Unlimited Read online

  ALSO BY JILLIAN MICHAELS

  MASTER YOUR METABOLISM

  THE MASTER YOUR METABOLISM COOKBOOK

  THE MASTER YOUR METABOLISM CALORIE COUNTER

  MAKING THE CUT

  WINNING BY LOSING

  Copyright © 2011 by Empowered Media LLC

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crown Archetype, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  www.crownpublishing.com

  CROWN ARCHETYPE with colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Michaels, Jillian.

  Unlimited : how to build an exceptional life / by Jillian Michaels.

  p. cm.

  1. Self-realization. 2. Self-actualization (Psychology). 3. Success. I. Title.

  BF637.S4M496 2010

  158—dc22 2010050834

  eISBN: 978-0-307-58832-6

  Jacket design by Jennifer O’Connor

  Jacket photograph by Joseph Puhy

  v3.1

  This book is dedicated to the people who have educated, inspired, and mentored me tirelessly with love and care. Suze Orman and K.T. Travis, my second mommies. I look forward to all the “Suze smack-downs” and K.T. home-cooked meals my future holds! Dr. Phil, my fearless protector, I swear I will try to stay out of trouble so you can enjoy your spare time again. And of course Dr. Jo Ann McKarus, my mom, without whom I wouldn’t exist physically, spiritually, or psychologically. I love you.

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  STEP ONE

  IMAGINE

  CHAPTER ONE Identify Your Passion (Or, What the Hell Do You Want to Do with Your Life?)

  CHAPTER TWO It’s All in the Details

  CHAPTER THREE Say a Little Prayer (That’s Right, I Said Prayer!)

  STEP TWO

  BELIEVE

  CHAPTER FOUR Time for Your Wake-up Call

  CHAPTER FIVE Forgive and Accept Responsibility

  CHAPTER SIX Get an Attitude Adjustment

  CHAPTER SEVEN Outer ’Tude

  CHAPTER EIGHT Stop Selling Yourself Short

  STEP THREE

  ACHIEVE

  CHAPTER NINE Hit the Books—Then the Deck

  CHAPTER TEN Get Organized

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Create the Right Environment

  CHAPTER TWELVE Master Communication

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Strengthen Willpower and Tame Emotions

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Make It Happen: The Art of Conscious Choice-Making

  Outro: When to Let Go, How to Stay Open

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to my brilliant team who work around the clock to help make the world a happier, healthier place:

  My business partner, Giancarlo Chersich—without you I am lost.

  My exceptional editor and sparring partner, Heather Jackson, and all the badasses at Crown Publishing. I am so blessed to have your literary genius as my guide.

  My valiant and talented writing partner, Claudia Herr. I am amazed you have any hair left after tussling with me project after project.

  My dedicated and steadfast right hand, Rosie Acosta. I am loath to put your last name on the page lest anyone discover you’re the brains behind the operation and steal you away.

  My loyal crack team at Empowered Media: Ray, Danny, Autumn, Julie, and Tammy.

  My beloved lawyer, David Markman.

  My gangster team at CAA—Kevin Huvane, Steve Lafferty, Alan Braun, and Lisa—for never letting me accept Plan B.

  Ellen Rakieten, producer extraordinaire, it was meant to be.

  Jay McGraw, Andrew Scher, and the Docs, thanks for letting me crash the show and always getting my back.

  Mouse, for her endless support and patience.

  And last but not least, my crew at Everyday Health who are the power behind my website, JillianMichaels.com.

  INTRODUCTION

  “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.”

  —HENRY DAVID THOREAU, WALDEN (1854)

  God that quote pisses me off.

  Why? Because it’s true—but it shouldn’t be and doesn’t have to be.

  There is absolutely no reason why you can’t live your dreams, no matter what they are; no reason you can’t live the life you’ve always wanted. Look, you have dreams for a reason. Call it your destiny, your karma, your life’s mission, whatever you want, but your dreams are what define your place and purpose. When you live in fear of your own desires and ambitions, you lose sight of your true calling and your true self. Life loses meaning, and inertia sets in. You become depressed, unhappy, and start to wonder: Is this really all there is?

  The answer is NO!

  Every human being has the capacity to transform suffering or weakness into peace, power, strength, health, and abundance. There is no authentic goal you can set for yourself that can’t be reached, no dream that can’t be realized. It’s just a matter of learning HOW to achieve what you want.

  That’s what this book is: a how-to for wish fulfillment. Many self-help books tell you what to achieve, but they don’t give you particularly useful tools for how to achieve it. They offer a lot of New Age platitudes and sappy self-help mantras:

  Just love yourself.

  See the glass as half full.

  Believe it and it will come.

  I mean, really. That’s not how it works, and you know it.

  A lifetime’s worth of struggle is not overturned in a moment of positive thinking. But if you have the right attitude and skills, you can and will accomplish anything and everything you want. This book gives you both: attitude and action. By its end you’ll have all the tools you need to change your life—no hype, no false promises.

