“If you’re going to be happy, you need to separate your passions from your results.”   Mike Rowe, host/creator of T.V. show Dirty Jobs

One of the most common causes of unhappiness is not meeting expectations. Failing to meet expectations will drag you down, even in the aftermath of great achievement. Example: you work extremely hard all year to hit a sales goal of $500,000. Instead, you come up short at $450,000. Now the salespeople behind you would be jumping for joy if they hit that target, but you are miserable because you missed it. Why? Because you locked in a finite number and that finite number became your single-minded focal point. But you missed your target and you feel like you failed. A better approach would have been to set a sales goal range of between $400,000 – $500,000. Another example: you publish a book and set a finite goal of selling 50,000 books for the year. You sell 25,000 for the year instead and you’re miserable. A better approach would have been to set a broader range goal of between 20,000 to 50,000 books sold over a two year period.

We are all pursuing one singular thing in life – happiness. Managing your expectations is the surest path to realizing happiness. When you pursue something you are passionate about, do not focus on the results, focus on the act of pursuing your passion. Don’t focus on specific results when pursuing your passion. Give yourself, instead, an expectations range. You’ll be much happier that you did.

In my 11 years of studying the wealthy I’ve come to learn a lot about passion. One of the most important things I’ve learned is that it’s impossible to pursue more than one passion at a time. You simply cannot be passionate about two things at once. Most don’t understand this and this is why so many fail. They mistakenly believe they can pursue more than one thing at a time, and end up failing at both. Passion is a limited resource. Limited to one thing at a time. When you pursue something you are passionate about, you will lose your passion for anything else you are doing, because passion requires a singular focus. It simply cannot be shared or diluted. Passion is a selfish mistress who allows only one lover at a time.

Control is a powerful word. It’s a word that suggests dominion over others, things, circumstances, events, life. It’s also a word that separates the wealthy and the successful from everyone else. In my Rich Habits research I found everything circles back to one thing: control. The wealthy have it; the poor don’t. The wealthy have control over so many things:

• Habits
• Emotions
• Health
• Savings and spending
• Work life
• Relationships
• Thinking
• Goals
• Home life

When you have control over your life, it makes you happy. Lack of control is one of the primary causes of unhappiness. But control does not come easy. It requires sacrifice, discipline, devotion to the concept of delayed gratification, separating yourself from the herd, early mornings, hard work. When you make the upfront investment success requires, the ultimate payoff is control over your life, which creates a feeling of overall happiness. Control = happiness. Those who pursue success and wealth are really after one thing: control over their lives.

Learning something new every day is a daily habit of successful people. The seek out new knowledge, new skills and information about those relationships they desire to grow. Being open-minded about life and incessant curiosity are hallmarks of those who seek success.

Many of the successful individuals in my habit study blocked off chunks of time during their workday, typically in the morning, to pursue their goals for the day. In the afternoon, generally between the hours of 1pm – 6pm they responded to other peoples priorities. This afternoon chunk of time is when they read and responded to emails, listened to voicemail and then returned phone calls, tackled projects for customers, clients, business associates etc. They organized their day this way in order to give them focused time, each day, to pursue their goals and priorities.

There’s an important distinction between working on your business and working in your business. Dedicating time every morning to pursue your personal or business goals and priorities means you are working on your business. You are doing things that move you forward toward achieving your goals, not someone else’s goals. Working in the business means performing tasks that represent the goals and priorities of others. While it’s important to be responsive to the needs of others, especially if you are in the service business, it is more important to devote time every day to accomplishing those goals that will grow you as a person and that grow your business. In order to pursue your dream or goals, you need to block off part of your day and use that time to focus on those things that represent an investment in you or your business.

Ask anyone who has ever realized their dream, or some major accomplishment that alters the very fabric of their life, how it feels and they will share with you the common revelation that the realization of their dream was not quite as exciting as the journey. You see, the journey’s where the excitement is. The journey’s where you learn new things, meet new people, overcome seemingly impossible hurdles and discover the greatness you never knew you had, hidden deep inside you, all along. It’s the pursuit of the dream that is the real reward. That’s all anyone ever remembers. The means, is the end.

Patience. It’s a four letter word to those pursuing success. Success is elusive. It requires focus, persistence, good daily habits, Opportunity Luck and patience. A lot of patience. Every successful person experiences Opportunity Luck; a good luck that is the byproduct of doing all of the right things, every day, and a prerequisite for success. You can’t dictate when Opportunity Luck will arrive. Opportunity Luck takes time. For some it could be a few years, for others a few decades. But it is a certainty for those who patiently persist. You have to attack success every day. And then wait. The waiting is the hard part. But every successful person experiences the frustration of patience. You’re not alone. Opportunity Luck did not visit Colonel Sanders until he was in his mid-sixties, Rodney Dangerfield was 46 before he got his first break on the Ed Sullivan show and before becoming President, Abraham Lincoln lost several runs for public office.

When you are pursuing your life dream or main purpose, failure is not an option and success is virtually guaranteed. You cannot fail and will eventually succeed when there is no option to quit. You will figure out a way to overcome every challenge, every obstacle and every mistake. This is why pursuing a dream or purpose is the key to success in life. It eliminates that one option that is responsible for every failure – quitting.

Why? Why are you doing what you are doing? This is a very important question because it gets to the heart of our very existence and our current financial circumstance. Why are you a CPA? Why are you a doctor? Why are you driving a taxi? Why did you become a teacher? If you’re like most, you don’t really know why. Most likely you are doing what you are doing because someone suggested it would be a good career choice. Probably a parent or significant influence in your life. In other words, you put your ladder up on someone else’s wall. And you’ve been climbing that ladder ever since. Is it any wonder why most people are unhappy, unfulfilled, and eking out a living? You are pursuing someone else’s why.

Until you define what your own why is, you will live a life of mediocrity. Your true happiness and passion will remain closed in a box, until you define your why. Your why opens up that box. There is a why for every person. You just have to begin with the end in mind. What do you really want in life? What stokes the flames of your individual passion? Therein lies your why and the wall upon which to lean your ladder.