Millicent Muthoni attended a forum that promises to leave you free, powerful and fully alive

Anything is possible! Now, that is a declaration loaded with promise. But instead of a gung-ho here-I-come excitement, you might feel the need to explain why, just maybe, not everything is possible. “I mean, you don’t know how poor my parents are” or “You have never met my wife.

I cannot be happily married to her”. Enter The ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵForum, a programme that promises ‘a new and unique kind of freedom, effectiveness and power’. Graduates claim it has a profound and lasting effect on them, enabling them produce breakthroughs they never thought possible.

But given the proliferation of self-help quacks, many have grown cynical of anyone who claims to offer life-changing help. I too, was wary of it until I decided to try it out. I gave up what the forum leader referred to as being resigned and cynical, which human beings are.

For a great life, I figured that a weekend and Sh14,000 was not too much to give up. The Forum is the brainchild of ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵ and boasts 12,000 graduates in Kenya since it was first held in1996. It spans 45 hours from Friday to Sunday, with a Tuesday evening session where participants have the opportunity to bring family and friends, and share their triumphs.

The leader made us confront situations and people in our lives we avoid to deal with, and I called many loved ones to ‘complete’ things from the past. At The ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵForum, you will have the opportunity to discover for yourself what stands in your way and how to overcome it.

There’s a catch though—you will have to give up something. Here are some darlings you will need to kill to have a great life:

1.Being right
Do you persistently complain that other people, the world, God, your weight, your situation—everybody but you—is wrong? The ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵForum opens your eyes to see the soap opera you have created around yourself, and that while you claim to be a victim, you are the guy in charge.

2. Being reasonable
Our lives are run by reasons. There are reasons why you won’t do what you said you’d do and reasons why you did what you promised not to do. Can you imagine how your life would be if you honoured all your commitments?

3. Looking good
Many of us would rather die than look bad. You don’t say what’s on your mind lest you make a fool of yourself. Remember the freedom you felt as a child? You’ll experience that again when you’re free of the constraint of having to keep up appearances.

4. Sticking with what you know
They say good is the enemy of great. Your strengths are great and work for you—the point is, your repertoire need not be limited by the couple of go-to strengths on which you already rely.

5. Knowing it all
There’s a way we experience life. Human beings tend to come from a place of ‘I already know…’ – whether it’s about another person, ourselves or a situation. When you let go of that, you’re able to discover new perspectives that wouldn’t have been available otherwise.

6. Never in the moment
Human beings hardly ever live in the moment—now. But ‘now’ is where and when life happens. While they are a part of the experience of life, dreams and ambitions for the future, or regrets and nostalgia of past triumphs are not life.

“People relate to failure as they are a failure versus they failed at ‘that’ thing. If you relate to yourself as a failure, you’ll never win. No matter what you do will never be enough,” says Larry Pearson, who has led The ÄÛ²ÝÊÓƵForum in Kenya many times.