• Building a sense of trust that will allow you to relax and enjoy life.
• Recognizing your accomplishments and affirming your true value.
• Avoiding the urge to compare yourself to others while learning to listen to your own voice.
• Becoming emotionally honest and achieving closeness.
• Refusing to doubt your competence so that you can achieve the success you want.
• Identifying a core purpose that will allow you to follow through on your dreams.

Trust &emdash the First Key

One way to get high blood pressure is to go mountain climbing over molehills.
&emdash; Earl Wilson

When you can't relax, even though a break from the turmoil of your troubled thoughts is exactly what you need and most desire, what could be the cause? Usually, the inability to relax is due to one or both of the following reasons:

Hypervigilance.
This is persistent anxiety that is fueled by heightened sensitivity to others; hypervigilance is often a result of a childhood in which there were too many adult responsibilities.

Compulsive Self-Reliance.
This is the belief that you have to do it all by yourself to get it done right.

Common symptoms of chronic or persistent anxiety include a rapid heartbeat, irritability and edginess, upset stomach, sleep disturbances, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, headaches, muscle aches, backaches and excessive worry. One criterion of generalized anxiety disorder according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is "excessive anxiety and worry (apprehensive expectation) occurring more days than not for at least six months, about a number of events or activities (such as work or school activities)."

The key to changing the pattern begins with awareness. Do you really need to be on guard so much? Is your environment still threatening? Can you be prepared without being anxiously over-prepared? For your constant vigilance, you may get an illusion of control, the belief that you are protecting yourself from risk. These are no small benefits, but the cost is high.

The key to overcoming your frustration and dissatisfaction lies in dealing with the underlying issue of trust. Until you learn to trust, you can never really feel safe. Instead of focusing on more achievements or protection from failure, you could switch gears and begin to focus on gaining a sense of connection, learning to ask for help and share responsibilities.

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
&emdash; Corrie Ten Boom

Affirmation &emdash the Second Key

I was once thrown out of a mental hospital for depressing the other patients.
&emdash; Oscar Levant

You may find that worry, frustration and negativity are frequent companions. Other people point out all the reasons why you should feel grateful for what you have. Why do you seem to throw happiness away with both hands?

There's actually a term for this state of mind: anhedonia. It means the absence of joy, which in fact serves a purpose in your life. As in most self-defeating patterns, anhedonia was originally a solution to earlier life problems. Unfortunately, these solutions become ingrained, so we don't realize that we have choices about such matters.

People who can never stay happy for long may have a kind of depression, causing eating disorders, trouble concentrating, sleep disorders and often attempts to live their moods through alcohol or illegal substances. Although people who have this kind of depression usually do not have the hopeless sense of despair commonly seen in clinical depression, they have a great deal of difficulty sustaining any feeling of pleasure. As one man put it, "I just feel flat."

To regain the feeling of being truly alive, to rebuild a sense of hope, the first thing we have to do is get back in touch with our emotions and then to express them. You have a right to enjoy your own life, to feel alive, to have a vision and the energy to go after it. But if your persistent case of the blues is never dispelled and is always a major part of your life, take it to a therapist who can help you determine its origin.

Worrying about trying to protect oneself from future loss will never be enough for two reasons:
When and if it comes, you will still feel the pain. You can't avoid it no matter how prepared you are. Trying to avoid joy so that it won't be followed by a disappointment just means you'll be unhappy when you succeed and unhappy when you are disappointed.

Identity &emdash the Third Key

If you are constantly comparing yourself to others, and the comparisons make you miserable, why do you do it? The number one reason people compare themselves with others is because our culture encourages such comparative thinking. However, there are definitely some other reasons why some people get stuck so deeply that they never feel happy with themselves or their lives. Some of those are:

• Growing up with a family secret that makes you feel different from everyone else.
• Competing in school environments that had little tolerance for average or below-average performance.
• Growing up in a family that discounted your needs and feelings.
• Being influenced by advertising that constantly encourages us to compare ourselves with the richest, brightest and most beautiful people.

The results of comparison thinking are often either guilt or shame. Guilt signifies, "I did something wrong. I have violated my values." Shame implies, "I feel there is something wrong with me." To have shame as an identity is to believe that one's being is flawed, that one is defective as a human being. Once shame is transformed into an identity, it becomes toxic and dehumanizing.

The comparison thinker can always find someone better to compare himself/herself against. The practice of always comparing oneself with others usually becomes "there's never enough" thinking.

Competence &emdash the Fourth Key

If you want a place in the sun, you must leave the shade of the family tree.
&emdash; Osage saying

Although there may be no direct cause and effect, there are two types of situations that appear to sap motivation early on. These are (1) overparenting, or having controlling parents who see their children as extensions of themselves, and (2) underparenting, or having neglectful or abusive parents.