  So what are we talking about: Career? Love? Emotional health and physical well-being? Yes, yes, yes, and yes! This book is a manual with only one purpose: to arm you with the strategies you need to achieve anything you desire and become whoever you want to be. Unlimited gives you a step-by-step plan that will enable you to begin a purpose-filled, meaningful life according to your truth and on your terms.

  I know what you’re thinking: What’s Jillian Michaels doing writing a self-help book? She’s the fitness guru, right? The fact that people think of me as a fitness guru is hilarious. I imagine a fitness guru as someone who wears spandex, feels the burn, and loves an endorphin high, then follows it all up with a shot of wheatgrass. That is so not me! What I do is not about fitness. Exercise is just one of the tools I use to help people rebuild their lives.

  If you referred to an architect as a sketch artist, he would look at you like you were an insane person. Architects help people build homes; sketches are just one tool they use to do it. Well, that’s what fitness is to me—a tool I use to help you build a life. It’s never been just about the sit-up. Even my fitness best seller, Making the Cut, is at its roots about striving for excellence in your life, not just at the gym.

  So here we are, with a life to build and no exercise routines to suffer through. Don’t panic—we won’t need them. This is about being healthy in all aspects of your life. If getting physically healthy is your focus right now, check out one of my last three books. This book is about everything I do with my contestants behind the scenes that never makes it into the episodes cut for TV (well, maybe some of it on Losing It). It’s about the quieter but necessary steps for transformation, the nuts and bolts of what I do to be successful in my own life, and the tools I use to help others get there as well. It isn’t about calorie counting or ab crunching; it’s about se
lf-exploration and discovery.

  All you need to begin is courage, conviction, and faith, both in yourself and in me as your guide. Sure, at first the faith-in-yourself part is hard, but that’s where I come in. See, I don’t just hope you can do this—I know you can.

  Lean on me while you get stronger. And trust me: you have unlimited potential and the ability to fulfill it. We all do—it’s just that some of us know it and some of us don’t.

  Now, get ready, because it’s time to stop being quiet and desperate. Screw surviving—it’s time to THRIVE. Unlimited health, wealth, and happiness are just waiting for you to claim them.

  I can’t promise you it’s going to be easy—think about it, nothing worthwhile ever is, is it? Achievement doesn’t come without risk and sacrifice. But what I can promise you is that I will cut out the crap and tell you what works. Come with me on this journey, and your life will change dramatically, for the better.

  So let’s dig deep, get our hands dirty, and do this.

  This is one hell of a journey you’re beginning. In fact, it’ll probably be the most important, challenging, and rewarding thing you ever do. But as I’m sure you know, every journey, no matter how huge, begins with a single step. So what is that first step in taking control of your life and beginning to live the way you are meant to live? Simple. (Notice I didn’t say easy.) Your first step is to let your imagination run wild. To live the life of your dreams, you have to know what those dreams are.

  So in Step One, I will teach you how to get a firm grip, mentally and emotionally—and yes, even spiritually—on what it is you want out of life. This is the fun part. This is where you get to kick aside any ideas that may have taken root about your life being set in stone on its current path, or about your not being worthy of a truly great life. The title of this step really says it all—this is where you get to imagine everything you have ever wanted your life to be.

  CHAPTER ONE

  IDENTIFY YOUR PASSION

  (Or, What the Hell Do You Want to Do with Your Life?)

  If you’ve picked up this book, chances are you’re looking for a change. You may feel like something is missing from your life, but you don’t know what it is. Or you may be stuck in a rut, waking up every morning wondering how you’re going to make it through another day.

  If this is you, I’m so glad you’ve come to me, so I can tell you, in as many ways as I know how, that that is not what your life is supposed to be! We were all born with the desire and the right to be happy. But somewhere along the way many of us got trained—by family, friends, religion, society at large, whoever—to believe that the human condition is predominantly one of suffering. And if we’re not happy, it’s just because “that’s the way things are.” That is the greatest lie ever told.

  We’re taught to settle, and we’re made to feel guilty if we single-mindedly go after something we want. We go on to believe that our desires are selfish. That our self-love is arrogant and pompous. All our joy and innocence are stripped away as we’re programmed like androids to live lives of servitude and “responsibility.” Too many of us buy into the idea that there are rules to how this life works, and dues that must be paid.

  We grow up being told that if we behave and play by the rules, the good life will happen for us in some vaguely defined future. Parents preach this in the home. Teachers preach it in the classroom. Bosses preach it in the workplace. This belief is handed from generation to generation to generation. But for most of us happiness never comes. That’s because society is built on the repression of individual desires. In the distant past it would have been impossible to maintain any kind of social order unless people thought they had to take on the jobs and responsibilities that the society required. You know what I mean. Someone has to do all the crap jobs that no one wants.

