Product Description

We all want to make a difference in the world. We want to know that our lives matter, that our presence on Earth has meaning and purpose. I can assure you that you have a Divine assignment -- an important mission to fulfill. The first step in discovering and fulfilling this mission is to take a leadership role in your life.
-- from Stand Up for Your Life

In this book I'll take you on a journey that will provide you with new "self- honoring" strategies to transform your fear and self-doubt into power. You'll learn to trust yourself. You'll build new courage muscles that will increase your self-esteem. And you'll develop the confidence to step out into unknown territory so you can realize your greatest potential.

As we go through the program outlined in this book, I'll challenge you to:

• Know who you are
• Define your values
• Stop hiding your power
• Stand up for yourself
• Build your courage muscles
• Pass up good for great
• Center your life around your values
• Contribute to others in a meaningful way

If you're ready to stand up for your life, you've picked up the right book. Let's get started!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #533315 in Books
• Published on: 2003-04-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780743226516
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Amazon.com Review
Oprah life makeover maven Cheryl Richardson wants you to start rocking the boat. Stand Up for Your Life urges readers to stop playing it safe by putting their needs and priorities aside. Her premise: by spending less time listening to others and more time strengthening your relationship with yourself, you can learn to govern your own life and influence others.

A personal coach and the bestselling author of Take Time for Your Life, Richardson promises readers "self-honoring strategies to transform your fear and doubt into self-trust and power." Drawing on self-quizzes, examples from her coaching clients, and her own experiences, she explores key issues for developing this inner authority. The book focuses on creating boundaries, developing "courage muscles," resolving conflict phobia, clarifying purpose, honing self-discipline, stating intentions, and graceful truth-telling.

At times, her clarity is compromised by pop-psych speak and references to her earlier books. Richardson is at her best when she is specific--for example, the well-targeted exercises and self-assessments or an insightful list of behaviors that prevent people from leading their own lives. Readers who follow her lead can expect an attitude adjustment and increased ability to leverage self-knowledge into a purposeful life. --Barbara Mackoff

About the Author
Cheryl Richardson is the author of the New York Times bestselling books Take Time for Your Life and Life Makeovers, which won the Motivational Book Award in 2000. Her work has been covered widely in the media, including numerous appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show. She lives in Massachusetts.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Introduction

For years I felt haunted by a persistent inner voice that told me I was meant to do more with my life. Although I earned a good living and enjoyed the company of family and friends, I felt restless and unsatisfied. There was so much I wanted to do with my life but lacked the courage and confidence to take action. At the prompting of a good friend who referred me to her therapist, I finally reached out for help.

As I sat in his office waiting for my first appointment, my eyes stopped at a cartoon hanging on the wall. It was Snoopy, Charlie Brown's dog from the Peanuts comic strip, struggling to balance a doghouse on his back. The caption below the cartoon read: "There's nothing heavier than the burden of potential." As I stared at that message I started to cry. I too felt burdened by my unrealized potential. I was bursting with energy and desire but lacked the skills to channel it in the right direction.

Once I realized that I could release this burden by taking specific actions to build my confidence and self esteem I got to work. Using the gift of guidance and a whole new action plan, I set about making the changes that allowed my true self to emerge. With each tough choice and courageous step I slowly learned to trust and act on the wisdom of my inner voice. As I did, my life began to change in ways I never would have imagined. Yours can too. In this book I'll offer you a step-by-step plan to unlock and use your greatest potential. As you do, you'll not only give birth to an amazing life, you'll be given an opportunity to help others do the same. To begin, you need only consider the possibilities...

What would your life be like if you had the courage and emotional strength to overcome self-doubt, fear, or concern for what others say about you? Think about it. How would your relationships change? Would you stay at your current job? Are there any big moves you'd feel liberated to make? How would your life be different?

From my work with thousands of people, I know that many feel as though they're living a life scripted or prescribed by others. They long to break out of their self-imposed limitations and lead their own lives, but they lack the courage and confidence to do so. The situations are varied. For example, one client who had a successful career in health care said: "I'm dying to start my own restaurant, but I'm afraid of disappointing my father by leaving the family business." Another told me: "Every day I fantasize about traveling throughout Europe, but I keep putting off my plans because I'm too afraid to step outside of my comfort zone." And one mom, echoing the longings of many, said, "I know that my child's welfare comes first, but I can't help feeling that there's something more I'm meant to do with my life."

