Get Out of Your Own Way: by Mark Goulston & Philip Goldberg
Overcoming self-defeating behavior
From the cover:
Practical, proven self help steps that show how to transform 40 common self-defeating behaviors, including procrastination, envy, obsession, anger, self-pity, compulsion, neediness, guilt, rebellion, inaction, and more.
Why should you read this book?
All of us struggle with self-defeating behavior. Get Out of Your Own Way is a helpful guide with quick lessons on overcoming these behaviors to help us improve our lives. Whether in our personal relationships, or a struggle with our parents, or overcoming self-doubt, this book covers it all.
A few lessons from the book:
Conflict with a parent: The key to breaking the family cycle is to act as your parent’s parent. Give your parents what they never got. By tapping into their hidden yearning, you might just free them to give you what you need.
Involved with the wrong people: One way to avoid this is to identify the core of their personality. Be wary of those who have a core of hate or a core of hurt.
We often procrastinate because of self-doubt, fear of failure, being unready, but mostly because we’re doing it alone. The key to overcoming loneliness-based procrastination is to enlist the support of other people; a friend or a partner. It can even be someone we imagine.
Expecting others to understand how we feel: Sometimes we struggle to comprehend each other. This can be hard when we need someone to understand what we’re going through. The key is empathy. To get them to understand, get them to feel what you’re feeling. Do this through analogies. Be patient, kind, and ask what they feel from the simulated situation.
Playing it safe, afraid of risk: Don’t look where you are going, go where you are looking. Close your eyes and get in touch with your inner vision. Start going where it leads you.
Trying to make up while you’re still angry: Hatred keeps us on guard. We’re defensive. So it’s futile to try and make up while you’re still angry inside. Start talking to them from the hatred you feel on the surface, but don’t stop until you get to the vulnerability that underlies the hostility. Emotions are built on layers. Beneath hatred is usually anger. Beneath anger is frustration. Beneath frustration is hurt. Beneath hurt is fear. If you keep expressing your feeling you will move through them in order. What begins with “I hate you” culminates in “I’m scared. I don’t want to lose you, and I don’t know what to do about it.”
About the Author
Mark Goulston was an American psychiatrist, executive coach and consultant who had worked with Fortune 500 companies, universities, and other organizations.
About the Author
PHILIP GOLDBERG is the author or coauthor of a number of books, including Roadsigns: On the Spiritual Path and The Intuitive Edge. Based in Los Angeles, he is an ordained interfaith minister, a public speaker and seminar leader, and cohost of the Spirit Matters podcast. He blogs regularly on religion for the Huffington Post.