  Socialization is the transformation of the human organism into a person who functions in a social system. And the most effective method of socializing people is to make them identify so thoroughly with the social order that they can no longer imagine themselves breaking any of its rules. History has shown us that that’s super scary, right? In the past, socialization was enforced through rewards and punishments based on basic human needs for survival. Step out of line, and we’ll kill you. Speak against the government or religion, and we’ll take away your livelihood so you can’t feed your family anymore. These are extreme scenarios that, while unfortunately still playing out in many parts of the world, are far from our reality here. Times have changed, and most countries are democracies. So if you want to stop working at some shitty job, or accepting some shitty life, luckily no one is going to come kill you or take all your dough.

  You might be thinking, But if we all upped and started doing whatever we wanted, it would be anarchy! Not true. Society would continue to function—it would just be forced to evolve. Let’s take a very basic example. Hypothetically say that all the train conductors in the country decided to quit their jobs and follow their dreams to open their own businesses. The economy would be just fine, and eventually so would the trains. Each of the new businesses would generate jobs and local income, and if we’re savvy enough to put a man on the moon, I think we’re savvy enough to develop technology to run trains without conductors.

  WAKE UP and think about it: society tells us it is okay to want things, but only within reason and at a price. We are allowed to want comfort, but in due time and within limits. A happy marriage with 2.5 kids and a picket fence is cool, but a sprawling estate on the California coastline, being married to the person of your dreams, doing what you love as a career? Who the hell do you think you are?

  Imagine a college student saying, “I want to be a billionaire by the time I graduate.” You and I both know that most people would call that student an upstart and say that was an outrageous, arrogant statement. People would smack that kid down! The attitude, from parents, teachers, and society, would be “Who are you? That’s not how life works. You have to pay your dues like the rest of us.” And maybe the student would let it affect him or her—or maybe not. Clearly the founders of YouTube—Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim—chose not to let anyone smack them down, and they ended up selling their company to Google for a cool $1.65 billion. (And the founders of Facebook, MySpace, and Google wouldn’t be smacked down either.)

  Let’s be clear, I’m not saying money buys happiness, but these successful innovators are not just people with money. They are people who made money doing what they love.

  Ask yourself this: how much deprivation, how much self-effacement must you suffer before you act on your desire for meaning and fulfillment, before you thrive in your life instead of barely surviving it?

  Now, don’t get me wrong. You can’t skip the process of learning. You do have to go to medical school before you can practice medicine. But there’s no rule saying you can’t be the best brain surgeon in the entire world upon graduation. The truth is, there are no rules. Period. Anything is possible if you have the knowledge and do the work. In fact, not only is it possible, it’s critical!

  We are here to cultivate our passion, fulfill our dreams, and take this exquisite experience called life to its apex. The human condition isn’t about suffering—it’s about achieving and being all that we can be. Sure, suffering is a part of life, but it’s not all there is. Its counterpart is joy!

  “Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.”

  —KAHLIL GIBRAN

  Suffering and joy are connected, and though we will inevitably experience pain, joy is our true destination, and the right of the human spirit.

  Unleashing our passion and pursuing the things we want bring us to our truth, allowing us to become whole and to make our dreams into reality (or as some would put it, to “manifest our destiny”). Ultimately, that is what you owe the world. When you are healthier and happier,
you are in the best position to give back to your loved ones and to the world at large.

  I’m sure some of you are thinking, I wasn’t brought up like this. I was taught to be humble and accept my lot. Yeah? Well, so was I. Let’s be clear: wanting things and feeling worthy of a great life do not mean you think you are more deserving or better than everyone else. We are all deserving of happiness. Those of us who throw off society’s conventions to attain our goals are showing others that it’s possible for them as well. Don’t mistake healthy ego strength and prosperity for greed and ostentation.

  People may try to shake your resolve, but be strong. Don’t cave—lead by example. People can be slow to change, but they’ll follow your lead eventually. Even if they don’t, do not compromise your happiness because of others’ lack of insight. You owe it to yourself and to the wider world to max out your potential.

  We could spend a lot of time pondering how we’ve been programmed to believe we have to settle for less, and how this fallacy has infiltrated our collective psyche. But seriously, what’s the point?

  Let’s save ourselves some time here, kick the shoulds of life to the curb, and call bullshit on this pernicious piece of dogma. Listen to me very carefully: it’s time to start living your life the way God, or (insert whatever greater power you believe in here), intended—HAPPILY.

  Got it? Good.

  DREAM IT, DO IT

  Think about it: there are happy people in this world. Some people’s dreams really do come true; I’m living proof. Real happiness exists for some, so why not you? I love to use Oprah as an example, because her experience speaks louder than any counterarguments you could give me. She was a poor, sexually abused African-American kid, growing up at a time when racism was still a painful reality. Now she’s one of the most powerful women in the world. She made it to where she is without a single starting advantage. If she can be that successful, why can’t you? Absolutely nothing makes her different from you in any way that makes her level of success unattainable by you, if you were to decide you wanted it.