Table of
Contents
Secrets
You Keep From Yourself
How to Stop Sabotaging Your Happiness
Introduction: Do You Stop Yourself Short of Happiness and Fulfillment?
PART ONE: The Secrets We Keep
Chapter One: Who Are You When You’re Not Being Yourself?
How self-deception works
Everybody keeps secrets
Self-deception takes many forms
Unnecessary complication
Creating "Wake-up" calls
If you’d like to go deeper: Identifying your customary
approaches to challenges
Chapter Two: A Litmus Test For Self-Sabotage
Misleading
Distracting
Overreacting
Abandoning
Self-awareness tool #1: When in doubt, apply the litmus test
Chapter Three: Why We Get In Our
Own Way
Misguided loss-avoidance
Self-awareness tool #2: Look for the loss
The benefits of self-sabotage
Chapter Four: Your Subterranean Accountant
Fuzzy math
Black-market economics
Recalculating your Subterranean Accountant’s math
PART TWO:
How to Recognize the Early-Warning Signs of Self-Sabotage
Chapter Five: Taming the Beasts Within
Self-awareness tool #3: Observe your animal nature
Chapter Six: Caught With Your Hand In the Cookie Jar
Chapter Seven: Your Usual Suspects
If you’d like to go deeper: Rounding up your usual suspects
Chapter Eight: Your Inner "Cast of Characters"
Moviemaker
Indulger
Persuader
Dr. No
Mini-Me
Captain Superior
Escape Artist
King Kong
Dramateer
Managing your inner characters
If you’d like to go deeper: Detecting your inner characters
A word about destructive patterns
PART THREE: How to Minimize Your Unnecessary Losses
Chapter Nine: The Facts of Life
Existential dilemmas
Self-handicapping
fight-or-flight reactions
Increased stress and
health problems
Difficulty coping
with limitations
An emotional roller
coaster of expectation and disappointment
Trouble balancing
others’ needs with your own
Self-awareness tool
#4: Take stock of your roots in infancy
Denial of your
mortality
The facts of life,
revisited
Chapter
Ten: Your Personal "Defense Department"
Challenging your
denial
Dissolving your
denial
If you’d like to go
deeper: Unmasking denial
Chapter
Eleven: The Truth About Fear
Fear is a mental
movie that gets stuck at the worst part
Fear highlights
worst-case scenarios without regard to their likelihood
Mind FITs
Exploiting fear’s
weak spots
Chapter
Twelve: Going To the Heart of Your Fears
Why identifying core
fears is helpful
Tracking your fears
Naming your fears
How core fears
translate into action
Chapter
Thirteen: Taking Control of Your Fears
Core fears are
perceived deficits
If you’d like to go
deeper: Identifying the heart of your fears
Chapter
Fourteen: Tools For Fear-Busting
Ten fear-busting techniques
Fear vs. courage
PART
FOUR: Unearthing the Treasures You Keep From Yourself
Chapter
Fifteen: Moving From Fear To Desire
Self-awareness tool
#5: Reclaim overlooked, abandoned, or forgotten desires
Core desires
Promoting your core
desires
Embracing the
profound within you
If you’d like to go
deeper: Clarifying your desires
Chapter
Sixteen: Emerging From the Shadows: A Portrait of Your Hidden Self
Cultivating paradox
Knowing who you are
Crafting a life
Your hidden self
If you’d like to go
deeper: Painting a portrait of your hidden self
Building an accurate
self-image
If you’d like to go
deeper: Acknowledging your accomplishments
Chapter
Seventeen: What Matters and What Doesn’t
Life is an open-book
exam
Chapter
Eighteen: Decoding the Languages of Your Mind, Body, and Heart
What happens when
your mind, body, and heart work at cross purposes
Recognizing when
you’re living out of balance
Self-awareness tool
#6: Check in with your 'Children'
Clarifying confusing
situations and generating effective responses
Achieving optimal
well being
If you’d like to go
deeper: Learning the languages of your mind, body, and heart
PART
FIVE: Triumphing Over Challenges and Adversity
Chapter
Nineteen: What To Do When You’re Stuck
Be specific
Be precise
Be honest
Be thorough
Be concrete
Be complete
Be introspective
Audrey: 'I get distracted so easily'
Harold: 'When someone close to me gets upsets, I feel as if I
have to fix it'
Angelica: I'm not happy even though I've achieved much of
what I wanted'
A reminder about problem solving
Chapter
Twenty: Creating Wake-Up Calls By Design
Wake-Up Call Generator
Part 1: Recognize signs of self-sabotage
Part 2: Cut challenges down to size
Part 3: Increase your motivation and enhance your sense of
self
Pam: ‘Whose dream is
it, anyway?’
Carlyle and Roger:
‘How can we recapture the closeness?’
Dianne: ‘My kids
think I’m Supermom’
Greta: ‘Even though I
was the one rejected, I feel as though it was my fault’
Aaron: ‘I can’t seem
to handle my finances’
A final task: Making
peace with your self-defeats
Conclusion: Living From Your Best Self
The Goliath Principle
Don’t take it
personally
Live beyond
comparison
Listen deeply
Live as though you
make a difference
Live as you breathe
Practice gratitude
If you’d like to go
deeper: Living from your best self starting today
