How to Become More Successful by Getting Rid of Everything Rotten in Your Life

Below is an excerpt from the book Letting Go of Your Bananas: How
to Become More Successful by Getting Rid of Everything Rotten in Your
Life Hardcover by Daniel T. Drubin





This is a book for anyone who feels they’ve fallen short of their
career potential, or wondered if the things they do—or don’t do—at work
are sabotaging their careers.


The truth is, most people learn their greatest lessons not from
grasping the brass ring, but from letting go of negative influences and
behaviors. Now, Dr. Daniel T. Drubin helps readers identify what he
terms the “rotten bananas”—unhealthy habits, relationships, jobs, and
beliefs—that are holding them back, while providing job-saving,
step-by-step advice on how to get back on track, including ways to:

• Increase resourcefulness
• Take responsibility and win “the blame game”
• Enhance fearlessness
• Remain purposeful, passionate, and persuasive
• And more

Letting Go of Your Bananas: What You Can Do

• Make a list of your rotten bananas.
• Decide what or whom you are no longer willing to accept in your life.
• Be willing to get into the pain of changing your destiny.
• Make the tough decisions.
• Embrace the consequences of your decisions.
• Be totally honest with yourself and others.
• If you need help letting go of your bananas, get help.
• Remember, you only grow when you let go!
• He who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how.

Key #1: Letting Go of Your Bananas

All barrier busting and personal growth begins the moment you are
willing to accept the truth about yourself. And the truth is, most of
your bananas, or limitations, whether real or imagined, have been
created either by you or by someone important in your life. So much of
what we become in our lives has a great deal to do with the people and
beliefs we were exposed to as children. Children tend to be wide open to
suggestion and to modeling the behaviors of those around them, to the
point where they sometimes take on the characteristics of people who
influence their lives. Without an effective way to filter out some of
the things they are exposed to—some of which may not be in their
ultimate best interest—they become pre-programmed to think and act a
certain way. The good news is that regardless of what you may have been
exposed to early on, or for that matter later in your life, you can
change your life by using your free will and power of choice.


You
get to decide right now if you want to continue on your present path of
life and have those obstacles keep you where you are, or do whatever is
necessary to go beyond those barriers. You decide which of the bananas
in your bunch are worth keeping and which of the rotten bananas you want
to rid yourself of.


I have been told that the way they used to capture monkeys in Africa
was by placing bananas in the bottoms of narrow-necked jars. When a
monkey came upon the jar, in an effort to remove the banana, it would
put its hand into the jar and grab on to the banana. Unwilling to let go
of its food, the monkey was now stuck with a jar on its hand, which
made it rather easy to catch. What does this have to do with improving
the quality of your life? Everything!


When it comes to our lives, the majority of us tend to grab on to
something or someone and refuse to let go. We then convince ourselves
that we simply cannot survive without that person or thing, and we
refuse to let go. In fact, we will even hold on to people, things, or
habits that we consciously know are bad for us. It may be a bad
relationship or job or a bad belief or physical habit. We cling to what
we have—the safe, the secure, and the familiar—even when we know it’s
unhealthy and preventing us from living a better life. And while we want
to go beyond where we are in life, most of our actions indicate that we
are willing to stay exactly where and how we are. We just will not let
go of our bananas, our sameness, our habits, our comfort, or our past.

The monkey eventually learns that if it refuses to let go of the
banana, the fruit will rot and start to stink, yet the monkey still
holds on. The same is true for us. If we refuse to let go of the things
or people that hold us back, life starts to rot and then stink. The only
way to go beyond where you are in your life is by being willing to let
go of the things, people, habits, and beliefs that keep you where you
are instead of where you want to be.


Letting go of your bananas begins with the power of one: one bold
action, one brave decision, one limitless vision, one great question,
one new idea, one burning desire, or one act of kindness. As soon as you
are willing to embrace the fact that you can change the quality of your
life and act on that belief, your world changes for the better.


