Archives for November 2015

Success doesn’t lead to happiness. Happiness leads to success.

One of my favorite series of quotes regarding this comes from Steve Jobs’ famous 2005 Stanford commencement address:

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living some else’s life.”  In other words, don’t put your ladder on someone else’s wall. Pursue your own dreams and your own goals. Not those of your parents, teachers or some other significant influence in your life.

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. You’ll know it when you find it.” In other words, you will know you found your passion, your purpose in life. There is no confusion. You feel it deep in your heart and soul. That thing you were intended to do for the rest of your life will occupy your thinking 24/7. You can’t escape it if you try. Until that happens, you are still searching for your main purpose in life.

It really doesn’t matter how much money you make if it goes out as fast as it comes in. When you buy stuff today with tomorrow’s dollars you are punching holes in your financial boat. The more you enslave future earnings this way, the more holes you create and eventually those holes will sink your boat, dragging everyone in the boat down with you. Start plugging the holes in your boat today by getting rid of the Living Beyond Your Means Poverty Habit.

Buying stuff never makes you happy in the long term. Building strong, long lasting relationships with family and friends is a well of happiness that never runs dry.

Rich Habit # 6 says, “Everything in Moderation.” That also means, moderate your application of being moderate. Today is the day to take the brakes off of life. There is a time and a place for moderation. Today is not one of those days. Make today count. Embrace life as if your life depended on it. Eat, drink and be merry. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

We’ve all heard about to-do lists. The best to-do lists incorporate daily activities that help you move yourself forward in life towards accomplishing your goals.

But you probably never heard of a to-don’t list. A to-don’t list is a list that includes things you should never do because they are either time wasters, bad habits or things that hold you back from having a happy and successful life. A typical to-don’t list might include the following:

• Don’t watch more than 1 hour of TV today.
• Don’t waste time today on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.
• Don’t envy anyone today.
• Don’t make any impulse purchases today.
• Don’t gossip today.
• Don’t gamble today.
• Don’t drink in excess today.
• Don’t lose my temper today.
• Don’t ignore my family today.
• Don’t read negative news articles today.
• Don’t procrastinate today.
• Don’t ridicule anyone today.
• Don’t hate anyone today.
• Don’t smoke a cigarette today.
• Don’t be negative today.

To-don’t lists are just as important as to-do lists. For those who have a lot of bad habits, they may be more important. To-don’t lists help keep you aware of the things you should not be doing. Knowing what not to do is just as important in achieving success as knowing what to do. To-do’s, while a great success tool, only get you half way there. To-don’ts take you the rest of the way. What would be on your to-don’t list? Take your life to the next level. Start a to-don’t list today.

For those who live beyond their means, every time you wake up you are 8 hours poorer. The interest on your mounting debt never sleeps. It’s working while you are sleeping. It keeps increasing as your debt increases.

Conversely, those who take control of their lives, who make a concerted  effort to spend less than they earn and invest their savings, wake up 8 hours richer. The interest, dividends and gains on their investments are working overtime while they sleep. It keeps increasing as your savings and investments increase.

Until you make a decision to live below your means, save and invest your savings, you will continue to drag yourself further and further into debt and poverty. Unfortunately for most, when they go to sleep they wake up 8 hours poorer.

Many people want the glitter without the grit. They want wealth and success without the effort and the hassle. That’s why lotteries are so successful. Most would rather take the short cut in becoming rich. But the lottery short cut is also the poor bet.

The best odds for becoming rich requires daily, consistent effort. You must invest time in becoming exceptional in one thing. You have to improve and grow every day. Success requires that you continuously increase and perfect your knowledge and skills. You have to push yourself day after day. You must also force yourself outside of your comfort zone by doing things that are uncomfortable. That’s how you grow, through discomfort, learning, taking risks. It’s hard work and it’s frustrating. In the beginning of pursuing anything worthwhile, nothing seems to go your way. This is when most people quit. But a few don’t quit. A few fight through the pain and anguish and the discomfort of learning and improving because they understand one thing those who quit don’t: You Can’t Have the Glitter Without the Grit!

Willpower is very much like a muscle. The more you exercise it, the stronger and more powerful it becomes. How do you exercise your willpower? Simple, just exercise every day. The latest science on willpower is clear: daily exercise not only benefits your muscles and health, it also boosts your willpower and self-control. It’s like hitting a double in baseball. You get two for one when you exercise every day: better health and more willpower.

Why is willpower so important? Depletion of willpower results in bad decision making and causes you to lapse into old bad habits. The latest science on willpower indicates that willpower depletion, also known as decision fatigue, is behind drug addiction, alcoholism, overeating, infidelity, gambling and many other vices. When your willpower is depleted, watch out.  The wake you leave behind can be devastating: damage to your family relationships, damaged friendships, damaged work relationships, poor your health, bad finances (spontaneous purchases occur when willpower is low) and all of these bad things will send your life spiraling downward. So, rid yourself of your demons by exercising every day. You and everyone around you will be better off for it.

Roy Baumeister is a renown behavioral psychologist whose studies and experiments on willpower are revolutionizing our understanding of willpower. According to Baurmeiser, author of Willpower, the only sure fire way to stick to a new good habit is through tracking. In one of his many experiments, Baumeister tracked individuals who were trying to lose weight. One group tracked their daily calories, either in a journal or using some software or app and also weighed themselves every day. The second group did not track their calories and weighed themselves once a week. In the first group two times as many individuals lost weight vs. the first group. The first group essentially doubled their success in losing weight by tracking calories every day and by stepping on the scale every day.

Tracking acts like an accountability partner. It forces you to confront, on a daily basis, your weight loss efforts. But tracking can be applied to any new good habit. Exercise, for example. If you journal, or use some other tracking system to detail your exercise activities (miles, reps, time spent, etc.), you double your chances of sticking to the exercise regimen. Reading to learn every day, another Rich Habit, can be processed on a daily basis by simply tracking what you read and how much you read each day.