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Chapter 5
Life Law #4 You Can't Change What You Don't Acknowledge

Your strategy: Get real with yourself about your life and everyone in it. Be truthful about what isn't working in your life. Stop making excuses and start making results.

If you don't take ownership of your role in a situation, then you cannot and will not change it. If you refuse to acknowledge your own self-destructive behaviors, not only will they continue, they will actually gain momentum, become more deeply entrenched in the habitual patterns of your life, and grow more resistant to change.

If you hope to have a winning life strategy, you have to be honest about where your life is right now. You must have the strength to ask yourself the hard questions, and to give yourself realistic answers.

Denial is what kills dreams. It kills hope. It can kill you. Only if you acknowledge the presence of a condition can you make a conscious effor to offset or control that condition.

What are you denying or missing because it is upsetting to you? Do you have your blinders on?

Problems don't get better with time, they only get worse. By refusing to acknowledge that you are out of control, that things are not as they should be, you let valuable time slip away, and with it, precious options to expire.

Your life is not too bad to fix, and it's not too late to fix it, but be honest about what needs fixing. Identify what is draining away your hopes and dreams.

Maybe the truth you must embrace pertains to others in your life, but maybe the truth has more to do with you. If at this point in your life you're living like a lazy slug, than admit it. Be honest, or you will cheat yourself out of what may be the best chance you've ever had to escape the shadows of your current life and get what you really want.

Chap. 5 Life Strategies by Dr. Phil McGraw-- A MUST READ!!

You can't change what you don't acknowledge.

What is it that I want you to acknowledge?

I want you to acknowledge whatever is not working in your life: self, marriage, career, attitude, anger, depression, fear -- whatever is not working.

If you are unwilling or unable to identify and consciously acknowledge your negative behaviors, characteristics, or life patterns, then you will not change them.

If it is not working, then change it.

Acknowledgement is a no-kidding, unvarnished, bottom-line, truthful confrontation with yourself about what you are doing or not doing, or what you are putting up with in your life that is destructive.

True acknowledgement is not a politiclaly correct "confession" that you think will buy closure, at the expense of the truth. I mean brutal reality: slapping yourself in the face and admitting what you are doing to screw up your life. This also means you are getting payoffs for what you are doing, however sick or subtle these payoffs may be.

IF YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO RISE TO THE LEVEL OF BEING BRUTALLY, PENETRATINGLY HONEST WITH YOURSELF ABOUT WHO YOU ARE AND WHAT IS WRONG, THEN YOU WILL NEVER EFFECT CHANGE. It's just that simple.

What most people want is not truth, they want validation. They want reinforcement for their thinking, right or wrong. We make ourselves right because that's what we treasure in life: being right. We make ourselves right by living according to our beliefs.

There's something very threatening about acknowledging a problem. It can create a lot of pressure. It's a kind of self-indictment. As long as you never admit your life isn't working, you can just "go along getting along." But once you do admit that something is wrong, you're also forced to admit that you are selling out for what you don't want.

If so, admit it.
Make a deal with yourself right now:
There will be no lies, no excuses, and no conning yourself about what is going on. Ask yourself these hard questions:
Am I living like a loser? If so, admit it.
Am I lazy? If so, admit it.
Is my life a dead-end journey, heading nowhere?
Am I scared?
Do I have no goals? Am I just going through the motions day by day?
Am I continually making promises to myself that I never, ever keep?

If so, admit it.

You must acknowledge that whatever your circumstance is, it did not happen by accident. No excuses: you own it; you created it.

You cannot heal what you don't acknowledge. Admitting to yourself what is wrong is a positive. Face it so you can replace it. You have to give yourself permission to be less than perfect.