Life’s a Journey: Why You Need a Guide

They say 30 is the hardest year of your life.
That is false.
It’s waking up every birthday and realizing everything’s exactly the same as the year before.

I remember sitting straight up in bed the morning I turned 31 thinking, “Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiip!”
“My ship is sinking!!!”

I was acutely aware:
I’d quit so many jobs my resume looked like it was printed on Swiss cheese.
My bank account was as bare Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard
And I wasn’t doing the ONE THING I wanted more than anything: making a difference.

FINALLY I decide to look for help in a place where most people wouldn’t be caught dead
…or alive:
The Self-Help Section.

You might feel like self-help books are lame-o.
I get it, I felt like that too… at first…
Listen, I worked in a library for 7 years – I know my way around the Dewey Decimal system…
So the books I’m reading come from: psychology, self-improvement, setting up systems that work, communicating better, business, philosophy… and more.

It’s not like being forced to read Moby Dick so many times you’re ready to nuke the whales!
No. This stuff is amazing!
I’m reading these books and I am HOOKED!
The more I read, the more I learn:

-How to talk to people
-How to understand and control my emotions so they don’t control me
-Why people do that?
-Strategies to avoid getting annoyed
-Ways to get out of your head and build confidence

And the more I learn, the more I see how things connect.
The more connections I start to make, the more incredible “aha” moments I start to have.
Like, “OH! THAT makes sense! There’s a name for that?!”

The things I’ve learned started changing my life immediately!
Little things like, “How to deal when your day feels like it’s going down the toilet”
And game plans to control my UTTER AND UNCONTROLLABLE road rage!

One book led to the next, like Wikipedia links suck you into a black hole of endless clicking and about 2 billion browser tabs like, “Tell me more!”

People automatically put up defenses when you say “self-help”
So I changed the story. I started calling them, “Personal Excellence Guidebooks”
PEGs for short.

Because there is no index… no dictionary… where you can look up things you need to know about life.
What I’ve found is that PEGs are little “field guides for life” and I’m on a journey.
Learning all these concepts is like getting a magical toolkit to deal with life – unlocking parts of my map I could only get to by completing certain quests using what I’d learned along the way.

I read 42 books that year.
Went to 8 weeks of group coaching
Paid a personal coach for a year.
Now I’m 3 years in.
I’ve read 80+ PEGS.
And I’ve been sharing, and coaching, and teaching what I know, all along the way.

What I’ve learned is: people don’t believe self-help works.
Yeah.
Actually… It does. I mean, my whole WORLD changed.

The reason people don’t believe it works is because it doesn’t change them automagically. But there’s just a lot to learn – you have to break bad habits and reprogram the way you think.
Which is the reason it takes SO LONG….
Which is the reason so many people quit…
And it’s mostly because you’re doing it…
By. Your. Self.

You have to figure it out by yourself and then DO it by yourself.
People get into these vicious cycles of starting personal excellence guidebooks, then saying “It’s not working” and then they quit.
Or… they don’t start at all.

But what could you do if you knew how and had help?
What if you knew you weren’t doing this alone?
How much quicker could YOU get through these concepts and ideas as part of a team?
Maybe even with a guide showing you the way…

After “graduating” from my very long self-study program, I started a real estate company.
I started coaching.
I hosted a mastermind group and personal excellence ladies group.
I lead a weekly bike ride teaching riders to confidently commute.
My next goal is leading travel coaching adventures and sharing what I’ve learned GLOBALLY!
*LEAD* *HOST* *STARTED* *GOALS*
I’m working on my dreams because PEGS taught me what I needed to know so I didn’t give up.

It’s up to you, but it’s not ONLY you.
Make life easier on yourself:
Start a PEG bookclub.
Get a coach.
Sign up for a personal development program.
Join a mastermind.
There are a zillion billion blogs, meetup groups, and free courses that can help.

I’m living proof that doing it on your own is either the fastest way to failure or the slowest way to success.