Dumb Little Man | Tips for Life

And like a ray of sunlight peeking through dark clouds, your inner capacity for joy will begin peeking through, brightening up your life once again.

Here are the most common negative beliefs that can limit your potential for happiness:

1. “People are either good or bad”

If you tend to see the world as either black or white, you are setting yourself up for disappointment.

No one is always good (or bad). Inside every person, including you and me, are good thoughts and bad thoughts, things we are proud of having done and things we wish we could change. Someone may be a great father but a poor husband.

Another person may act out of love at home but feel bitter when she is at work. Many of us wouldn’t harm a living thing consciously, but enjoy eating meat. Contradictions are a part of life.

Here's the solution:

• Next time someone disappoints you, or you face a part of yourself that is not perfect, remind yourself that perfection is a dangerous illusion.
• Then, try to consciously recall something about the person or situation that you love. For example, if your spouse annoys the heck out of you by being messy at home, accept the anger, but also recall a specific time in the recent past when he made you happy. It could be something big, like supporting you when no one else did, or even something small, like getting you morning coffee in bed.

When you can see yourself and others as flawed but still beautiful and worthy, you will love and forgive more easily.

2. “Anyone different/unknown is weird”

To a conservative, being liberal is weird. To a vegetarian, all meat eaters seem weird. Rich folks look at poor neighborhoods with fear and mis-trust; and vice versa.

When we don’t know or understand something, it scares us.

The solution? 

When you have this reaction to something or someone, challenge yourself to learn more about it.

For example. let’s say your religion is very important to you and your daughter is dating someone of a different faith.

Rather than jump to the conclusion that you will never be able to “get” him, challenge yourself to be curious. Ask open, gentle questions about his faith and his upbringing. You don’t have to agree, but you can still try to understand.

Whenever ignorance is replaced by understanding, there is hope and possibility for joy.

3. “Believing in myself requires me to block out other opinions”

We are often told to “Stand tall”, “Believe in yourself” and “Drown out the voices that disagree.” While it’s important to stand behind your beliefs, it’s also essential to know how to react to differing opinions.

Truly successful people welcome other people’s opinions, even if they contradict their own.

Why?

Because they understand that each person has a unique perspective. And that there is often more than one right answer to a problem.

So how do you deal with this limiting belief?

Whenever I’m tempted to think my opinion is THE right one, I recall the story of the four blind men:

Four men were arguing about religion and God, each insisting that their God was the “real” one. Unable to convince one another, they went to Buddha. 

Buddha brought the four blind men to an elephant and asked them to tell him what they “see”. One man was near the trunk and thus said it is a cylinder, the next was near the stomach and so insisted it was a wall, the third was near the leg and felt sure it was a pillar and the fourth man got the tail and was adamant it was a rope. 

Buddha asked “So who is right?”

Every problem or situation has many sides to it. While yours may be true for you, other opinions can also be true.

Perspective changes everything.

4. “I have to feel whatever my thoughts tell me to”

Thoughts are extremely powerful and we’ve all felt their power at one time or another. But unhappy people are constantly overwhelmed by their thoughts and believe that if they have a sad thought, they have to feel sad.

Genuinely happy people know that thoughts are temporary, like clouds in the sky, and they often come and go randomly.

Just because you have an angry thought, you don’t have to end up feeling angry. You can choose what to do with that thought. You can either let it pass and focus on other thoughts, or you can obsess over it, making it stronger and more powerful.

The solution?

Try this out: Next time you have an unhappy thought, just acknowledge it and bring your attention to your body and the present moment.

For example, if you are at a meeting, focus on the feeling of the chair against your back or your shoes on the floor. If you are drinking something, fill your awareness with the sense of taste and smell. Then, bring your mind back to what you want to learn or take away from the meeting. As you do this, the angry thoughts will linger for a while, and then float away, to be replaced by other thoughts.

“I have to act out whatever I’m feeling.”

This is part 2 of the “thoughts-feelings-actions” loop.

