✎ No question big decisions are what determine the direction of our life, and, as such, they deserve maximum attention and commitment once taken. 

However, this evident truth should not bring us into the mistake of caring too little about the small decisions.

I refer in particular to those small decisions that we repeat very often in a mostly automatic way, and so form our habits.

✎ If a decision is small but is systematically repeated, the idea that it is small is in fact an illusion. If the result we get is the sum of all our decisions and actions, small but repeated decisions take their part too.

For example, if you have the habit to procrastinate, and replace it with the habit to do first the things that you dislike most, this is likely to have a major impact on your life.


✎ Moreover, bad habits often regard “small” weaknesses that we have.

We believe we get more results by pressing on our points of strength than by working on our weaknesses, and this is another reason why we are likely to give little importance to some habits. 

That belief is true in most cases, in my opinion.

However, there are also instances (and I am sure you know which ones are for you) where it is an unresolved weakness that keeps us back from growing.

✎ Bad habits for which we do not care control a part of our life.

Everybody wants to gain power on the “external” world, but the first and essential power is on ourselves.

✎ To win a bad habit, or to introduce a new positive habit, we need to make an initial investment: this is for the time necessary for the decision/behaviour to become automatic.

However, this does not necessarily mean that you need to make a “painful effort” to change your habits.

The kind of feeling you associate with the process of working on your habits depends on the significance you give to the experience you are doing and the results you expect to obtain.

✎ If applicable, you can dedicate the next few days just to change one habit, and focus only on that one, all the time you can.

This will help you capitalize on the fact that often the same amount of energy if concentrated in a small time brings better results than if spread in a longer time.

Another way to is to immagine a dialogue with the habit you want to change.

You can keep on discussing in a friendly way till your habit is “convinced” that it is not acting according to your best interest, so the change will appear as a natural necessity.

✎ However you decide to deal with your habits, do not forget to dedicate them the attention they deserve.

☑ Think about the situation .

I’m sure you’re familiar with and I’m equally sure that it’s caused you a truckload of frustration and dejection.

And don’t worry, you’re not the only one it’s happened to, it happens to millions of others and it happened to me too – on far too many occasions to include here.

☑ Do you remember a time when you’d really had enough of your situation in life? 

Maybe you were sick and tired of servicing debt after debt. 

Perhaps you were bored with your job and had a burning desire to do something more exciting. 

Or maybe it was just something you wanted to do, a big adventure or learn a new skill or get together with someone you fancied like crazy.

☑ You made your plan. It was detailed too, and you were absolutely determined that nothing would stop you. 

You had a burning desire to get what you wanted, to change your life for the better and enjoy the feelings of satisfaction and accomplishment success would surely bring.

☑ To help you achieve your goals, you invested in self help books, courses and CD’s. 

Maybe you attended a couple of seminars? 

You said your affirmations, you wrote down your goals and you recited them every morning and every night, just like all of the gurus say.

☑ Surely nothing could stop you?

Nothing!

And yet, something did. 

Despite all of your good intentions and investments, the goals you so badly wanted to achieve just didn’t happen. But how could this be? 

After all of your efforts, how come you didn’t get what you wanted? 

You were unstoppable, you were determined – what stopped you?

☑ Honestly, this happened to me time after time and I’m sure it’s happened to you, yes? 

Well, here’s why you and me both have endured this frustration.

☑ When you consider making changes to your life, changes that will bring an enormous amount of happiness, fear will rise up like an angry storm and fill your mind with negatives, all beginning with “What if…”.

☑ What if things go wrong, what if you get rejected, what if you fail, what if you run out of money, what if you don’t like it, what if, what if, what if! 

Your fear knows you are putting yourself into a new situation, a situation that will open you up to various risks and it does not like this one little bit!

☑ Fear will do everything in its power to stop you from leaving the security of your comfortable life. 

It knows that if it persists enough with these negative possibilities, you won’t even take the first step towards your goals. 

Result? 

You continue in the same way, you don’t achieve your goals and you don’t change your life for the better.

☑ I’m going to share with you a very powerful way to get over this obstacle that your fear continually puts in front of you. 

And it’s so simple, you will be amazed at how effective this technique can be! 

But don’t let its simplicity deter you from putting it to use.

☑ Whenever you have these negative thoughts in your mind, use the power of indifference by using two words: 

“SO WHAT.”

☑ For example, when you have a thought that says something like: 

“What if I start this new IT course and I’m no good at it. I’ll look like a fool and I’ll have wasted time and money.” 

Just say:

“So what? 

I’ll give it my best shot and maybe it won’t be good enough but so what?”

☑ Another: “She’s absolutely gorgeous but if I go over, 

I might screw up or she might tell me to get lost and I’ll look stupid.”

“So what? If she does, then so what, her loss I’ll get someone else.”

☑ It’s so powerful because you’re indifferent to negative outcomes. 

You do your best to get what you want but if it doesn’t work out, if others don’t like it, if others laugh at you then SO WHAT?

☑ As soon as I used this technique I made rapid progress and I urge you to try it, it will help you conquer fear and take the first step towards your goals.

▼ Our society often makes the mistake of equating success with wealth.

It’s not a surprise that we do this. 

After all, wealth has the advantage of being measurable.

When we can measure something, we can rate how we’re doing versus everyone else.

We love to compete with each other.

▼ But aside from providing us with a handy way to “keep up with the Jones’,” what does the equation of success with wealth really do?

It’s commonly accepted that money doesn’t buy happiness.

If someone is wealthy and unhappy, is he or she successful?

Of course not!

▼ Success is less about money than it is about worth.

A successful person is one who looks at what he or she contributes and is satisfied with what he or she sees.

Success is recognition, even if only internal (because in the end, you’re the only one who’s completely a part of your life).

If you’re happy, then you’ve succeeded.

▼ Unfortunately, while American traditions hold that the pursuit of happiness is an inalienable right, happiness itself is far from guaranteed.

Indeed, the pursuit of happiness can be a frustrating battle of competing priorities, high prices, and lost time.

These very real costs give us the illusion that our unhappiness is caused by what we have spent along the way, to which we readily conclude that if we had fewer responsibilities, lower expenses, and more time, we would be happy.

We devote much of our lives to attaining a level of financial independence at which we can at last retire and enjoy our hard-earned free time.

▼ Yet, do you know that the average life expectancy of a retiree who doesn’t take up a new challenge to occupy his or her time is about five years?

Humans thrive on stimulation.

We can’t go from overwork to perpetual vacation.

We get bored, and we die.

▼ The secret to real happiness, therefore, is neither to have money nor to accumulate money for the future.

Both of these may be useful (and up to a point, they’re perfectly sensible), but it’s much more important that you identify what it is that you like to do with your time than to find ways to free it up sooner.

▼ If you don’t know what you want to do – and especially if you’re sure that whatever it is, it’s not what you’re doing now – you probably can’t just quit, but you can start to make changes that will make you happier.

Start looking for other options.

Sign up for some adult education classes at a community college, the kind that have a flat fee and meet once a week for a few weeks.

Study languages, maybe.

Or art. 

Or cooking.

Try everything you can.

You’ll know what you like when you find it.

▼ And once you do find it, see how you can incorporate it into your life.

We spend most of our lives sleeping or at work, and odds are that you need your sleep.

You probably need to work to live, but you might as well be working at a job that you enjoy.

Then you’ll be on the road to happiness.

That’s success.