Introduction

Have you ever thought what an ideal life might look and feel like?

Would it entail being able to answer ‘yes’ to the questions at the beginning of this book? Perhaps for you it would need to include something more. Whatever it might involve, do you believe you can achieve such a life if you haven’t already? Or do you think it’s a pipe-dream, perhaps possible for others but not for you?

I truly believe it’s possible for everyone. I also consider it’s our right.

We’ve all been born into this world with the potential to live an extraordinary life. Why not realise that potential? Why settle for anything less?

Some of you may be thinking that life hasn’t been all that brilliant up to now, so even if you could dramatically change it, you’d only have lived half a brilliant life. In the pages that follow you’ll learn to accept the past, for the simple reason that it couldn’t possibly have been different.

The future on the other hand is wide open. Wherever you are on life’s journey, the future is there to be grabbed. It can be amazing. That’s a promise.

I’ll be suggesting a few exercises to illustrate some of the book’s main ideas. I suggest you don’t read on until you’ve tried each exercise. You’ll only benefit from the book if you do the exercises and start to develop new thinking habits.

I’ll also be using case studies, mostly from my work as a therapist, coach and stress management consultant, to demonstrate how people have put these ideas into practice. The case studies are in tinted boxes. Names and other details have been changed to protect anonymity.

At the end of each chapter you’ll find a summary of suggested actions to try out the contents of that chapter, together with a summary of key actions from previous chapters.

We’ll be looking at a number of ideas and it may be difficult at first to keep them all in mind at once. Each chapter will introduce at least one new idea. You may find it useful to concentrate on applying the ideas of each chapter (as well as the preceding chapters) for at least a day or two before moving on to the next. Or you may prefer to read the whole book, trying out the ideas as you go, then revisit the chapter summaries, focusing on each summary for a few days before moving onto the next.

Look out for opportunities to put the ideas into practice in your daily life. Observe the way others think and behave either directly or through television or any other medium and imagine how you might have thought or acted in the same situation with the ideas discussed in this book.

Spend a few minutes at the end of each day reviewing the day in the light of the latest action summary, including actions from prior chapters, and consider whether you’ve used, or could have used, all the relevant tools and techniques.