For example: If you feel the urge to skip your morning work out, it doesn't mean you need to act on that feeling. You may choose to consciously skip it, because maybe it’s a saturday morning and you decide to snuggle with your kids instead. But you can also choose to work out, in spite of what you feel.

Feelings too are temporary, like thoughts. The feelings you pay attention to will stay and expand, whereas the ones you choose to let go of, will float away.

5. “Control is a part of love”

True love is freeing and unconditional. It does not seek to control, intimidate or change.

When you try to control your loved ones, you will slowly but surely lose them. Real love is about open listening, positive regard, and encouraging autonomy, while being available to protect and support. It’s a delicate balance. And people who know how to do it well are rewarded with loyalty and trust.

Unhappy people try to control others. They worry that without the control, the other person will leave them.

The solution?

Learn to love others freely. But before you can love others, you have to love yourself. If this is a struggle for you, I highly recommend reading this article for some powerful ways to begin the journey.

6. “More is better”

Many of us have almost unlimited choices in many areas of our life, from politics and education to fashion, so why then are we unhappier than ever before?

I spent much of my 20‘s chasing after things and achievements. Yes, they gave me some happiness, but it was always be temporary. When the happiness wore off, I chased after something else, hoping this new thing would finally lead to lasting happiness. It took me a few years to really understand that I could not buy my way to true joy.

Happiness is internal, a way of thinking.

So, what's the solution to "more is better"?

If you think that you can achieve happiness by acquiring more or having more choices, please do yourself a favor and watch this short TED talk by psychologist Barry Schwartz.

It will blow your mind.

7. “The worst things always happen to me”

Do you often feel like you are singled out for life’s miseries?

Do you feel like you always seem to get the short end of the stick?

If you do, check out this true story:

One day, the son of a wealthy merchant fell into a well and was saved by a passing farmer who heard his cries for help. The merchant came to thank the farmer for saving his son’s life, and offered him money as a reward. 

The farmer declined to take money but agreed to the merchant's offer to educate the poor farmer’s son for free. The boy was brilliant and loved to learn and eventually grew up to be Alexander Fleming, who discovered penicillin. 

A few decades later, the rich merchant’s son caught pneumonia. This usually meant death in those times, but he was saved by the penicillin that Alexander had just discovered. 

The boy had a full recovery, and grew up to be Winston Churchill.

In every situation, there is a silver lining. What seems like the worst luck today, may indeed save your life tomorrow. And as Carl Sagan said, “We are all star dust.” Every living thing is connected and each of us have our share of suffering.

So remember to look for the silver lining in your difficulties.

Your life is a garden and these negative beliefs are like weeds. If you allow it, they will take over and destroy your life. So begin weeding them out of your mind today and make room for joy to take root and grow.

Because you deserve it.

I can’t tell you the times I wrapped a towel from my mother’s linen closet around my neck and ran off to simulate flying.

Every boy has once dreamed of being faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive. But somewhere between adolescence and high school our once lofty dreams approach life from a safer perspective.

There are unspoken rules of conduct that men abide by.

See, the worst insult you could give a man is that he’s somehow acting less than what a ‘real’ man should.

So we go through great lengths to ensure our manhood is not questioned. In this we often lose sight of transparency or being authentic. Instead we work overtime to keep up a facade. This behavior is passed down time and time again. But as men, we can never grow beyond what we refuse to confront.

Here are a few ‘myths’ we carry as men of steel:

• Men don’t have feelings, therefore they cannot be hurt:  This is a flat out lie. As I often say, we have the same feelings as women. We just express our feelings in a different way. Any guy who says a woman has never broken his heart or let him down needs to get his head examined. As men, we are occupational while women tend to be relational. We find our identity in what we do, not who we know. 
• Men don’t like to talk:  The truth is, we don’t like to talk at the exact moment women do, but we do talk. We speak about things that affect us or inspire us. If you ever want to see a guy get chatty, tap into what he’s passionate about. That’s what matters most to men.
• Men avoid commitment at all costs:  What connects us to our manhood is how well our family is taken care of. I don’t believe I have been more ashamed or disappointed in myself than when my finances fell too short to take care of my family. I felt less than a man. Often if we doubt our ability to provide, we tend to shy away from that commitment.
• Men never get depressed:  Yes we do. The difference is, early in boyhood we were told, big boys don’t cry. We took that mantra to heart. In fact, we added that big boys don’t share their emotions. We took it as a sign of weakness. But anything without a pressure valve to give release will likely explode.

