What comes first – happiness or success?

Psychologists’ offices are filled with successful people who are not happy.

Happiness is a goal unto itself.

Once happiness is accomplished, success follows.

It rarely if ever works the other way around.

Being happy requires the type of commitment that most “successful” people seem willing to make to their careers.  The sacrifice.  The hours.  The frustrations.  And postponed gratification.

What makes you happy?

How much of your day is devoted to things that don’t contribute to your happiness?

Once you have a better idea of the types of things – major or simple – that bring you happiness, then you are likely to also be on the road to success in other areas of your life.

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If dreams alone counted, everyone would be a success.

But dreams and schemes that do not have a plan do not have a chance.

Study effective people and you find that they have an innate ability to take their desires and put together a plan of action.

Talk to them and find out that often that plan changes – sometimes in the middle of being enacted but they always start with a plan.

What gets done first?

What does it look like?

What steps must follow?

Who will help?

What resources are needed?

Big dreamers who get to realize their dreams are also big planners.

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We wouldn’t start playing a softball game by first saying “I probably won’t win”.

That’s the wrong message.

We’d probably say “we’re going to win” or “we’re going to have fun” or simply “play ball” and see what happens.

When preparing a presentation, how often have you heard “I hate to speak to groups”? Just how well do you think that will go?

The way we talk to ourselves is even more important than the way others speak to us.

Too often we send messages of impending failure.

From now on at the very least, buck yourself up. Say something promising.

I will do my best to make this talk valuable.

I will have fun with the person I am meeting for the first time at dinner by being me 100% and not someone else.

Talk yourself up, don’t run yourself down.

And don’t look for someone else to do this.

It’s your job and the road to success.

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There is no end to evidence that people are burying their faces in their phones and altering the course of their happiness.

At dinner with one of my readers recently, he shared that he was pulling out his phone just to show me pictures not to check his messages.  “I know you don’t like phones at dinner”.

I’ll take it.

All of us can establish the ground rules that we want to live by simply by living them.

When someone pulls out their phone while they are talking to you, stop talking.

If they say “I can multitask”, say nothing until you get their attention back.

If they leave their phone on the table or hold it in their hand, you can’t make them stop, but you don’t have to participate in and encourage more distraction.

I saw a woman sitting with three couples at dinner remove her phone from the table and put in on the bench seat she was in checking it every so often to check messages and even to respond while her companions talked.

We can’t control others’ addiction to their distracting devices but by example, we can get them to pay attention by the way we act.

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Achievers don’t care if they fail.  In fact, they expect more failing than succeeding.

If you go fishing and expect every hook with bait to net you a catch, you’d soon give up fishing.

Self-doubt is created by harboring exceedingly high expectations for ourselves that have little chance of being met.

Jeff Bezos didn’t build Amazon into the amazon that it is by expecting everything he did to succeed.

Google has failed many more times than it succeeded, but when it succeeded, it was big.

Here’s what to build confidence on.

Bet on your ability to keep trying and never quit.  To not expect results every time you do something.

Replace self-doubt with self-assurance that comes from knowing that if it’s worth having, it’s worth pursuing until you get it.

Never doubt yourself ever again.  Why bet against you?

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