It all started with a YouTube video – a story that would change my life, and possibly yours, forever…..by the award-winning motivational speaker and life coach, Lisa Nichols.

After watching the video, I knew that I needed to read Lisa’s book “NO MATTER WHAT! 9 steps to living the life you love” and I did read it!

To say the least, reading the book has been one of the best things I have done this year. It has been a transforming experience! It is beautiful how Lisa owned her past, developed her “bounce-back” muscles and fought for her dreams. Many times, you could relate to her story because she vulnerably bore out her heart – which makes the book so much more impactful.

If you greatly desire to live more impactfully and make the most of your life, against all odds, then this is the book for you.

In a very practical way, Lisa shared nine main “muscles of character” that can only be shaped by overcoming challenges and if well developed, can take you through life-threatening situations so that you experience the joy and peace that you desire.

• Your Understanding Muscle: When this muscle is weak, you make decisions about yourself based on the actions of people. You fail to see the good in everything that happens to you and keep pondering about your past mistakes.

“Today, I know that my past is not who I am; it’s only helped me to become who I am” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Faith-in-Myself Muscle: You know this muscle is weak when you begin to listen to all the negative voices in your head that tell you to “give up your dreams”, that “your life is worthless”, to quit!

“When you can’t use your own legs, borrow someone else’s strength. When you don’t have the vision yourself, borrow someone else’s love. When you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, borrow someone else’s faith.” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Take-Action Muscle: This muscle allows you to create the future you desire knowing fully well that one (unpleasant) experience does not determine your life story. It allows you to rise above your situation and keeps you on track to your ultimate destination.

“You are the master designer of your life. It’s your job to design the life that you want!” – Lisa Nichols

• Your I-Know-Like-I-Know Muscle: A strong “I-Know-Like-I-Know” muscle gives you a calm assurance, even in a storm, that everything would be okay.

“The goal is to find a way to rekindle those feelings of inner well-being and peace” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Honesty Muscle: When this muscle is strong, you accept the truth about yourself and the role you have played in creating the life you are presently living. You accept that you have made some good choices as well as some poor ones. You are not under any pressure to hide your truth from other people. Little wonder Lisa could so boldly share the intimate details of her life! She had accepted her truth.

“For every moment you spend suppressing your truth or creating and living a lie, you’re taking time, energy, and resources away from developing your power and expanding who you are.” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Say-Yes Muscle: This muscle allows you to deliberately “say yes” to those things that bring you immense joy and fulfilment – even if it is only a baby step.

“I discovered……even though I had been wounded, I could be a healer.” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Determination Muscle: A strong determination muscle helps you to stay focused and to keep pressing on. While the “take-action” muscle gets you started, this muscle keeps you going.

“Clarity can come either with great joy or with great pain” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Forgiveness Muscle: You need to embrace forgiveness by releasing your frustrations, showing compassion and finding your way back to the place where there is nothing but love (the “total truth process”).

“Forgiveness had everything to do with me and setting that part of my heart free, so I could put love in its place.” – Lisa Nichols

• Your Highest Choice Muscle: Developing this muscle requires an understanding of where your negative behavioural patterns originate from, beginning with the end in mind and re-writing your life story.

Don’t start thinking that you need to develop only one of these muscles. Just the same way you need all your physical muscles to lift a heavy weight, you need all your “bounce-back” muscles to overcome all the obstacles on your path. You may ask, “how do I strengthen these muscles?”

Read the book!

But before you dash off, here are some tips to make your reading experience more enjoyable. You should:

1. Do all the “inspired action steps”: It is very tempting to gloss over the book without taking any active steps to see the changes you so much desire in your life. I urge you to take the “action steps” very seriously. Keep a “No Matter What” journal, this way you can track your progress as you read the book and long after you have read the book, you can always refer to your journal as a reminder of your beautiful journey to self-discovery.
2. Get an accountability buddy: I feel reading this book would be most exciting as a group activity. Get a trusted friend or family member to read the book with you. Someone you can confide in and share your deepest fears with, and who can trust you enough to do the same. Be sure to discuss insights you have gained from the book with your buddy.
3. Get connected with God: This is a recurring theme in many success books. Here, Lisa emphasized on the importance of connecting with your “higher power” – whatever it is. Well, I cannot think of any greater power than God Almighty. If your life is a tangled mess, God is not keeping score of your wrongs looking out for the right opportunity to vent out his wrath on you. Rather, he lovingly calls you to “come and reason things out with Him” (Isaiah 1:18). He wants to help you out of your mess and give your life a meaning.

“The irony is that God is sitting on the doorstep waiting while you think you have to clean your house. In reality, He doesn’t care if your house is dirty; He wants to help you clean things up.” – Lisa Nichols

I hope you enjoy reading this book as much as I have and as always, I would be glad to hear from you…..

Categories: My Book Reviews

Tags: Determination, Motivation, Self-Development