If you find you can't move forward toward your goals, you may suffer from demand resistance and a subconscious sense of entitlement, caused from overparenting. For example, if you make daily lists of things to do, which you seldom complete, you are being demand resistant. You may be the only one who will suffer if you don't take your car in to be serviced, but you still resent doing it and never quite find time for it. These kinds of things occur because you hate being told what to do, even when you're the one giving the orders. Sometimes you avoid having to engage in active types of conflict, promising to do something but never following through on the promise. Withholding what another requests of you allows you to assert your power.

Some people who had neglectful or abusive parents are filled with panic because of the necessity of asserting themselves. The reason is that those people may have never had any support for taking such stands; consequently, they struggle with a lack of faith in their own beliefs.

It is important to understand that you may habitually perceive all tasks as demands, either on your time or your confidence. To create the success you want in life, it is essential that you disarm your demand resistance, so you can move freely toward achieving the goals you set for yourself.

Intimacy &emdash the Fifth Key

The space for what you want is already filled with what you settle for instead.
&emdash; Stephan C. Paul

Children of unavailable or absent parents often become adults who need constant reassurance. They may spend their lives compulsively trying to overcome the early identities given to them by their families by striving desperately to prove that they are good enough. But, at the same time, they are incapable of trusting another person's willingness to love them. Most often, however, the penchant for impossible relationships is a cover for a deep ambivalence about being intimate with anyone at all.

Purpose &emdash the Sixth Key

We are not human beings trying to be spiritual. We are spiritual beings trying to be human.
&emdash; Jacquelyn Small

Spiritual leaders often teach that each of us comes into the world to learn and to accomplish certain things. When we are in synch with that purpose, we are closest to fulfillment. Sometimes we have a sense of that purpose. Sometimes we lose sight of it. Sometimes we are completely unaware of what our purpose is. When we struggle to find meaning in our lives and it continues to elude us, the chances are good that it's because of one of the following reasons:

• Feeling a sense of scarcity rather than a sense of abundance.
• Having grown up in a family that groomed one for a lifestyle that is not what you would have chosen for yourself.
• Lacking empathy, validation and support.
• Fearing to look within.

A sense of scarcity is like a filter through which we view everything. It's not necessarily reality. However, it is a way to protect ourselves from risk and disappointment. In truth, it often limits us to a life that is somewhere in the middle between happiness and unhappiness, usually described as steady and stable.

Whether you call it a rite of passage, a midlife crisis or a spiritual awakening, most of us arrive at a time in our lives when we begin to question everything we do and what meaning it has. Those of us who followed a path laid out for us by someone else sometimes begin to feel angry or ashamed. Did we just take the easy way out? Were we pushed too hard into places we didn't want to go? In any case, it isn't too late. Awareness is the first step. It doesn't matter so much how you got on the path but whether you feel fulfilled or empty.

If exploring yourself to find your true purpose means that much of the foundation upon which you've built your life is shaky and must be replaced, some of you will avoid doing it. You need to have enough support to feel strong enough to cope with the answer.

When you become clear about what you want to happen in your life, and you begin to really believe it can happen, your enthusiasm may win over the people who are not supportive. If not, perhaps you are the person who, by example, teaches everyone around you that there is a bigger, more meaningful picture. That, in itself, may be your highest purpose.

Whether you know it or not, your sense of purpose is there. Each one of us has a unique talent and a unique way of expressing that talent. Put another way, there is something each one of us can do better than anyone else. What are your unique gifts?

You may have developed a sense of entitlement, expecting the world to cater to you, causing you to have trouble giving to others. If this is true of you, however your history may have shaped you, one of the most purposeful experiences in life &emdash; the experience of contributing &emdash; is missing.

Perhaps you have never even identified your gifts because you are too focused on the future and its perils. If your failing is being unable to stay focused in the present, you may ask yourself, "Is there something I'm running from?" "Is there something ahead I need to deal with?" Do you feel you'll lose something if you decide that you will be only here, in this moment, and nowhere else? You might want to decide to deal with those issues squarely, once and for all, and finally let them go. As the saying goes, "It may be better to lose our minds and come to our senses."

New Thoughts and New Actions &emdash; the Key to Change

You are a child of God; your playing small doesn't serve the world.
&emdash; Nelson Mandela

Here are some positive affirmations you can say to yourself.

• Today I will start on the journey to my dreams. In the process I will come home to my true self.
• It doesn't matter where I'm coming from; it matters where I'm going.
• I have a right to define and develop my unique path in life.
• I can be appreciated for being myself.
• Giving to others is giving to myself.
• I have an important voice, and the right to express it.
• I am a channel for God's work.
• I can have everything I want if I help enough other people to get what they want.
• I trust in the process of life. I know that Divine wisdom and guidance will protect me at all times.

Mitch Meyerson is an expert in the pyschology of self-esteem and personal achievement. He is the author of many books and audiotapes as well as a musician and composer of songs and guided imagery tapes.

Laurie Ashner is a prominent journalist and expert in human relationships on personal growth topics. She has co-authored six books.

Six Keys to Creating the Life You Desire is published by New Harbinger Publications in Oakland, California. For information call 800/748-6273 or visit the publisher's website at NewHarbinger.com.