Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life by Jillian Michaels Page A

ranch. She was constantly talking about how she hated it and wanted to go home, yet she wasn’t losing weigh-ins or falling below the line. Leaving Biggest Loser is easy—you can literally walk out the door, or you can have a crappy weigh-in, fall below the line, and get voted out. But she never did either of these things.
    Well, I got sick of hearing her complaints, so I confronted her. “Why do you keep saying you want to leave, but then don’t back it up by actually leaving? Don’t you know how many people would kill to be here? What is this behavior of yours?”
    It took some badgering, but I finally got the answer out of her. She didn’t want to leave Biggest Loser at all—she wanted to stay more than anything. But she was feeling out of control. There was so much game playing going on that she felt she wouldn’t be able to stay. If she actually got sent home, she would be devastated, so she began to “protect herself” by saying things like “I hate it here. I can’t wait to leave. I just want to go home.” She was rejecting the rejecter. It’s a textbook defense mechanism where we convince ourselves we don’t like the person who we feel is rejecting us in order to avoid feeling disappointment or loss.
    But rejecting the rejecter is NOT a productive thing to do, and here’s why. By constantly saying she hated Biggest Loser andwanted to go home, Lisa annoyed everyone: we trainers, the other contestants, and the show’s producers. So if Lisa ever did fall below the line, she would likely be the first to be voted off. Eventually, that’s exactly what happened.
    While you cannot control what other people do, you can display certain attitudes and behaviors that influence things in your favor or against it. If Lisa had focused solely on her desire to be on the Biggest Loser ranch, she would have put her energy into her diet and her exercise regimen. She probably would have stayed above the line and would not have been eliminated. If she had taken a different attitude about her experience, and professed her desire to stay and get healthy, the other contestants might have voted someone else out instead of her. This is just another example of how we manifest our apprehensions and anxieties.
    WORKING IT OUT
    WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF?
    Write down your innermost fears and insecurities. This will help you make the connections between what you fear and what you live .
    Look at your present circumstances, and list some of your current problems. Really ruminate on them. Take a deep inventory of your life. For example:
Did someone leave you?
Did your kids rebel against you?
Did your boss fire you?
Did your coworkers reject you?
    These questions are just a few obvious ones about how we manifest deep primal fears. Your fear doesn’t have to be about your deepest insecurities. The overall point is for you to look at how you create your reality, from the big to the small. Take my friend whose dog needed the expensive surgery, and it crushed his finances. I’m sure that his dog’s illness wasn’t one of his biggest fears—at least until it happened. But had he been more conscientious and responsible with pet insurance, he could have avoided taking that massive financial hit .

WHAT IN YOUR LIFE IS NOT WORKING FOR YOU?
    List all the things that are currently out of whack in your life. I have listed a few more random examples in the event that you still aren’t getting it—even though I am pretty sure you are .
Did you get hurt in your exercise class?
Did you have a fight with your spouse?
Did you bounce a check?
Did you wreck your car?
    Look at what you’re doing to contribute to those scenarios. How could your behavior be creating your existing problems?
    Now I want you to break down all the interactions you have or don’t have with people on a daily basis, and examine how you approach every situation, person, place, or thing that intimidates, upsets, overwhelms, or scares you .
Do you get defensive?
Do you get cocky