Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life

1-Sentence Summary

Unf*ck Yourself is a no-nonsense guide to getting out of your own way, using blunt truth and tough love to help you take control of your life—are you ready to stop sabotaging yourself and start living the life you deserve? 💪🚀

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About Gary John Bishop

Gary John Bishop is one of the world’s leading Personal Development experts. Bishop has impacted tens of thousands of people worldwide. His “urban philosophy” approach represents a new wave of personal empowerment and life mastery that has caused miraculous results for people in the quality and performance of their lives. Gary started his career as a Senior Program Director but now uses personal development as his tool to change people’s lives.

Introduction

Unf*ck Yourself is a book that provides a simple outline of how we can achieve success in our lives. Gary John Bishop emphasizes the importance of taking action rather than spending time altering our thoughts or emotions. Instead, Bishop recommends acknowledging your thoughts and emotions, but not consider them when taking action. Unf*ck Yourself also places the importance of your success on your approach. There is a tendency for people to blame external circumstances and to accept self-doubt and inaction. But Bishop encourages readers to stop making excuses and start doing. 

StoryShot #1: Take the First Step

Bishop explains that people struggle to change their lives because of their unwillingness to take the first step. If you are willing to take the first step, few things can prevent you from attaining your goals. So, you should try and make the initial change required to reach your goal. One of the most common factors preventing people from taking this first step is a perceived lack of skill. That said, every time you tell yourself that you don’t have the necessary skills, you convince yourself that it is not possible. The least that you can do is try. For example, even if you don’t know how to paint a picture, you should always try. Try regardless of your lack of skills. Ultimately, most tasks aren’t as hard as we think they are. Trying is more critical than possessing specialist skills.

Being willing allows you to open up to the possibility of making your dreams a reality. In contrast, if you are unwilling, then you should not blame yourself. Suppose you are currently unwilling to pursue your goals, yet willing to offer self-forgiveness. In that case, this keeps the door open for the possibility of future change. Casting blame on ourselves creates a negative perception that encourages self-doubt and inaction.

StoryShot #2: Refuse to Lose

Refusing to lose will always allow you to win. Just by choosing to ‘do,’ you are in a state of winning. 

Bishop explains that our subconscious is crucial for our daily wins. Specifically, our subconscious is responsible for 95% of what we do daily. So, you must learn to understand how you can break away from your subconscious’ habitual nature and start taking action. Through doing this, you will be able to conquer any new task.

Bishop guides how you can start changing your problems into something that you can deal with. Firstly, you must create a game plan for how you are going to transform the situation. This game plan involves determining precisely what you want to change, how you will make changes, and the result. Bishop argues that it is always your choice whether you decide to play or change the game. 

You need to learn to only engage in tasks you care about winning. .You can then genuinely focus on the more important things.

StoryShot #3: Your Circumstances Aren’t the Worst in the World

Bishop warns readers against basing their lives on perceptions. In real life, nothing is perfect. If you perceive that your world could be perfect, this will only make your hard times even harder. Pitying yourself when things get hard will only leak negativity into the rest of your life. Bishop describes this as a chain reaction of negativity. So, instead of allowing this negative mindset and frustration to ooze into your lives, you can listen to Bishop’s advice. Bishop offers a two-step approach to changing your perception of any situation and keeping your negativity at bay. 

1. Take an optimistic view. You must start to see downfalls as nothing more than opportunities to grow.
2. Shift your perspective entirely. Rather than just being optimistic about certain aspects of your life, you must change your whole mindset toward seeing both problematic and uplifting experiences as positive.

Every individual on Earth has problems. It is a fact that there will be another person on this planet that has more problems than you have right now. Bishop encourages readers to think back upon problems they have encountered in the past. It is likely that these problems now feel relatively unimportant. At this moment, these problems are less impactful than they once were. This concept is the same for all problems you will encounter in the future. So, instead of letting these problems impact us in the present, we should overcome them through a positive outlook. By doing this, we are fast-tracking our ability to move on from problems.

