How to Unf*ck Yourself

‘You are not defined by what’s inside your head. You are what you do. Your actions.’ – Unf*ck Yourself, p.117

I believe you can change your life. I also believe it’s a lot of hard fucking work. Here’s what’s important: the more you are up against, the more power you’ll have to recognize and transcend that shit.

I want to prepare you for reality, for the weight of disappointment and the predictability of your self-sabotage and for you to be aware and ready to deal with yourself in the most critical moments.

Maybe you’re lost or confused or looking around your circumstances and you feel that this is fucking hopeless. Whether you drink too much, drug too much, sex too much, lie too much, spend too much, or hurt too much. Whatever your thing is, I want you to know you can change your life and you can change it right now. At this very moment.

You realize you have the life you’re willing to put up with, right? So let’s put this into practice.

Look at your calendar right now. Pick a day when you will bring either a sense of willingness where there has been none or take a stand for what you are no longer willing to put up with. The entire day, every moment that you are awake, do it. No backing down. Handle your entire life (relationships, health, finances, career, organizing, unfinished business of any kind, basically whatever comes to mind) from this standpoint of willingness during that period.

There is something important for you to discover here. Ultimately everything in your life will come down to this assertion of being alive for you or not.

Extract from Do the work by Gary John Bishop, published by Yellow Kite, £14.99