You’ve been encouraged to begin the process of amending yourself through building new positive daily habits. However, there is much more that needs to be done. These new habits are just the beginning.
These new thought processes will be difficult to sustain unless you force yourself out of your emotional, physical and spiritual comfort zones. That is why we will be spending the last four chapters teaching you how to think differently, and also how to build a new set of positive, very specific life goals. These goals will encompass all areas of your life.
Alcoholics Anonymous cautions, “Don’t project,” “Live one day at a time,” “Don’t get too happy, remember that this too shall pass” or “What you think is happiness is just a pink cloud, and like everyone else you, too, will fall off.” This is simply fear-based nonsense and completely counterproductive thinking. After all, haven’t you been living that way already, hiding from your life and problems; watching your life pass you by; always waiting for the other shoe to drop?
We are here to tell you that the future is created by you. You, and only you, have the power to build your future. It is already there within your heart, your conscience. No matter what you may have thought in the past, you do have the strength and courage to master your fear of the future.
After two decades of helping people, an effective method of finding happiness and success has become quite clear. The following method of building a life that will support your new self-images is actually quite simple and highly effective. It is based on positive thoughts (not fear) which are completely within your control and always have been. You decide what you want out of life; then you formulate a plan to create the life you have chosen.
The plan you will build in the next four chapters will be applied after you return home. You are building a plan that you will execute after you complete the Jude Thaddeus Program.
In short, the primary objective of the Jude Thaddeus Program is to teach relatively immature, generally dissatisfied, unfulfilled, unhappy people a means by which they can gain consistent joy in their lives. The next question is how can you achieve this consistent joy when you return to your life? The program teaches you exactly how you can achieve and maintain joy and stability wherever you are now and wherever you dreams take you into the future.
Many of our guests are returning to the same places, family, friends and jobs they had prior to coming to the retreat house. This return home holds some inherent challenges as people have a tendency to revert back to comfortable, albeit negative, behavior patterns when faced with familiar surroundings and people. Our mission is to create a fool proof plan, so you are able to deal with all the challenges that you will face as you return home and in the future.
Joy is different than happiness. Happiness is a feeling that life is good. It’s the idea that whatever activity we are currently doing is working for us. Joy is much deeper. Joy is the deep sense of goodness you may have felt as a child. It is a sense that all is well, and that there is an intrinsic goodness in the world.
To go from a lost soul filled with a deep sense of failure and disillusionment to a person who lives in joy is a dramatic and life-changing experience. So how do you get there? You must be careful and diligent. In this portion of the program it can be easy to venture off track. You may still be struggling with self-centered thoughts and fears.
We all know of people who have done amazing things with their lives. There are countless stories of people beating the odds: poor kids who became hard-working millionaires, handicapped or sick people who overcame their afflictions and achieved their dreams.
The lack of written goals causes each day to be empty and pointless. By reacting to random circumstances and bouncing from whim to whim, one can only hope that life will turn out better tomorrow. When tomorrow is worse then you have someone who feels like a victim of fate.
When life is left to random chance and expectations are set to the negative there is a very high probability that bad things will happen. Without a well defined plan for the future people cannot know where they are going. They have no viable plan beyond their next high or drunk. They did not believe in the future, and therefore their future is seemingly out of their control.
Alcohol and drugs are not the only past negative goals our guests have worked towards. Any activity that has a quick payoff with minimal effort always attracts the immature. We hope you will now be willing to look past your immediate circumstances and dream beyond them. Whatever goals you list, each must be examined thoroughly by you to determine if it is a “worthy goal."
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