In his book ?Life Strategies? Dr. Philip McGraw states that, just as people build houses, he builds strategies for living through the study of human nature and behaviour. He thus designs plans to help people get what they want in life. According to him, we are cheating ourselves out of an important chance for a better life. If what we are doing is not working we should consider an alternative approach. We all have a strategy in life, and should not just go on day after day, taking what comes our way. This means we all have to self-check our lifestyle with a high degree of honesty.

In our fast-moving society strategies are important. Whether it is about healing a broken relationship, having a more lucrative job, a happier family life, an ideal weight, mental peace and tranquility or any achievement, strategic living with its life laws stands a good chance of providing the necessary ingredients for a better lot. I have chosen seven of his Life laws to comment on.

1. Either you get it or you don?t. So be one of those who get it. People who succeed don?t make foolish mistakes. They have figured out a formula for success. They are successful because they have acquired the knowledge to create the results they want. However, to acquire appropriate knowledge is good but the hardest part is to unlearn old ways of thinking. One of the solutions is to adopt a questioning and challenging attitude towards things that you have been accepting on blind faith or through tradition.

2. Acknowledge and accept accountability for your life. Create your own experience.

It?s time to stop convincing yourself you are a victim. It?s running away from responsibility if there is no progressive step in your life. With honesty ask ourselves questions like: ?What did I do to make the situation happen as it happened?? Or ?What actions do I need to take to effect a change?? Or ?Do I need to stop some old behaviours?? In other words, solutions often lie within us. We should thus concentrate on those things that will truly change our lives. It?s time to quit looking in the wrong place for answers. View your life from a position of accountability: in so doing, you will be in the driver?s seat, rather than back in the passenger?s compartment. With the right focus on the here and now, we may see why we are depressed ?- why we are alcoholics ? why we have been married four times ? why we are stuck in a lousy job ?

3. People do what works. The behaviour we choose creates the results we get. Every behaviour has a kind of pay-off. So we must do a lot of serious thinking, first to identifying those negative behaviours, thoughts or choices that we wish to eliminate. Then ask ourselves, ?What am I getting out of this? What is my pay-off, healthy or otherwise?? Once we have identified the results we can target those consequences for change. Also noteworthy is the time-factor: is the gratification immediate or a delayed one? For example, fast-food restaurants, convenience stores all testify that we have conditioned ourselves to want what we want, when we want it. Our demand for immediate gratification creates an appetite for a small pay-off now rather than a large pay-off later. The choice is ours. Pay-offs can be of different nature: psychological, spiritual, physical, material and so on.

4. Life rewards action. Thoughts, however noble, without actions are useless. If we do nothing, we get nothing. What determines the script of our life is our actions. Therefore take the kind of action that creates quality results. Start by committing to measure your life and its quality, based on results, not intentions. Good intentions, yes indeed, but they should be result-based. This also means we don?t take excuses from other people. Gossip should not be an issue in our bid for actions. Also no procrastination, since it is disguised delayed intention. The lesson seems to be: ?Carpe Diem? i.e. Seize the opportunities when they present themselves; or create them, if they do not exist.

5. Life is managed not cured. Since problems and their existence are life?s realities and they are difficult to escape from, why not think in terms of management and manage your life to generate high-quality results. Elements of life management include the following: all life laws discussed earlier; a commitment to resolve rather than endure your personal problems; a refusal to live with unfinished emotional business. How many times have we overacted to some insignificant happening or event? We will be surprised at the obstacles we put in our own way. Everything in life is management-related: anger, worries, family, life, career, body or weight-issue..

6. There is power in forgiveness. Ben Franklin rightly remarked that ?whatever is begun in anger ends in shame?. Consequently, our life strategy should be to open our hearts to what anger and resentment are doing to us, physically or chemically. We should not forget that, of all our emotions, hate, anger and resentment are the most powerful and self-destructive. To feel hatred is absolutely incompatible with our peace of mind. We do not have to be angry just because we have the right to be.

7. Be clear about what you want. Be specific. One of the easiest steps to get what we want from life is to stand up and declare what it is that we want. Hence the need to focus on what we want. Indecision is out of question as it leads to inaction. What we probably can say is what we don?t want. We must therefore identify what we want, map out how to get it and work hard accordingly. Thus, we may either get it or, at most, get something close to what we want.

We must know what we want; we must be able to describe it with a variety of terms and from different points of view and not in abstract terms. If we say ?we want to be happy? we may not know exactly what we want. Whereas if we spell out what we mean by ?being happy? our chances of succeeding may be greater. We may, for example, decide, say, that we want a car, a house, a better salary, a family with kids ?- A reasonable breakdown also adds to a kind of additional motivation.

Creating a life-strategy is a learned skill with some methodology involved. The motivated can and will succeed. Half of the solution to any problem lies in defining it. Hence the importance of a diagnosis. A minimum set of categories for evaluating our life would include the following areas: personal (health, education ?-), professional (job performance, career perspectives), business?-) relationship (friends, neighbours?-) familial (parents, spouse, children ?) spiritual (prayer, belief in God, practice?-).

<B>Darma Gajeelee</B>