I have always been fascinated with the story of Superman. Not just because of his incredible acts of heroics, but because the people closest to him never made the connection.

Somehow he could come up missing, he could save their lives and spend time with them, and no one ever thought Clark was really Superman.

I guess that’s appropriate. As men, we have lived the truth that it’s the other way around. Superman, was really Clark Kent all along.

See you at the TOP!

Early Jackson

Why? I sweat.

A lot. 

I sweat so much I have to carry around a little cloth with me. I sweat so much, I sometimes have to wring out that cloth.

While in grade school I asked to be excused from class to avoid square dancing – I never came back to class that day.

It’s a disease called hyperhidrosis, but I always imagined that nobody would understand the scientific aspects so I became incredibly self-conscious.

If I had to shake people’s hand, I would feel strange around them for fear that they were disgusted by me.

Love Yourself or Nobody Else Will

Far from a loner, my closest friends were those who knew about my sweaty hands. We rarely talked about it, but they knew.

The relationship I had with those friends was great because I learned to accept myself when I was around them. With most other people, I never accepted my sweating disease.

More importantly, when I felt uncomfortable and disgusted with myself, the emotions were reciprocated by others through a part of the brain known as “mirror neurons”.

The frontal lobe has neurons that signal when you are being touched, but there are also neurons that signal when you see other people being touched. In the same way, when my sweaty hands made me feel noticeably uncomfortable, other people were feeling the same discomfort.

Now, I have grown enough to overcome most of my self-consciousness with sweating. Before anyone else could love me, I realized that I had to love myself. Embracing my situation and myself was the only way that I could be accepted fully by others.

While it is a life-long process when self-consciousness has rooted itself deep in your mind, here are 6 ways that I have been able to tackle self-consciousness:

1. Embrace what you cannot control. Conventional wisdom often tells us that it is good to accept ourselves the way we are. Acceptance is great, but I feel it doesn’t have a strong enough connotation to promote real change with self-consciousness. Don’t just accept what you cannot control, but fully embrace it. It may never be a positive thing, but it is a part of you and embrace how much stronger the adversity has made you become.
2. Create selective blind spots. Many people who are naturally free from crippling self-consciousness are simply ignorant of their flaws. You can replicate this by telling yourself whatever you need to make yourself feel better. For example, I might tell myself that my sweating is actually a good thing for some identified reason.
3. Recognize where your flaws are helpful. No matter how bitter your problems, there are probably some ways that they can help. When I drop dry food on the floor, my sweaty hands act like an efficient sweeper. In one instance, a member of the opposite sex continued raving about how attractive it was. Why be self-conscious when other people might like it?
4. Talk to many strangers. Regardless of what you are self-conscious about, talking to strangers and people in general will help you to feel more comfortable. As much as you accept and embrace your own flaws, the true test is getting out with strangers and interacting with them on a routine basis. Not getting good feedback from people? Maybe you haven’t really gotten rid of self-consciousness. Keep testing and trying.
5. Bleed emotionally with others. Not everyone is emotional in the same way, but when you bleed about your thoughts and feelings, there is nothing left to hide. Start telling friends about whatever makes you self-conscious and you will realize that it is mostly in your imagination. Then tell the world in a blog (like this one) and there are even fewer people to hide from.
6. Do something completely absurd in public. Going out in public and doing something completely absurd might sound silly, but afterwards there is little to be self-conscious about. As with bleeding emotionally, you go to the extreme in a physical sense to recognize that your problems are not that great. Last week I ran for two miles in my underwear around campus (for charity) and I could feel self-consciousness slipping away.

If you have other methods to help you love yourself more, practice them as long as you need to in order to remove self-consciousness.