StoryShot #4: Stop Carrying Your Certainty Safety Blanket

We experience feelings of uncertainty because we have a natural tendency to crave safety. So, we seek out any knowledge of what is happening and what is going to happen. We use this knowledge as an indicator that we are in control of our lives. That said, certainty is a safety blanket that Bishop recommends we stop carrying around with us. Risk is one of life’s great necessities. Without risk, humans would still be stuck in a cave spending all day hunting, foraging, and making fires. But fast forward millions of years and risk has helped establish advanced societies that reward those who are willing to embrace uncertainty. Modern science and electricity are both built on a foundation of historical risks. Although taking risks may not bring you the innovation shown by the invention of electricity, it will change your life for the better. 

Bishop explains that becoming comfortable with uncertainty opens up our lives to immense potential. Becoming successful relies on you being willing to take some risks. Nothing productive comes from living in the past and doing the same as others have for centuries. Instead, those who are highly successful took a risk and tried something different. 

Humans’ fear of uncertainty can be partly attributed to our fear of judgment. That said, Bishop explains that we cannot allow other people’s opinions to cloud our judgment or vision. Relying on others’ opinions of us will lead to us losing our perception of a successful self. As uncertainty is inevitable, we should embrace it.

StoryShot #5: Stop Trying to Control Your Thoughts

Bishop explains that our thoughts can be as harmful as other people’s opinions. We should never let either of these opinions stand in our way of accomplishing our goals. Our thoughts are not what decide whether we are successful or unsuccessful. It is the actions that we take. Bishop believes that trying to control our thoughts is a waste of time. Instead of attempting to control every thought we have, we should be aiming to decide which thoughts are the best to put into action. 

Bishop consolidates that you are not your thoughts. So, your actions, nor your self-perceptions, should be based on these thoughts. The reality is that everybody has negative thoughts. Some people have more negative thoughts than others, but this does not change Bishop’s advice. The most important thing is how we act on these thoughts. These actions are what determines who we are. So, if we choose to ignore our negative thoughts and only act on our positive thoughts, then we will become a more positive person.

Bishop also highlights that changing our lives relies on us acting on the thoughts that relate to our desires. If we start acting on our desires, then significant change will happen in our lives. 

We can also become more confident by taking action. Worrying about our thoughts will only breed doubt. Instead, adopting an approach of acting on all positive thoughts will remove any self-doubt. Actions you would have previously been unsure about will be underpinned by unique confidence in your abilities. You will then also be willing to take more risks in the future. 

StoryShot #6: Replace Envy, Lust, and Desire with Change

We are naturally emotional creatures. Our desires and actions are highly influenced by the way we feel. Bishop also argues that we cannot completely block our emotions, nor should we try to block them. Instead, we should try and control our emotions. You can become far more productive if you only acknowledge your emotions. Then, you act despite how you feel at that moment. Adopting this approach will allow you to make decisions that are more rational and logical.

One of the most important considerations based on this advice is how we react to constructive criticisms. Others criticizing our ideas can feel like a personal attack. So, it is common to experience feelings of anger and embarrassment. But this criticism is key to your idea’s improvement. Ignoring these criticisms will leave you with a product or idea that won’t make you successful. Similarly, overreacting and completely abandoning your product or idea will put you back to the starting line of your journey to success. Instead, take these criticisms on board and make changes.

Finally, envy and lust are some of the most common emotions when pursuing success. It is easy to observe others who are successful and feel that you deserve their success more than they do. That said, instead of viewing their success negatively, you should view their success as a positive opportunity. Observe how these individuals became successful and use their approaches as inspiration for your journey to success.

StoryShot #7: Remember the Hardship Involved in Your Previous Successes

Bishop starts this chapter by encouraging readers to visualize our previous successes and how they were achieved. He points out that it is likely that some amount of discomfort, risk, and sacrifice was required to achieve these successes. Subsequently, these successes would not have been possible without you being relentless in your desire. Bishop encourages you to adopt a concept of relentlessness in all parts of your life. Relentlessness is how we can overcome obstacles that present themselves as distractions. 