One of life’s biggest challenges is the challenge of letting go.
While on an intellectual level I am certain you can understand and
appreciate what I am referring to, each of us has been created with a
built-in mechanism that wants us to maintain the status quo. Despite how
much we want a better life, we do tend to stick with what we know to be
safe and comfortable. Face it: keeping things the same, even if your
life situation is awful, is safe compared with abandoning what you have
and facing the unknown. The unknown is where all of your personal and
professional potential lies. The known, on the other hand, is the life
you are living right now. Your choices are few and simple: Keep things
as they are and resent being limited or opt for the discomfort of change
as you face the unknown. As long as these choices are just about the
only two choices available to you, you get to choose your destiny.
Choose sameness and you get more of what you have. Choose change and
letting go and a whole new world of possibilities awaits you.


Rickey Henderson, the greatest base stealer in the history of
baseball, had a decision to make each time he contemplated stealing a
base. He could choose not to steal the base and remain exactly where he
was, or he could run the risk of leaving safety and comfort for the
possibility of something greater. Ricky understood that if he wanted to
get to second base, the first thing that he had to do was take his foot
off first base. First base represented Ricky’s banana; beyond first base
lay the potential to help his team and set new standards of
base-stealing excellence. The same can be said of a trapeze artist. To
get from one side of the net to the other, he or she must be prepared to
let go. To get to a better place in your life, a place beyond your
barriers, a place without rotten bananas, you must be prepared to let go
of the known. Letting go of the bananas in your life requires courage
and the willingness to live with the consequences of your decisions.
Only those of you who are prepared to face the risks associated with
letting go of the existing and embarking on the quest for a better
future will have the opportunity to bask in the glow of life overflowing
with personal opportunity and professional victories.


If you have chosen to remain the same, clinging on to the bananas in
your life, you may as well stop reading now and give this book to
someone you know who is prepared to change his or her life. On the other
hand, if you are the fearless warrior I believe you are, this is the
time when you have to decide what and who stays in your life and what
and who must go. It’s a tough choice. Most of your choices will involve
how much you really want to bust out of your present life into a more
rewarding one. The more you want to exchange your present for a more
gratifying future, the more risk you will need to take. Letting go of
the big bananas in your life will provide you with the opportunity for
big change and big barrier busting. Or you can play it safer and let go
of the smaller bananas in your life and experience smaller change.
Regardless of the choice you make, the most important thing is that you
have chosen to no longer settle for your present life circumstances, and
you are moving consistently and intently in the direction of your
dreams.


Life is a mirror, and what you see in your personal universe is an
absolute mirror image of your feelings, thoughts, and actions. If you
perceive that you have barriers, you’re right, and the only thing that
really matters when you have obstacles or barriers is your level of
resourcefulness. Those who want the most out of life can get it if they
are highly energized and creatively resourceful. That’s right:
everything that exists in your present state of life is a direct
reflection of all of your feelings, thoughts, and actions. Change your
feelings, thoughts, and actions and you change your life. Change your
life and your rotten bananas disappear and your barriers begin to fall.
Because your life is a mirror, what you are experiencing in your life
right now is also a direct reflection of all the effort and energy you
have invested in the quality of your life up to this point in time. If
you want to enjoy a better and more gratifying life—a life without
bananas—you must begin by altering what you see when you look at and
analyze all the aspects of your life.


All personal growth begins the moment you are willing to accept the
truth about yourself. And the truth often hurts. We become so bogged
down in denial that we often refuse to face or accept the truth and take
personal responsibility for our lives. At one point when I was not
satisfied with the condition of my life, I asked a person for whom I had
tremendous admiration and respect to tell me the truth about what he
thought my problem was. After making certain that I really wanted to
hear it, he told me he thought I was “the most selfish person he had
ever known.” His comment just blew me away, and my feelings were hurt. I
didn’t see myself that way at all. Only after putting my ego and
feelings aside was I willing to consider his comments. And when I was
truly honest with myself, I saw that he was right. That one moment of
truth and incredibly painful comment changed my life. You just have to
face the truth about yourself if you want to tear down the barriers and
let go of the stinking bananas in your life. Once you have faced and
accepted the truth about who and what you are, as well as who and what
you are not, you can make the decision to totally invest all of your
physical and mental energy into ridding your life of all rotten bananas.