It has dictated my life for many years so it is a slow and steady process, but an absolutely necessary one.

By removing self-consciousness in your life, you will find better relationships with people who are as comfortable with you as you are with yourself.

Whether these toxic influences are sabotaging you intentionally or not, identifying and removing them from your life can dramatically improve your health, wealth, and general well-being.

11 Frenemies You Should Dump, Right Now

1. Needy Nancy: She is constantly insecure about “us” and needs frequent reinforcement that you are still friends. If more than a week goes by without a coffee, lunch, or long chat, things get awkward fast. Real friendships are a two-way street, and Nancy is always driving in the same direction. 
2. Competitive Charlie: He wants what you have, and he’s watching to see what “edge” he can get. Everything is a contest, and he’s more interested in getting ahead than supporting your successes. Realize that he doesn’t have your back — and you shouldn’t have his.
3. Debbie Downer: Life sucks and she knows it. The glass is always half-empty, people are inherently evil, and nothing can change her mind. Be careful — Debbie will wet your blanket before long. 
4. Broadway Bob: If he were a play or movie, it would certainly be classified as a drama. Just when sailing gets smooth, controversy strikes, and he always seems to be involved. It usually starts with a “Did you hear?” or “As a friend, I just wanted to let you know….” Life doesn’t have to be that complicated. 
5. Networkin’ Noreen: She is always slingin’ cards and hustling for “bidness.” Your friendship is measured by what you can do for her. No matter the topic of conversation, her services take center stage, and she’s always angling for a good introduction. This is a pseudo friendship of convenience, so start making it inconvenient.
6. Listless Larry: You’re pretty sure he’s not a zombie, though his life is completely devoid of ambition, purpose, or anything meaningful. He doesn’t believe in much and judges anyone who’s “involved.” Unless you, too, want to float through life with little more than some old records and a lifetime supply of Funyuns, steer clear.
7. Judge Jacky: Life is her courtroom, and everyone is the accused. No one is ever smart enough, good-looking enough, rich enough, or Christian enough to meet her standards. Unless you love being the defendant, I suggest you let court recess.
8. Flaky McFlakerson: He’s consistently inconsistent. Forty percent of the time, he shows up every time. You now expect a last-minute “something came up” and a constant barrage of poorly designed excuses. Friendship is about reliability, and this guy is your 1983 Yugo.
9. Climbing Carey: No matter what or who stands in her way, she is moving on up. Her past is laden with “former friends” who became collateral damage. When she condescendingly talks about having kids in “like 10 years,” you get the feeling she might eat her own young. Back away slowly before you get sacrificed on her career altar.
10. Devilish Don: While he has three kids, a beautiful wife, a good job, and an enviable golf swing, Don wants more. People “take themselves too seriously.” He’s all about “getting wasted,” hitting on the cart girl, and talking crap about his “worthless” wife. It’s best to leave that party before his values get you into trouble.
11. Groupie Gail: She’s your biggest fan. She always “likes,” retweets, and congratulates. Need her opinion? She waffles until finding the response that pleases you the most. While she makes you feel great temporarily, Gail dangerously distorts reality. Real friends challenge and debate with transparency. Unless you need your pillow fluffed, I’d suggest leaving Gail at the next tour stop. 

The "Average of Five" Rule

The “Average of Five” rule states that you are an average of your five closest friends.

I’ve found it to be surprisingly accurate, and the company you keep is a good indication of the person you will become.

Surround yourself with people whose traits you admire, and prepare to soak up their positive, productive, and healthy influence.

Everything just feels miserable.

Can you even remember the last time you actually felt happy?

The Real Causes of Unhappiness

During one summer while I was in university, I was unhappy.

I was unhappy because my friends had better summer jobs than me. I got better grades than them. So why were THEY getting all the cool jobs?

The real low point came when we traded stories on our respective jobs at the end of summer. I found that most of them had key roles in prestigious companies. Some even got to choose which projects to work on, and leveraged that into connections with top executives.

I was jealous.

That's because I spent the entire summer doing data entry.