Bishop explains that the most challenging obstacles are self-doubt and confusion. We must adopt relentlessness when these crop up in our pursuit of success. One way to adopt relentlessness during these circumstances is to remind yourself of why you began this pursuit in the first place. Think about the ultimate goal and identify the roadblock that is preventing you from reaching this goal. Explicitly identifying this roadblock will help it become your reality. You can then prevent yourself from being stopped by this roadblock by disagreeing with the notion that this roadblock stands in your way to success.

You must remain resolute in your determination to reach your goal. It is acceptable for you to make mistakes when pursuing your goals. But do not let these mistakes discourage you or distract you from your path to success. Your journey doesn’t have to look exactly how you imagined it would. 

No matter what you do, do not stop for anything. Keep going, push through, and be relentless. Life will not pause and wait for you. No matter how you feel or where you are at the moment, life will not care. Instead, worries about being too sick, tired, or busy will prevent you from doing the work you need to be doing. The sooner you realize that life moves forward while you are not taking action, the sooner you will succeed. You must also make the decision yourself to move forward. There will very rarely be other individuals who share the same views, interests, and goals as you. So, it is your job to figure out challenging times and keep taking the actions required to reach your goals. Putting things off will only allow the world to keep moving forward while you are standing still. In effect, putting things off is like moving backward.

StoryShot #8: The Journey Is More Important than the Goal

Bishop explains throughout Unfuck Yourself that life is uncertain. So, things will not always go according to plan. It is common for people to view their journey to success as doomed when their plan starts veering off-track. Bishop reminds readers that we are not always able to control what happens. Still, we can control how we respond to the situation. 

Setting expectations for what will happen is only setting ourselves up for disappointment. Often we will not even realize that we have expectations for a task. Bishop explains that we almost always have expectations, and these expectations can distract us from other possibilities.

Natural emotional reactions to unexpected failures are to become angry or disappointed. It is very uncommon that people naturally respond to these unexpected situations with relief or a sense of control. So, Bishop recommends that we always expect that things aren’t going to go the way we anticipated. If something unexpected does happen, then we must quickly accept this and move on. Moving on involves making a conscious effort to prevent disappointment from taking over us. In doing so, we can become much more flexible and better appreciate the process. 

Bishop states that getting to your goal is not always the most important thing. Instead, he believes that making it to the end of your journey is the most important thing. You must allow yourself to start doing rather than wishing.

StoryShot #9: Try to Avoid Blaming Others

Our expectations of others are another factor holding us back from achieving success. Blaming others for your failures is generally due to two reasons:

1. People do not like taking responsibility.
2. People’s self-admiration is too high to accept any fault.

Refusing to admit any blame is a more significant mistake than any that another person could have made. By refusing to admit your mistakes, you are refusing to learn. Your mistakes are essential tools for improving areas that will be crucial for your future success. Good things only come to those who are willing to do the work and take responsibility for their actions.

StoryShot #10: The Two Steps to Freedom

At the end of the book, Gary John Bishop outlines his two-step process of achieving freedom at a financial and emotional level. 

1. Stop doing what you are currently doing – It is easy to fill our lives with unuseful tasks that waste our time. But life does not care what irrelevant tasks you are engaging with. Each task that is not moving you toward your goals is just another excuse. So, if you want to move forward, you need to stop and look at what you are currently doing. Identify the behaviors that are holding you back and do your best to stop doing them.
2. Start taking actions to propel you forward – Firstly, you must identify the actions that will make you a better person and propel you toward your end goal. Although it should be relatively easy to identify the actions, it won’t necessarily be easy to continue taking these actions. This means you have to be willing to accept that reaching your goals will take time and lots of individual actions.

Final Review and Analysis

Unfuck Yourself focuses more on one’s approach and the journey than specific actions and goals. This prevents emotions and thoughts from hindering our chances of success. This focus also stops the toxic act of blaming others and external circumstances for your failures, partly because the journey becomes so important.

Rating

We rate Unfu*k Yourself 4.4/5. How would you rate Gary John Bishop’s book based on our summary?

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