Why You Need This Book

This book enables you to accept your shortcomings and value your talents and gifts. It also explains why the lifestyle you developed as a child determines your degree of success or failure and how, regardless of the past, you can develop a healthy lifestyle today.

Part I: Starting Out on the Wrong Foot

Why Can’t I Measure Up?

You’re bound to know the feeling. Maybe it only comes around at family reunions, when you see a certain sibling or cousin again. There he or she is – tan, handsome, athletic – and a tremendous success in the world of business.

Most of the time you’re pretty self-confident. You’re doing okay in the world, and your friends seem to like and respect you. But then, there he or she is – and all of a sudden you feel like you’re six years old again, with torn pants and a dirty face. You suddenly realize that whatever you’ve done with your life, it hasn’t been enough. No matter how much you know, it isn’t as much as he or she knows.

Do you consider yourself to be a failure?

Well, you’re wrong, and hopefully by the time you finish reading this book you will come to see how you fell into the “i-just-can’t-measure-up” trap, and more importantly, what you can do to find your way out of it. Because you can be set free from the cycle of rejection and failure.

And it’s about time you had the joy of discovering the truth about yourself – that you have everything you need to come out a winner in this game called life!

What’s This Thing Called Life-Style?

When considering why someone never seems to measure up, it’s important to take a look at the factors that enter into the makeup of his life-style. Many people, for various reasons, are following life-styles that are bound up in cycles of rejection and failure. Once that is understood, the next step is to realize that life patterns can be changed, and that new, constructive attitudes and actions can be put in place of the old.

The things that happen to us very early in life will shape the way we live out the rest of our years. Even if they live to be 120, most people will be following the life-style that was built into them by the time they were four or five years old.

The important thing is to understand that your life-style is a major reason for the things you do and the things that seem to “happen” to you. The life-style in and of itself is neither negative or positive. It just is.

But if your life is a continuing cycle of frustration and rejection, your life-style is in need of repair. And it can be repaired. Or if you’re a parent of young children, you need to know how to help them develop a healthy life-style.

Too many people are living in a nightmare, when life was meant to be a dream!

How the Pattern Begins: The Early Years

What comes to your mind when you think about your childhood? Happy hours, playing games with your friends, a house full of warmth and laughter? Or do visions of failures come to mind?

How you deal with your child’s hurts and failures has a great bearing on whether or not he will become a discouraged and defeated adult. Here’s how to go about it:

1. Listen – to what your child is saying, and more importantly, what he is feeling.
2. Respond to your child’s feelings. Let him know you’ve heard him and you understand why he feels the way he does.
3. Touch. Never be afraid to reach out and touch your child. Touching is an important way to communicate your love and care for him.
4. Always look for alternatives. Ask him if there is anything else he would like to do. If not, suggest a few things.
5. Give your child a choice. After examining all the alternatives, let him make the choice as to what he wants to do.
6. Never accept excuses. If you do that, you’re encouraging your child to keep the blame fixed on someone else.
7. See your child’s mistakes not as defeats or frustrations but as building blocks.
8. Encourage commitment. Don’t take your child’s problems upon your shoulders and solve them for him.
9. Be ready to evaluate the problem. Always be ready to give your support and encouragement.