considerable period of time, can wear

one face to himself and another to the multitude without

finally getting bewildered as to which may be the truth."

Nathaniel Hawthorne

wonder who we are and if this is all there is. Most of us, at one time or another, had hopes and dreams – big plans for someday. Some of us have lost our hopes and our dreams. Others may still hold onto them but continue to bide their time waiting for someday. Well understand this: there are two days in particular which never have been and never will be on a calendar – Yesterday and Someday.

Who are You?

Well, I’m an account executive, a Little League coach, an usher at church, and a chairperson on the Community Support League.

No, that is ‘what’ you are. ‘Who’ are you?

Well, I’m a husband, a father, a son, a brother, and a friend.

No, those are ‘how’ you are. Who are you?

Well, I’m a veteran, a college graduate, the CIF high jump record holder, and a bone marrow donor.

No, that is ‘when’ you are. Who are you?

Please understand that self-discovery is a process, not an event. It’s a life-long quest in which the journey is what’s important, not the destination. And the most wondrous aspect of this journey is that we are ever evolving, ever-growing if we allow ourselves to evolve – to grow. It’s the willingness to look at oneself (warts and all) and accept the miraculous, unique creation which is you which propels this process.

My life does not belong to others and I am not here on earth to live up to someone else's expectations. I can reclaim power over my life by celebrating my differences. Everybody’s human – nobody’s perfect. Everyone has flaws.

Everybody’s Human

About to present one of my first workshops, I was washing my hands in the restroom and trying to calm my jitters, when in walked the keynote speaker of the weekend seminar. This gentleman was one of the most famous and important speakers in the business. He had the uncanny ability to hold an audience of thousands in the palm of his hand. When he was on stage, you could hear a pin drop. I had always admired his talents and looked up to him, though we had never met. Introducing myself, I began telling him how much I enjoyed his work, but he seemed to ignore me. I felt offended. Washing his hands, he looked up into the mirror and began to breathe heavily.

Suddenly, he turned to me and said, I’m sorry. Please forgive me but I’m about to go on and I’m terrified.

You, terrified? I stammered.

Of course, he replied. I always get terrified right before I go on. I never know if they’ll like me. Once I go on everything’s fine, but beforehand I’m a wreck.

It suddenly occurred to me that he was human. I had put him on a pedestal, on a higher plain than the rest of us mere mortals and I asked myself why. I shared with him my fear about going on and we both laughed. Then I realized I was no longer afraid.

I thanked him for sharing that with me and for giving me permission to be human.

Everyone has character defects that they deny and try to hide from others and from themselves. But when I can accept that everyone has flaws and that it’s just a part of being human, I can acknowledge, accept, and start working on my flaws and stop beating myself up for not being perfect.

At the same time, it’s important I also nurture my attributes and talents – those good qualities I possess. By celebrating my differences, I begin the process of discovering the real me. As I work to change or heal my flaws, I learn more and more about me. I grow to a place where what I think of me becomes far more important than what others think of me. I capitalize on my talents and ask for help with my weaknesses.

In other words, I need to get out of my own way.

The damaging effect of negative self-talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, keeping us in self-defeating behavioral patterns.

Negative Self-talk: I just got the greatest sale of my life, but will I ever get another sale like this one? I’ll never be able to top this?

Positive Self-talk: I just got the greatest sale of my life, and if I can do that then I can do anything.

Where am I?

Once I begin the discovery process of who I am and begin celebrating my differences, my uniqueness, I need to make a daily effort to be me on purpose (no more playing parts or dancing for others).

If I had an orange and squeezed it as hard as I could, motor oil is not coming out. Apple juice is not coming out. The only thing that’s coming out is orange juice, because that’s all that’s inside. If I’m full of negativity, anger, self-doubt, resentment, and self-pity that’s all that can come out and we radiate that. But if I’m full of love, benevolence, compassion, and understanding, that what comes out – we radiate that as well.

Contrary to the laws of physics, when it comes to people likes attack – not opposites. If I am a positive, glass is half full type of person, I will attract and be attracted to, positive, glass is half full people. Why would I want to be around people who will bring me down? I find them depressing and frustrating, and can’t wait to get away. I feel as though the life is being sucked right out of me.

If I am a negative, whining, glass is half empty person, I will attract and be attracted to, negative, whining, glass is half empty people. If I have low self-esteem I want to be around others who can understand and sympathize. Why would I want to be around some perky, energetic, cheerleader-type who sees all the possibilities in the world and can’t wait to attack life? (too much work!) I will find myself resentful and angry toward those who are successful and happy.

The glass is half-empty / the glass is half-full – which is right? The reality is that they are both right. But you will lead two completely different lives depending on which perspective you take.

I must also begin Living in the Present. I need to get out of the past and stay out of the future. It’s all right to remember the past, but not to Be in the past. And it’s all right to plan for the future, but not to Be in the future. By living in the present, I am able to identify problems and solutions and to do the necessary footwork to affect change in my environment.

In effect, I begin to choose to direct my own destiny. I look at my flaws, my character defects, and decide to work on healing those things I don’t like. If my behavior is self-defeating, I need to address it; if my thinking is distorted, I need to change it; if my perception of reality is skewed, then I need to adjust it.

Self-defeating behaviors cause us to sabotage the one experience we want the most because on some deeper level we believe we don’t deserve it.

By becoming willing to do the work to change my self-defeating behaviors and my cognitive distortions, I become willing to acknowledge and break the cycle of victimhood which deprives me of the blessing of choice. By taking responsibility for my life and my healing, I gain the freedom to affect my life and my environment. In essence, I give myself permission to be master of my own destiny.

(Responsibility equals Freedom which equals Power)

I now choose what principles I want to live by, what values and beliefs are healthy for me, and what dreams I want to pursue. My life is no longer dictated by the whim of opinions and beliefs of others. I no longer give situations the power to control me. I understand that the only one who can heal me is me. And I understand that only I can give me the life I want – the life I deserve.

This is not a one-time fix, but a lifetime of learning. People who commit to this system get results, results in both their personal and professional lives.

Freedom of Responsibility

There is a blessed freedom that comes with talking responsibility for your life. When I understand that the only power I really have is over the choices I make, I begin to accept the consequences (both positive and negative) and begin to monitor my choices. When I realize that the only thing I really have any control over is my attitude, I begin to monitor that as well.

I begin to realize that the only person that can make me have a good day or a bad day – is me.

(concept)

All anyone really has power over are the choices they make.

All anyone really has any control over is their attitude.

When I accept responsibility for the choices I make and I attitude I maintain, I can get down to taking care of business. I don’t waste time arguing or debating who did or didn’t do what. I don’t waste time assigning blame for a situation. I can get down to the business of identifying and understanding the problem, finding a solution, and becoming proactive.

Identify the problem.

Understand the problem.

Find a solution:

What worked? Why did it work?

What didn’t work? Why didn’t it work?

How can I change what didn’t work to make it work?

Get proactive.

The Power of Responsibility

When I exercise responsibility over my life – my actions, my choices, my opinions, my goals, my attitude, and my principles, I gain a blessed freedom to direct my life. I decide where I want to go, what I want to do, and how I want to do it. I accept my bricks and refuse to pick up any more.

By accepting responsibility, I answer to myself instead of someone else. If I choose, I can work on throwing away my bricks and healing my pain.