So to protect my bruised ego, I told myself how my friends just got lucky, how they had connections I didn't have, and so on. I spent months thinking such thoughts to make myself feel happier. But in the end that didn't help.

It didn't help because nothing had changed. Instead of taking action to improve my job prospects for next summer, I chose to bubble wrap myself in made-up excuses.

I was sabotaging any chance for me to be happy.

The Secret to Being Happy

It took me a while, but I eventually learned that happy people have problems too.

They get into fights with others. They don’t always get lucky breaks, even if they deserve them. And contrary to what we may want to believe, not everything that happens in their lives is good.

But they know the secret to being happy: it’s all in your head.

Happy people have a more proactive and positive view of life.

They believe they have the power to make things better for themselves and others. They believe they are masters of their own destinies. Because of this very attitude, they are not easily brought down by bad things that happen in life.

Finally, happy people don't make excuses for things they know they should be doing.

It took me a long time to learn this, and even longer to apply it to my own life. My friends got cool jobs because they WORKED for them, while I just complained on the sidelines HOPING to get a cool job.

It was time to stop sabotaging myself with self-defeating thoughts.

15 Warning Signs Your Thinking is Sabotaging Your Happiness

I sabotaged my happiness in a lot of ways that summer. I didn't realize it at the time, but now I do. And I've included some of the warning signs in the list below for you.

Are you sabotaging yourself now as I was?

1. You blame, always. Do you always point fingers when something goes wrong? Blaming is a subtle sign that you think something or someone else needs to change to make you happy. Living your life depending on what others do is a sure way to be unhappy. Instead, take ownership of what you can control.
2. You think the world is against you. You feel like you are having the worst day ever, and the whole world is trying to screw you over. Or is it just your imagination? Go ahead and vent your frustration for the rest of the day. But stop before you go to bed. Tomorrow is a new day. Let’s not tarnish it with bad thoughts that are already in the past.
3. You feel like no one cares. Here’s an interesting thought: do YOU care about others? Instead of feeling sorry for yourself because you think no one cares, do something today to show your care for someone. Call a friend to say hello. Help out a neighbor. Do a nice deed for someone. What goes around comes around.
4. You take everything personally. I know friends who take whatever others say about them personally. As a result, some days they are over-the-moon ecstatic about a positive comment. Other times they are miserable because someone critiqued what they did. Keep in mind what other people think is none of your business. They are entitled to their opinion. You are entitled to not listen.
5. You relish in getting back at people. Do you keep grudges? Do you look forward to the day when you can get back at someone who has wronged you in the past? This sort of thinking will only drown you in a pool of negative thoughts. Learn to let go. There are much better things to do with your time than to spend it feeling bitter and resentful.
6. You feel like you have something to prove. I had a friend who always tried to prove how tough he was at school. The truth was, the harder he tried to prove himself, the more desperate and ridiculous he looked. This spiraled into a vicious cycle where he would be unhappy with himself, and thus try harder and harder to prove something to others. As for you, you don’t need to prove anything. You are good enough as you are. You just need to believe in yourself.
7. You are harsh when others screw up because they “deserve it”. I have a colleague who eagerly goes out of his way to make those who screwed up suffer for it. He felt it is his “right” to treat others that way because others treated him so when he first started. Not surprisingly, my colleague seems equally as miserable as those he torments. Do you think pouring salt on someone else’s wound will make you happy? I highly doubt it. Instead, learn to forgive. What has happened is already in the past. Holding onto unhappy memories is a sure way to stay unhappy.
8. You feel life is unfair. Someone else is always getting the credit, the boy/girl, the big raise, and everything good. Yes, the world is unfair in some ways. What are you going to DO about it? Remember how I said happy people are proactive and positive? Losers complain all day and yet DO NOTHING about their miserable situation. But you’re not a loser, right? Learn new skills, try new adventures, and improve yourself as much as possible. If you do that, pretty soon you’ll be the one getting all the good things in life while everyone else looks on.
9. You feel it is OK to cheat. This is often tied to the feeling that life is unfair. If you think that way, it’s easy to rationalize cheating as a way to “balance” things out. Of course, we all start with small cheats. And if we don’t get caught, we go for bigger and bigger payoffs over time. Can you see how this is a dangerous slippery slope? Cheating may bring you short-time happiness, but it guarantees long-term misery. Instead, focus on producing work that you are proud of. Focus on building relationships based on trust, care, and love. Focus on doing what’s best for you and others, rather than what feels good at the moment.
10. You love to complain. Oh, how good it feels to play the “woe is me” card in front of your friends. I've been there and done that! For a brief moment, you are the center of attention. Everyone is listening to your gripe story. Everyone takes pity on you. Then your friends start to tune out your constant complaining. Desperate to regain their attention, you come up with even sadder stories of how your life sucks. Have you ever stopped to listen and be there for others? If you haven’t, why do you think others will do the same for you?
11. You think you have it bad in life. Stop living in your own little world. There are others around you who are much less fortunate. Relatively speaking, maybe your life isn't so bad after all. Sometimes when I'm having a bad day, I would complain how I don't have this or that in life. What always helps is to remind ourselves the things we have to be grateful for in life. Think: what can you be grateful for in your life?
12. You’re jealous whenever something good happens to your friends. Sure, you may SAY you’re happy for them. But are you really? Or do you secretly resent their newfound happiness? I have learned that being happy for others can create a corresponding lift in your mood. Everyone’s life is different. The timing of your happiness has nothing to do with your friend’s timing. Be happy and celebrate your friend’s bright moment. In time, you will have your own. And your friend will be there to celebrate yours then.
13. You think nobody likes you. The ironic thing is, your thinking nobody likes you will make you appear cold and uncaring. This only results in people actually disliking you. Instead, give time for people to get to know you. Be warm and friendly. Yes, there will always be the odd person who doesn’t like you for whatever reason. Let that go. Don’t let them skew your perception of others who do accept you for who you are.
14. You bully others. I don’t claim to know how bullies think. But I do know one important fact: happy people don’t bully others. Happy people feel good and confident about themselves. They do not push others down in order to lift themselves up.
15. You tell yourself you don’t deserve good things. This is the quintessential defeatist attitude. When something good does happen to you, you think it’s luck and not your own doing. Maybe you need to give yourself some credit. Before you can be happy about your life, you have to believe that you deserve happiness. Once you start to believe something, you’ll begin to see it happen.

