A few weeks ago I wrote about how I was mad as hell, and pretty reticent about taking it anymore. I decided then and there that the only way out of my situation (and on to superstardom, ahem) was to start being what I’m supposed to be, which is a writer. I was going to have to write my ass off, to be smart about that ass-off writing, to be funny and engaging while my ass was seceding, and to write in sufficient quality and volume so as to assure that my ass was indeed completely off and free to act independently. Seemed to make sense.

Since that time, a few things have happened along that path of no-ass writing. I somehow conned Naomi of IttyBiz into believing that it made sense for me to keep writing a column on her blog. I launched two new sites of my own: The Diabetic Weightlifter and Learn To Be Your Own VA. (I used the same theme on both because duplication makes things easier and I figured the chances of their audiences overlapping was pretty slim. How many diabetics do you know who are lifting fanatics as well as blog enthusiasts? Just me? Yeah, that’s what I thought.)

The latter of those new sites has been quite an initial success. (The former was always going to be a slow play.) I also wrote an e-book on how to launch a stand-alone blog cheap, fast, and easy. I started a weekly webinar series. I’ve got ins toward possibly writing guest posts on some pretty damn huge blogs. The humor writing has been slower-going, but it’s on deck. I mean, I still want to serialize my bagel deli book online, and let’s not forget that parenthood book I keep mentioning I’m working on.

So, a whole lot of activity. A whole lot of exposure and momentum. Not a lot of money yet — but some… and hey, April’s barely halfway over. As a whole, things are moving in the right direction. Which, by the way, absolutely doesn’t stop me from still freaking out from time to time.

Enter my new friend Tim Brownson.

Tim is a life coach and all-around cool guy who I started working with about a month ago. His thing is working on the root beliefs that underlie our actions, and the general “mental stuff” that we get hung up on when we’re pursuing our goals.

You may be like, “Why would I work on my beliefs if I want to succeed? I should work on my actions. You’re dumb. You’re an idiot, Johnny. I’ll bet you pee your pants all the time, you big dumb idiot.”

And then I’d give you a flying roundhouse kick to the back of the head because dude, beliefs are everything. If you don’t believe, deep down, that you can do something, you won’t be able to take the action necessary to do it right. And if you believe you’ll never succeed in business or that you’re a failure or that you’ll always be poor… well, you’re right. And if you don’t believe me, try not changing anything under the hood of your own brain, and then go through a lifetime and see if it works out for you, you big dumb pants-peeing idiot.

So yeah, working on beliefs. Which isn’t something you can do well on your own, which is why Tim is helping me out. He’s the one who knows his shit. (I mean, I know shit, but that’s literal shit and is of limited value in this context.)

We started looking first at my values. He’s got this process where he asks me a series of questions and I get all confused and in the end we get this list of things I really value and a list of things I really don’t want. This all happens deep, deep down, so if I act in a way that violates my values, it’s going to fuck me up. The idea is to make sure that you’re moving in the direction of what you actually want. For years, I moved toward what I thought I wanted. Remember my job counting fruit flies? Um… that wouldn’t have happened if I had done this process first.

So Tim gets all of these answers out of me and then gives me a list.

Tops among my values was “family.” Below that was “freedom,” then “happiness.” Leading my “moving-away values” (things I want to avoid) were “ill health,” “death,” and “anxiety/worry.” The idea here was to figure out whether the direction I was going in my life and career meshed well with my core values. The fruit fly job would not have passed this test. It took me away from my family, limited my freedom, and did not generate happiness. When the panic attacks set in, I got ill health and a lot of anxiety, including worry about death. So yeah, that couldn’t possibly have been a worse job for me. Duh.

Since my current plan moves me toward more family time and more freedom and happiness, it fits. As a bonus, this same plan interestingly causes me neither ill health nor death (and definitely reduces worry), so that means that I passed. Luckily. Because it would have sucked to find out that I should be an accountant or something, or that I should return to counting fruit flies.

Hmm…

You know what? I’m realizing that this post is already pretty long, but I have a lot more to say on this topic. So, I’m going to unceremoniously end here and continue this train of thought in a few days. If you’re not as into self-development as I am, feel free to head over to Wikipedia and replace entire pages of text with photos of penises. But man, I hope that fits your values, because otherwise you should really come back here and read more about how to feel better and get more out of your life, you big pants-peeing jerk. Dumb, urinating, and posting dongs on wikis is no way to go through life, son.