🤯#36: Unf*ck Yourself by Gary John Bishop - Book Summary & Key Takeaways

Hello courageous people! 👋 Welcome to Edition 36 of Read Your Mind (previously Post Traumatic Growth Weekly on Substack).

This week, we are reading 📚 Unf*ck Yourself: Get Out Of Your Head and Into Your Life 🖋 by Gary John Bishop.

This is a short book, just 130 pages or 2h 56min on Audible. And I'll be honest with you - I love short books. Too many pages of too many books are filled with faff and fluff and filler when we just want the author to get to the point - and Gary John Bishop does exactly that and in doing so honours us as his audience.

Impactful, no bullsh*t, actionable and real, I do recommend this one as a book to pick up and read in full.

So let’s jump in! All text in italics are quotes taken directly from the book.

🧐 What is Unf*ck Yourself all about?

This book is a call to arms. It is about taking control and changing things for the better. It is extremely mindset and action orientated, with this sitting at the core of its beliefs:

Gulp.

That's right - Gary John Bishop isn't letting us get away with anything. There is an antidote to all of our excuses, all of our reasoning that we will start doing this thing once that other thing is all sorted out. This book implores us to stop waiting until everything is perfect or until we "feel" like doing that thing that we have been avoiding but know that it will truly be good for us.

So how exactly are we supposed to do that? By adjusting our mindset.

(And while I don't disagree that these sound a little woo woo or a bit fluffy when said in succession, there are very useful strategies and learnings that underpin each one. I think there will be at least a few that resonate with all of us, if not more.

Let's explore each key chapter and affirmation in more detail.

✅ 1. "I am willing"

First things first. Change starts with one of two things:

Willingness or unwillingness.

We can either muster the willingness to change or the unwillingness for things to stay the same.

You have permission to use whichever one is more powerful to you.

Willingness on the other hand:

So then, we must ask ourselves each and every day:

Am I willing?

Or am I unwilling?

Both can be your power of choice.

🏆 2. "I am wired to win"

We are winning in whatever domain we have set our minds to. What Bishop means by this is:

I don't know about you, but I feel like this one hurts.

So now that we have realised that we are "winning" 🙄 at whatever it is we set our minds to, how do we fix it and change for the better?

We have to start filling our minds with the right kinds of ideas, and that starts with knowing what we really do want to "win" at. For real this time.

💪 3. "I got this"

When we face problems in our life - from something happening at work, to problems in our relationships, to having crashed our car - these events can have a tendency to cloud our perception. They can spread like a toxic chemical.

The antidote to this is to ground ourselves in realistic optimism with the personal assertion, "I got this".

(If you are somewhat inclined to shake your head at this point - don't worry, I was with you.)

This is where zooming out on our lives helps. Zooming riiiiiight out so that we can see all the years that have gotten us to where we are today and we can see all the years yet to come laid out before us.

Take a moment to reflect on our most memorable experiences, our biggest moments of strength, the things we are most proud of.

We can also revisit the moments when things were awful and hard - but focussing on the fact that we got through them and those moments are now in the past.

The energy from those moments can be channeled into our present to help us tackle and overcome our current issues. For us to remind ourselves that in actual fact we did got this (Great English? No. Do you know what I mean? Hopefully.) every single time in the past.

And drawing on that wide perspective can really help us.

😎 4. "I embrace the uncertainty"

We seek out certainty and try to avoid uncertainty like the plague.

And in the past, thousands of years ago, it was necessary for us to be on hyperalert all the time because that was what kept us safe. When there was a real risk that we would get eaten alive by some animal in the wilderness.

But here's the thing. Our aversion to risk - which was once extremely necessary - no longer serves us. It can actually keep us from living the life we really want to live.

🤯 🤯 🤯

Success simply cannot come without risk. It is impossible.

In order to succeed we must embrace uncertainty and take it on as a rule for life.

🙌 5. "I am not my thoughts; I am what I do"

We've all had those days where we can't get into the zone at work, or we don't follow the plan we have set out for the day in terms of our budget or exercise.

And when we do have a day like that, often what follows are the kind of thoughts like, "I'll never get out of this mess."

Sound familiar?

Yeah.

Well here's our next lightning bolt: "We are not our thoughts. We are what we do."

We must learn to have the self defeating thoughts (because everyone does) but act anyway.

Now I know what you might be thinking - all of this is easier said than done - and yes, that is true. But there is a big kicker and benefit from the increased effort that doing instead of thinking requires:

It is the fastest, most effective way to change your thoughts.

That's right - if we are struggling with self limiting beliefs and thoughts, the best way to change those thoughts so that they don't bother us anymore is by doing the complete opposite. It is their kryptonite.

🏃‍♂️ 6. "I am relentless"

Everything that has been achieved in this life would have once been thought of impossible. Tell someone three hundred years ago that one day hundreds of people would be able to fly across the Pacific Ocean from America to China in a metal tube? Impossible.

At least that's what most people would have said. But then you get certain people come along - take the Wright Brothers for example - who believe that the crazy thing is possible.

It might be hard, it might be far fetched, but turn up to give that thing a go enough times and you will more than likely succeed. You just have to tally enough tries, learn, adapt and keep trying.

That is the definition of relentlessness or otherwise known as grit.

Relentlessness isn't about taking random actions, it is about being focussed and determined. We might not get it right every time, but we look at what worked, what didn't work and we take it again from the top.

😌 7. "I expect nothing and accept everything"

Did you know that one of the biggest causes of upset within marriages is people having unmet expectations? When they think a certain thing is going to happen, and then it doesn't.

Well the same thing happens to us when we are embarking on something new: there is the journey that we think we are heading on, and then there are all the hidden cracks and crevices that befall us along the way. All the bumps in the road we didn't expect.

Here's a hard truth:

And this concept becomes our final personal assertion:

So there we have seven personal assertions to try and live by - we can take what is useful to us and leave the rest.

To close, I wanted to share this last quote with you as I believe it sums everything up quite beautifully - especially when we are trying to learn from others (like these books) and do better in our own lives:

We have to make it our own.

Until next week my friends,

Eleanor ❤️🙏

🧠 Resources & Links

🤝 Human Rights list of Mental Health Support Services

🖥 Gary John Bishop's Website

📸 Follow Gary John Bishop on Instagram - 75.7K followers

🐥 Follow Gary John Bishop on Twitter - 12k followers

📕 Next week's book

Coming out next Wednesday 12th October 2022 is #37:

📚 Power: A woman's guide to living and leading without apology

🖋 by Kemi Nekvapil

"Shift your thinking about what power is and who gets to have it, and live life fully and without apology. Kemi Nekvapil knows the feelings of fear, vulnerability and powerlessness. Growing up in foster care, many times she had the doors to validation and opportunity closed to her because of her race and gender. Learning to make her own choices and use her voice without apology were her first steps towards a bold, purpose-filled life.Now a highly respected executive and personal coach, Kemi has created a five-step process to guide other women to build their power through:

• Presence to understand what is and isn’t working in our lives

• Ownership of our personal narratives, especially our power stories

• Wisdom about our needs, boundaries and growth

• Equality as part of the diverse human family, all of us worthy

• Responsibility for our choices, healing and happiness

Blending inspiring stories with reflective coaching practices, POWER provides the tools to navigate the challenges that impact who we are, from discrimination and burnout to trauma and self-doubt."