
by Amanda Mortimer
I chose to review This is it! It’s your life. Live it. with a certain amount of scepticism, but a willingness to be proved wrong. Reflecting on what I’ve just read in Mortimer’s book, I realise I have some firmly ingrained beliefs that have been holding me back: I got the plump genes; It’s too wet and windy to work in the garden or go for a walk, I’ll do that when it’s sunny; and the opposite one, It’s too sunny to stay inside and do housework, I’ll leave it for rainy day!
Luckily Mortimer makes it very clear that ‘beliefs aren’t the truth’. Beliefs are only what we perceive to be true. So, This is it! It’s your life. Live it. is all about honing our beliefs into positive affirmations, engaging with our unconscious mind, and projecting our dreams and ambitions into a time when they have been achieved and we’re living the reality of our success. This is a book brimming with powerful, positive messages founded in Neuro Linguistic Psychology (NLP).
Starting with Kathrine Switzer’s introduction, where she reassures us that it’s normal to procrastinate and be sceptical, through to its closing pages, This is it! It’s your life. Live it. is engaging and energising. Mortimer points out that willpower and conscious effort alone are not enough to achieve many of our goals. Instead, using the S.C.O.R.E and S.P.E.C.I.F.Y models, she teaches us how to connect with our unconscious mind and how to programme it to reinforce positive thought and behaviour.
A key to success is imaging ourselves in a ‘goal achieved’ state and visualising our success in the minutest detail. What does success feel like? What do we see, hear, say, taste, smell in our moment of victory? By conjuring up all our senses and picturing success achieved, Mortimer encourages us to cut the One day I’ll … and the If only I …, I’d … from our goal setting and replace it with It’s 2019, I’ve just run the marathon /passed the final exam/lost 10 kg/saved $4,000 … etc.
We often talk about ‘psyching ourselves up’ to face some unappealing task: This is it! It’s your life. Live it. teaches us how to psych ourselves up to achieve our goal. Instead of leaning back on negative beliefs, something like I got the plump genes (which I might imagine I got from my mother) becomes I have Dad’s slim McKenzie genes. It’s too wet and windy go for a walk becomes Yes! Rug up and enjoy the wind in your hair!
Mortimer’s writing is so direct and perceptive, it’s almost as she’s in the room with us: in easy-to-read language she lets us know that she knows when we’re procrastinating. Even for the most sceptical, she will have us closing our eyes and visualising, or up and out of our chairs, stepping on and off a time line on the floor, standing inside an imaginary red circle as we anchor positive thoughts in our minds. And because it’s difficult to do these things and read, This is it! It’s your life. Live it. comes complete with recordings and videos to take us through the process as well as work sheets for the various phases from goal definition to achievement.
This is it! It’s your life. Live it. gets us looking at every aspect of our goals – not just defining the goal itself, but also exploring the resources that will help us achieve it and looking at the cost to others of our pursuing and achieving our goal: accountability in other words, but referred to in This is it! It’s your life. Live it. as Ecology (to fit the E in the SCORE and SPECIFY mnemonic). So it’s more than just a textbook to achieving our goals: it’s an interactive experience. Along with the practical goal-setting material there are case studies and Mortimer’s accounts of her own achievements, including how she psychologically prepared herself to run over 200 km across Portugal for charity.
10% of This is it! It’s your life. Live it. profit is donated to the Jodie O’Shea Orphanage, Bali.
Writer, freelance proofreader, copy editor, & translator from Italian to English.
Carolyn kindly offers accommodation at reasonable rates for FlaxFlower writers
in Thames (Waikato) and Ventimiglia Alta (Liguria, Italy). [email protected]
Author: Amanda Mortimer
Publisher: Your Life Live It
RRP: $34.99
Available: https://yourlifeliveit.com