Your greatest fear should not be of failure,
but of succeeding in life at all the wrong things.

This morning as Angel and I were driving to meet a coaching client, another driver a few cars in front of us tossed a large disposable cup out the window.  Suddenly, a motorcycle directly in front of us pulled over near the litter as we passed.  When traffic stopped at the next red light, the motorcycle driver pulled up to the driver that littered and handed him his trash back.

The motorcycle driver then shouted, “Being too lazy to put trash in a trash can… put that on your TO-DON’T list!”  And then we all drove off.

Wow!

Besides the fact that this motorcycle driver is my new hero, he also reminded me to check and update my own TO-DON’T list.  Angel and I have discussed the TO-DON’T list concept on our blog before, and most recently we focused on it in the Productivity chapter of our book.  As you may have guessed, a TO-DON’T list’ is a list of things NOT to do.  It might seem a bit amusing, but it’s an incredibly useful tool for keeping track of unproductive habits and thought patterns.

The bottom line:  If you get decent value from making TO-DO lists, you’ll also get significant returns – in productivity, in improved relationships, in emotional stability, and in heightened levels of happiness – from adding certain things to a TO-DON’T list.

And since I just updated my TO-DON’T list, which is in essence a universally applicable list, I figured I’d share it with you today…

1. Don’t be lazy. – The world doesn’t owe you anything; you owe the world something.  So stop daydreaming and start DOING.  Develop a backbone, not a wishbone.  Replace laziness with determination.  Laziness is being unable to find the time you have.  Determination is being able to find the time you don’t have.
2. Don’t cower from life’s necessary challenges. – We work hard to discard the parts of our lives that were painful, difficult, or sad.  But just as we can’t rip chapters out of a book and expect the story to still make sense, we cannot rip past chapters out of our lives and expect our lives to still make sense.  Keep every chapter of your life intact, and keep on turning the pages one at a time.  Sooner or later you’ll get to a page that brings it all together, and you’ll suddenly understand why every page and chapter before it was needed. [Read more…]

“What can I start doing today to make my life happier and more fulfilling?”

This is one of the most common questions readers ask us via email, blog comments, and social media.  So today I want to share some simple, actionable ways to improve your happiness and wellbeing on a daily basis.

In the seven years of this blog’s existence, Angel and I have had the pleasure of meeting, coaching and interacting with hundreds of truly inspiring, happy, prolific people.  And the more we have interacted with people like this, the more we realize the similarities in how they prioritize their lives, and how their priorities align with our own.

What becomes evident is that, to sustain happiness, we must focus our attention on the right things, in the right ways.  Every growing human being (that means all of us) has resource constraints: limited time and energy.  It is critical that we spend our resources effectively.

Here are 10 ways to prioritize your life and your to-do lists for increased happiness and fulfillment:

1.  One thing at a time, with full presence.

In other words, make the thing you have chosen to do the number one priority while you’re doing it.  Focus with your full attention.  See the value in where you are, while you’re there.  Enjoy what’s happening, while it’s happening.

In the end, you will come to realize that the best days are the days when you don’t need anything extreme or special to happen to make you smile.  You simply appreciate the moments and feel gratitude, seeking nothing else, nothing more.  That is what true happiness is all about.

2.  Family and close friends are at the top.

Nurture your important relationships in such a way that when you tell the people you care about that you care about them, you’re simply reinforcing what they [Read more…]