3/23/04

I have had Dr. Phil’s book Self Matters for about two weeks now. I have had a hard time getting started on it. I have picked it up, read a few pages, highlighted passages, and put it back down. It seems as though I know deep down that I am going to have a LOT of HARD work ahead of me and I am reluctant and afraid to get started. I finally got to the part today where you evaluate your authentic self with your fictional self in two tests.

Let’s just say I did very poorly on both evaluations. The first one where you answer 38 questions and can score from a 38-142, I scored a 68. There were a few questions where I have been noticing things about myself the past few months and have been trying to work on them on my own. On those questions, I was between the “most of the time” for the fictional self and the “most of the time” for the authentic self. Sometimes I just gave myself a 2 for those questions, sometimes a 3. On the second quiz where you circle the words that you feel describe the “ideal” you, I circled 110. When I went to circle the words that I felt actually described me, I cried while I was reading the list because I felt as though very few of those words described the person I am today. I circled a disappointing 17, which took my congruency to 19 percent.

This has shown me that I am nowhere near the person I wish or would like myself to be. I have a lot of room for improvement. Maybe my improvement needs to be in the area of my own perception. Maybe I have the traits I want, but I don't realize that I have them. I have turned off the TV and have decided that I am going (until 3:00 p.m. - so I can watch Dr. Phil and get some things done around the house before my husband comes home from work) to commit today to my inner self. I am going to read this book today. I am going to take a good long hard look at the person I have allowed myself to become and to concentrate on the person I can and want to be.