I understand these yearnings. For years I let fear and self-doubt rule my life, too afraid to step out on my own and follow my true desires. I designed my life according to the blueprints of others. I made people-pleasing a full-time career, trusted the advice of friends before my own, and sabotaged my success each time I came too close to doing something other than what others thought I should do. It wasn't until I faced the truth of how attached I was to the opinions of everyone else that I realized how clueless I was about my own.

If you feel as though your life revolves around the needs or expectations of others, here's an important message for you to hear:

You have deep within you the power to fulfill your highest vision of your life. To engage this power you must develop a solid personal relationship with yourself. By doing so, you'll tap into a wealth of inner strength that will allow you to take the necessary actions that build confidence and self-esteem. When you learn to stop hiding your power and use fear to your advantage, you'll become less attached to what others want for you and more attached to what you want for yourself. As this shift occurs, you'll naturally begin to lead a more authentic and passionate life.

Where do you begin when you decide to stand up for your life? The first step is to develop self-awareness. How you handle your day-to-day reality holds clues to the ways you deny your feelings and needs, weaken your emotional strength, and allow others to direct your life. To see what I mean, read through the following list and put a check mark next to the statements that are true for you:

____ I have responsibilities that prevent me from doing what I really want.

____ Though I schedule time for myself, I often end up canceling it to accommodate someone else's needs.

____ I tend to care too much about what others think of me.

____ Each time I get close to success, I do something to sabotage my progress.

____ When faced with any decision, I immediately call several people for input.

____ When someone hurts my feelings, I keep my mouth shut and later fantasize about what I could have said.

____ I often say yes when I mean no.

____ I take things personally and feel easily affected by others.

____ I feel like I'm not living up to my fullest potential.

____ When speaking with others, I often downplay my knowledge to avoid seeming arrogant.

____ I'm afraid to out-succeed my parents.

____ I have a nagging sense that something is missing from my life.

____ When I'm upset with someone I'd rather talk myself out of it than confront the person with the issue.

____ I have a secret desire that I've never admitted to anyone.

____ When someone neglects to follow through on a promise, I quietly brood and do it myself.

____ I long to find my passion or purpose in life.

If you've checked off even one of these statements, read on...

Over the last several years I've listened closely to the needs of my readers. By talking with them during live workshops, communicating electronically with my on-line community, conducting teleconferencing discussions, and leading the Lifestyle Makeover series for the Oprah Winfrey Show, I've met men and women from all walks of life. I've seen the epidemic of frustration and despair.

Parents, homemakers, corporate employees, business owners, artists, and students alike all struggle with the same questions:

• How do I learn to speak up and honor my needs without feeling selfish?

• Where do I find the courage to make the changes I know I need to make in spite of the reactions of others?

• How can I overcome the self-defeating behaviors that make me feel stuck?

• Is there a way to set boundaries without damaging my relationships or feeling guilty?

• How can I stay motivated and stop sabotaging my success?

• How do I find my life purpose -- some kind of meaning or direction for my life?

These questions represent the inner challenges we all face as we attempt to find satisfaction in our lives. In my first two books, Take Time for Your Life and Life Makeovers, I offered practical strategies that allowed readers to begin reclaiming their lives. By practicing the basics of good self-care and tackling those areas that were causing the most stress -- cluttered environments, poor financial health, or nonstop, draining to-do lists -- many of you joined me in a plan to take more control of your lives. As you set about making these outer changes you may have bumped up against inner changes that needed to be made as well. For example, you may have wanted a way to deal with your guilty feelings as you made your needs more of a priority. Or you may have needed a strategy to handle your fear as you took bold steps to pursue a lifelong dream. Maybe you felt incapable of handling the inevitable conflict that would occur as a result of making a decision to take control of your life.

When you decide to improve the quality of your life you set in motion new relationships with yourself and others. As you start to take better care of yourself there's a good chance that you'll feel uncomfortable at first, and that some of the people in your life will feel threatened. For example, if you've always said "yes" to family members who need your help, when you start saying "no" it will ruffle some feathers. If you're used to putting the needs of your children before your own, you will feel guilty when you start to make your needs more of a priority. When these reactions to your newfound commitment to self-care occur there's a good chance that you'll do what most caring people do -- back down to avoid conflict, hurting others' feelings, disapproval, or abandonment.