The Final Warning Sign (#16)

Go back to the list above and look at the various points again. How many of them apply to you? More importantly, does the following, final warning sign apply to you?

You would rather talk than to take action.

You may nod your head as you sheepishly check off on the previous warning signs. But will you actually TAKE ACTION to change things? Not taking action is a sure way to sabotage yourself, stay stuck, and be unhappy.

I wish I could tell you an epic, Hollywood-like conclusion for my summer job story. No, I didn't get a spectacular job offer the following year. In fact, the rest of my summer jobs throughout university were pretty normal.

But I did learn how to be happy.

That's because I made the effort to change how I think. The transformation didn't happen overnight.

But each time I complained or let a negative thought creep into my head, I would push it back out. Slowly, I embraced the notion that I have the power to change and improve my life.

Happiness Begins with You

You have a choice.

You can spend the rest of your life feeling miserable. You can complain to anyone within earshot, eventually pushing even your closest supporters away.

You can lash out at the world because you feel someone or something “owes” you a happier life.

Or you can choose to be happy.

All it takes is for you to view things differently. Believe that you have the power to create happiness in your life. Know that you deserves better. Trust that it will all work out.

You can do this.

What are you waiting for?

1. Set a Schedule

When you have vague goals and plans, it is not easy to work towards achieving them.

So, the first step in improving your focus is to make sure your goals are clear and your plans are well thought out and most importantly, that you have a schedule for every step of the way.

For example, saying you want to spend more time with your parents is vague – write it down as “I will call my parents every Wednesday and Friday and meet them on Sunday.”

A schedule ensures you have a clear picture of what you need to do and this makes it easier to focus and actually perform the necessary actions. Some people even find that using their Smartphone to set reminders or alarms for a particular task work out very well.