The truth for most of us is that over time it becomes increasingly
easier to defend the sameness in our lives. We settle for the status quo
and believe we are doomed to living the life that others have dealt us
rather than taking control of our own destiny. In order to make
ourselves okay with our day-to-day existence, we are capable of
justifying, explaining, and defending how we managed to wind up where we
are. Remember, taking personal responsibility for one’s life is the
highest form of personal growth. In fact, I never did meet a person who
couldn’t perfectly explain his or her situation in life. Barrier busting
and letting go of life’s bad bananas is an ongoing tug of war between
where you are and what you aspire to be. It’s the constant battle
between clinging to the convenience of remaining exactly where you are
versus the confrontation, chaos, and pain of changing the condition of
your life. As I have always said, “You are in the pain or in the pain.”
Cling to your bananas and not like the feeling, or let go of them and
face the unknown. Either way you are going to be uncomfortable. My
personal philosophy has always been that as long as you are going to be
uncomfortable anyway, you may as well opt for the discomfort of change.
Only then will you be able to fully enjoy all that life offers. Once you
are willing and able to see the truth about your past you will be able
to create a better present and future. Then you get to toss out all of
your stale, rotten, and smelly life bananas.


As I had mentioned, getting rid of your stale, rotten, and smelly
bananas requires courage and confidence. The reason we need so much
courage is that we are literally addicted to our own lifestyles and
situations. The best definition I have ever heard for an addiction is:
“When you can never have enough of what you really don’t want.” As much
as we complain and want a banana-free existence, there is a part of us
that just loves our smelly, rotten, and stale lifestyle. Our approach to
life is more about settling for the status quo than reaching for the
stars.


To advance beyond where you are, you must be prepared to make some
very tough decisions and willingly accept the consequences of those
decisions. In life, decisions drive behavior, and altered behavior
creates altered outcomes. Remember, people who take emotional ownership
of their lives win.


Very often, the stale bananas in your life have to do with the
quality of your relationships. If your relationship bananas are working
for you, that’s great. On the other hand, if you are clinging to some
stale, rotten, and smelly relationships, you have some decisions to
make. Basically, when it comes to decision-making you have three
choices: settle, fix, or flee. You can keep things exactly as they are
and settle for the life you have, you can fix the situation and make
things better, or you can flee the situation, remaining in a state of
total denial. Of those choices, only you can determine what the best
course of action is for your life. Just be prepared to live with the
result of those choices.


I never could understand why some people opt to remain in destructive
or abusive relationships. As a child I remember members of my family
who would not speak to other members of the family. Children would not
talk to parents or to their siblings. When I asked my father why his
brother did not speak to his father, my dad had a list of reasons that
made perfect sense, at least to my uncle. While I know this isn’t likely
to happen in your family, these are the types of rotten bananas that
can get in the way of experiencing a better life. People who choose to
cling to their rotten bananas know that things are lousy, yet they just
keep coming up with world-class excuses to stay where they are. Very
often they are so immersed in their negative life condition that they
cannot even see beyond their barriers and instead settle for a life of
limitation and pain.


If that sounds like you, go get professional help now. Face it: Some
bananas are so big and stinky that you need help. There are people and
organizations that will support you in doing what is in your own best
interest. Frightening? Of course. If it were easy to let go of all of
life’s rotten bananas, we would live in a world that is perfect. Take a
look around; life and the world are far from perfect, and that’s okay,
because it provides us with a challenge. Your job is to give up looking
for perfection and trade it for day-to-day improvement. Remember,
letting go of all of your bananas is about the daily direction that each
day of your life takes. As long as you are continually moving in the
right direction each day, despite how difficult that may be at times,
you become closer to living a life free of limitations.


Remember, improving the quality of your life takes work, focus,
consistency, and a burning desire to maximize the positive moments of
each day of your life. As with so many things in life, there is always a
trade-off. You have the ability and power to choose consciously to rid
yourself of all of your personal limitations. Take stock of every single
thing that holds you back and exchange those limitations for a life of
limitless potential, a life that is more personally and professionally
rewarding.