Most of us play it safe by putting our needs aside when faced with the possibility of feeling guilty, disappointing others, or facing conflict of some kind. At home you may abdicate your need for support with the kids to keep peace with your spouse, letting your resentment build over time. At work you may allow a complaining coworker to keep draining your energy to avoid confrontation -- and end up hating your job. Or you may go right back to saying yes to family members who give you a hard time to avoid their emotional rejection, only to feel frustrated by the lack of quality time that you have for yourself. We work hard to manage the perceptions of others, ignoring our own needs, and in the end we surrender the very thing that will allow us to live authentic, meaningful lives -- our power.

We have been trained to surrender our power early in life. Each of us has been taught to live by the rules imposed on us in both subtle and not so subtle ways by generations of parental influences, societal demands, religious expectations, and educational training. Maybe you'll recognize a few of these rules:

Be nice.

Be quiet.

Don't get too excited.

Don't get too big for your britches.

Be seen and not heard.

Put the needs of others before your own.

Keep your expectations low.

Be modest.

Keep peace at any cost.

Don't out-succeed your loved ones.

Don't threaten others by being too bright.

Don't toot your own horn.

Do what I tell you to do.

Don't be too proud of yourself.

Be happ...

Customer Reviews

Looking for Transformation
Cheryl Richardson's new book "Stand Up For Your Life" is great and offers very practical advice to support you in becoming aware of who you are and what you need to function as a satisfied human being. I find her suggestions infinitely helpful and practical. She invites the reader on a journey of self discovery and transformation, a life-long process that will not stop after you close the book but hopefully send you on an on-going path of satisfaction, awareness, self expression, joy and will allow you to contribute to the world around you.
If you are interested in transformation I also recommend that you read "Working On Yourself Doesn't Work" by Ariel and Shya Kane. This is an extraordinary book which presents the possibility of transformation without endlessly working on yourself to improve yourself. Awareness and the seeing of what is, is enough to create a quantum shift and transformation. This is a novel idea and I started experiencing the shift simply out of reading the book. A must read if you've had enough of working on yourself!

Author delivers another excellent book that will help you!
Read another excellent book by Cheryl Richardson, author
of TAKE TIME FOR YOUR LIFE and LIFE MAKEOVERS--both
of which I enjoyed immensely . . . her latest is STAND UP
FOR YOUR LIFE, and the subtitle says it all: DEVELOP THE COURAGE, CONFIDENCE, AND CHARACTER TO FULFILL YOUR GREATEST POTENTIAL.

Richardson, a master certified coach, takes you through an
interactive training program that will help you transform
internal obstacles such as self-doubt, conflict phobia and a
feat of what others think into a new foundation of courage,
confidence and self-esteem.

I particularly liked her use of real life stories and examples
(including her own) . . . also, the accompanying exercises
were very insightful.

There were many memorable passages; among them:
We are all here for a very short, indeterminate amount of time. It's imperative that we use this time well by making our spiritual development a top priority. As you do, I can assure you that you will begin to understand and fulfill you unique purpose here on Earth. This commitment takes time, energy, and a willingness to open your heart and your mind to change. The first step is to realize that you are the force for change in your life. No one else can set your destiny, settle your grievances, heal you wounds, or tell you what to do. You must take full responsibility for an amazing gift that was bestowed upon you at birth--the power to create you life as a work of art.

With this perspective in mind, you naturally begin to view each
life experience through the lens of the question "How can I use this situation to serve my personal growth?" For example, when a driver cuts you off in traffic, you see it as a sign that you may need to slow down or not take things so personally, rather than view it as someone doing something to you. Or when you lose your job unexpectedly, you decide to reevaluate the direction of your life's work instead of seeing it as life handing you a raw deal. Of course it's important to allow yourself to experience and express all of the feelings that accompany these types of situations. The point is to move beyond blame and criticism to a more empowering position--one where you recognize that you have the creative power to use any situation to your advantage.

Check out the list below for some ideas on how to shift
your language:
Old Words: New Words
"I think": "I know"
"I'll try": "I will"
"Maybe": "Definitely"
"I'm not sure": "I'm positive"
"I guess": "I'll confirm that"
"I'm sorry": "I'm confident"
"I'm so stupid": "I need a break"
"It doesn't matter": "Here's what I want"
"We'll see": "I will"

Understanding Yourself, Understanding Character
For those looking for a hands-on guide to self-development and understanding, read "Stand Up For Your Life" by Cheryl Richardson. You'll experience a great improvement in your character and confidence. This is 5 star, highly recommended. It is important, if you're serious, to expand your potential and the benefits to you of this book by reading a book to truly understand the principles of character behind what Cheryl Richardson is telling you. I recommend Norman Thomas Remick's "West Point: Character, Leadership,...".