2. Stop Procrastinating

When there is something you need to do to achieve a goal, do it at once. Stop procrastinating.

Doing something right away is beneficial in two ways – for one, it allows you to get the task done and more importantly, you do not block valuable mind space with thoughts of having to do the task you postponed doing.

Often, it is the starting that is difficult; once you begin, the actions just flow and before you know it, the job will be completed.

If you have decided to write a few lines in your diary every evening, don’t postpone it until after you watch your favorite late-night show; take a few minutes before the show and get it done and over with.

3. Focus on Less

Having too many things to do is a sure fire recipe for a lack of focus – no sooner do you start one task than your mind starts thinking of another. This eats away at your time as well as your concentration.

If you face this problem, make it a habit to jot down the tasks that come into your mind and pick three or four that are the most important right now.

Of these, take up one at a time and focus on accomplishing the goals related to the task; once that is over, move to the next item on your list.

4. Get Back on Track When You Slip

You wake up early and exercise for about a week. Then, because you work a lot, you "forget" to exercise for three days.

Your mind will tell you that you have ruined your wonderful routine and trick you into pushing off getting back to your routine until the next week, or until this important project is over or….you get the idea; before you can realize it, your focus is gone.

The best way to avoid being trapped like this is to tell yourself it was a busy three days, but now, you have to start exercising again.

5. Learn to Delegate

If there is an event and the organizer tries to do everything himself, do you think he can really focus on all the tasks?

Definitely not – that is the reason why there are committees and sub-committees to whom the organizer can delegate tasks while he focuses on the larger picture. Doing something well does not mean you have to do it on your own. In fact, this approach is often counterproductive because of your inability to pay attention to so many jobs simultaneously.

Instead, identify the jobs you are good at doing and focus on them. For all other areas – delegate.

6. Team Up

Sometimes, it can be helpful to work with a friend or a relative who is also trying to build focus. Tell each other about your goals and plans and set up a system of catching up a few times a week to see how well each one is sticking to their decisions.

Often, this external motivation will help you develop focus faster than working on your own.

As most of us realize in hindsight, it is not important to merely have goals – you have to actually take action.

Think well and think hard about why you have something on your goal list. Write down these reasons.

Read this list frequently to get the motivation you need to stick to your quest for success.

You will find endless blogs and articles filled with advice and ideas, but really there is only one real easy solution to making our lives better – and most people do everything they can to avoid it.

Here are three simple steps to solving many problems in your life.

Step #1: Be honest

Stop and be honest with yourself. Tell yourself the truth about how you feel about a certain situation, a relationship, a job or something in your life that isn’t as you say you would like it to be.

Do you feel comfortable or uncomfortable? If you’re bitching, moaning or blaming, clearly it feels uncomfortable and you might feel guilty.

It’s called ‘the uncomfortable truth’ for a reason, and there is some responsibility for you to own.

Step #2: Take personal responsibility

Taking responsibility is not about saying, ‘Everything is my fault; I’m bad, I’m wrong’: if you’re doing this then you’re just blaming, shaming and persecuting yourself.

Instead, it is about putting your hands up and acknowledging that you have chosen to behave in a certain way, which may have been a mistake (whether conscious or unconscious) at the time, but now you are taking responsibility for that behaviour.

Saying it out loud, being honest and telling the truth to other people about that choice or action is part of taking responsibility, because it makes it real.

Step #3: Take action

Once something is real and out there, we can’t avoid it, so we have to choose how to deal with it. The answer is not always to make changes but can simply be to accept what is.

Accept that we don’t actually want to change, so we don’t have to keep pretending to want something that we don’t. Or, if we do want change, then we can take action – whether that is apologising, or changing your behaviour, or doing something new and different.

These three steps can be applied to almost any problem, so here are a few examples…

Are you sick of not losing weight?

Honestly, I adore food; I love chocolate and have a sweet tooth. The truth is, I am not willing to give them up. I take responsibility for my health by doing plenty of exercise and drinking lots of water, and I balance things out by eating plenty of greens and healthy food too, but I will never be a skinny size 6 – and that is my choice.

