The Juice Master: Turbo-charge Your Life in 14 Days. Jason Vale

that you push yourself to your next level.

      ‘Where’s My BUT?’

      You may feel I haven’t addressed your ‘but’ (so to speak!), but to be fair we could be here for the next 100 pages trying to counter each one. Rarely do people have just the one ‘but’. The minute you come up with a solution to a person’s ‘but’, up pops another, and another. But…‘it’s too cold’, ‘it’s too hot’, ‘it’s too wet’, ‘it’s too dry’, ‘I’m working’, ‘I’m on holiday’, ‘the kids are on holiday’, ‘the kids are at school’, ‘it’s a weekday’, ‘it’s the weekend’…and so it goes on and on and on.

      The general rule I have found is the more ‘buts’ a person comes up with, the bigger the butt they tend to have, and the more unfulfilled their life tends to be.

      The reality is you can ‘but’ your way through the next God knows how many years, BUT if you do that, you’ll never have the extraordinary life you deserve. You will also never feel the joy of what it’s like to wake up every day in an energy-fuelled, slim, trim healthy body. You’ll never experience what it’s like to be the very best you can be, to live at your true potential every day. If you ‘but’ your way through life you’ll always wonder what could have been.

      It doesn’t matter what decade of life you are in, how lethargic you are, how much money you have or don’t have, how fat or thin you are, how many children you have, or whatever other ‘but’ you can come up with – anyone can change and get a body and daily life they are proud of.

      ‘But My Story Is Different’

      Unfortunately, some people have what they consider very big ‘buts’, buts which go way beyond ‘I haven’t got the time’ or ‘It’s in my genes.’ The sort of buts which they believe no amount of ‘positive thinking’ could possibly help with. Your particular story of why it’s different or more difficult for you may well be moving, disturbing, painful and, on the surface, justified. However, if you want to move forwards, one thing must be clear:

      

       We’ve all got a story –get over it!

      Everyone has had ‘shit’ happen to them, and virtually everyone you meet will tell you that they didn’t have an idyllic childhood.

      It is true that some people have worst pasts and stories than others, but it’s all relative. After all, what one person perceives as bad or life-crippling can be just another day or even life-enhancing to others. Some people see their past as a valid reason for not having the life they want, whereas others use events of their past as a tool to drive them forwards to create a magnificent life.

      Now I know that people’s childhood experiences are a touchy subject, but as this is one of the major excuses for overeating, smoking, excessive drinking, not doing exercise and, for many, not getting a life, I feel the need to get real with this seemingly big ‘but’.

      If you had ‘shit’ happen to you as a kid, if you feel your childhood wasn’t exactly a bed of roses, then you need to realize one thing – you’re not alone. The sad reality of our world is that you don’t need to pass any kind of exam to be a parent, and many people haven’t got a clue. However, what has happened to you in the past doesn’t have to dictate your future. It doesn’t mean you have to drag it around with you for ever, and it doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice – because you always have a choice. You can either choose to allow past events to control your thoughts and your life every day; or you can use the experience as a motivation to drive you forwards. You can use it as a negative or a positive ‘but’. You can say, ‘But shit happened to me so what do you expect?’ or, ‘But sod it, I’m my own person now, I call the shots.’