I choose to be healthy and fit. There is no point bitching and moaning if my weight increases, as no one else is to blame for my jeans getting tight. When they do, I sometimes choose to cut back on sugar-based food for a bit and increase the amount of exercise I do.

If you are not happy with your weight and you really want to lose some, it is simple: be honest with yourself about your food intake (how much and what kind) and weight. Take responsibility and take action by eating less crap, eating smaller portions and exercising more, so that you burn off more than you eat.

Are you fed up with your debts?

I struggled with debt for a long time and I still have some which I am paying off. I hate debt, but I am not in debt because I spend too much, as I struggle to spend money on myself.

Instead, for a long time I undervalued and undersold myself, as I didn’t want to accept my real value and so I settled for what I was given. Therefore, I was always struggling financially to survive.

Taking responsibility and action meant learning to respect myself more, and my value, so that I could demonstrate to other people how to do the same by charging more, asking for more, demanding more, and selling and promoting myself more to get a fair value in relation to my skills, knowledge and experience.

This meant I had to be honest with everyone about who I am and what I can bring to the table.

Many people who accept low-paid or non-challenging jobs are in the same situation; often they are really miserable, bored and scared of trying something new so they choose to undervalue themselves. Instead, they can choose to take responsibility and action by getting more qualifications, choosing to face their fear and trying something more challenging to increase their skills.

Of course, the opposite is true too – some people simply spend more than they earn and waste money on things they don’t actually need (food, rent/mortgage, and other basics don’t count) but things that they want. It is your choice to change that, or to accept that you don’t want to change things and spend less.

No more bitching and moaning: just accept that you choose to have debts like a noose around your neck: they are still your responsibility to pay off.

Are you unhappy in your relationship?

There must be trust and honesty in a loving relationship. Trust grows from honesty. All loving relationships develop and thrive, not because people don’t make mistakes, get cross and frustrated or hurt each other, but because they do.

When both people take personal responsibility for their actions and behaviour, and are honest with their feelings, apologising and making amends if they haven’t demonstrated love to themselves or the other person, then that is when relationships grow.

I struggled in relationships for a long time because I took responsibility for everyone else’s mistakes as well as my own, and became untrusting of the other party because it felt as if I was the only one who made mistakes and I was to blame.

By being honest with myself, I could take responsibility for the fact that I had chosen to play the role of the victim because I was afraid of standing up for myself and telling people how I felt.

Learning to voice my feelings calmly and clearly meant that the other person could take responsibility for their actions if they chose to, and I could choose to either forgive or move on.

The same can be said about not having relationships: some people may moan about the opposite sex and complain that they are single because they never meet any good men/woman – when, in truth, they don’t put themselves out there in places or ways to meet ‘good’ people, because deep down they actually want to be single; maybe because it’s safer, but don’t want to admit it.

Learning a new skill or achieving a goal

I started learning to play the piano two years ago; I had said for so long that I wished I had learned as a child. In honesty, that was because I wished I could do something I could enjoy – but I didn’t want to put in the hard work, time and practice to become good at it. I took lessons for a year and, even though I enjoyed parts of my lessons, I still didn’t really want to practice and do the homework.

After I finally decided to end the lessons, I only touched the keyboard once in the following year! The pleasure and achievement didn’t seem to outweigh the struggle of practicing.

So, in truth, I didn’t want to do it anymore.

Ever since I have been honest and accepted the truth, I have stopped feeling guilty about it. I may change my mind again in time and try again, and that’s OK too.

On the other hand, I acknowledge that (unlike playing the piano), I love to surf, but I didn’t practice for a while and so my surfing skills and fitness have deteriorated.

That really annoys me, so I cut back on the sweet foods and have been getting in the sea more to practice.

So is it time for you to uncover the uncomfortable truth that you’ve been avoiding, and find out what you can take responsibility for?

It’s your choice to act, make a change, make amends for any wrongdoing, or just plain accept the truth that you don’t want to change and that actually deep down you’re OK with that part of your life.