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“The successful person has the habit of doing the things failures don’t like to do. They don’t like doing them either necessarily. But their disliking is subordinated to the strength of their purpose.“
E.M Gray

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.”
Jim Rohn

“With self-discipline most anything is possible.”
Theodore Roosevelt

Often you have to do something you don’t feel that much like doing. Such is life. Maybe it’s telephone call where you risk rejection in some way. Maybe it is finishing a report or essay for work/school. Maybe it’s just about getting those dishes done or going to the gym.

So what do you do? Do you get up off the chair and get going? Or do you procrastinate and decide to do it “another day”?

I do a bit of both. But I have found a few ways to improve my consistency – one of the most important things for any kind of success – pretty dramatically and make things easier.

Step 1: Accept it.

When you feel resistance within towards doing something the natural instinct may be to try to push that feeling away. To brush it off. I have found that doing the opposite and just accepting that it is there can do wonders.

Tell yourself: “This is how I feel right now and I accept it”.

This sounds counterintuitive and perhaps like you’re giving up. However by accepting how you feel instead of resisting it you reduce the emotional energy that you are feeding into this problem. It then tends to just kinda lose speed like a car that runs out of fuel. And oftentimes it becomes so weak after while that it just moves out of your inner focus and disappears.

This step may be all you need to reduce the negative feelings enough to be able to start taking action. If not, move on to the next step.

Step 2: List the positives.

After you have accepted how you feel list the positives of getting this thing done. Do it on paper, on your computer or just in your head.

When you don’t feel like doing something it’s very easy to get stuck and just focus on the negative aspects such as it being hard work or the risk of pain or failure.

So you need to change what you are focusing on to motivate yourself to take action. Making a list of positives like benefits and possible opportunities can be very effective for turning your focus around.

If you have problems getting started ask yourself questions that will empower you. Questions like:

• What is awesome about this situation?
• What is the hidden opportunity in this situation?

You can pretty much always find positives about anything. There are lessons to be learned about yourself and your world and opportunities to be found if you look at things the right way.

Step 3: Just do it.

You should now have reduced much of the resistance within and feel more motivated to start taking action and getting your thing done.

It is at this point tempting to start thinking again. To reconsider and ponder. But I have found that if you do that then it easy to fall back into the same place where you began. You start to question doing this. Your focus starts to turn back to the negative aspects again.

So when I am at this point I usually just stop thinking and get my butt out of the chair. I get moving and I just do it.

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“My father was a quitter, my grandfather was a quitter, I was raised to give up. It’s one of the few things I do well.”

“I’m disturbed, I’m depressed, I’m inadequate, I’ve got it all!”

“If you take everything I’ve accomplished in my life and condense it down to one day, it looks decent!”

You can learn a lot from people. Personal development stars like Wayne Dyer or Eckhart Tolle. Or your family. Or a friend.

Or even a walking disaster like George Costanza, the iconic and miserable character from the classic TV-show “Seinfeld”. Now back on the fake reunion show that is taking place on Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm”.

Much can be learned from the great life of Costanza. Mostly what to avoid doing.

1. Believe in it. And yourself.

“Jerry, just remember: It’s not a lie if you believe it.”

That quote may not be the best piece of advice in itself. But the thought is very interesting. Because the belief you have behind your words can have a huge difference. People often focus a bit too much on the words. But how are they said? With confidence? With a relaxed 100 percent conviction?

Or mumbly and a bit stumbley?

If you can’t say something with confidence then it may not matter what you say. People won’t listen. They won’t be swayed and captured by you.
OK, so how can you improve this part of your life?

One tip is being present. If you are in the moment while saying something then that tends to add a lot of weight to your words and remove incongruence and conflicting thoughts. You can find ways to become more present in your daily life here.

Also, if you think you can do something then you can. If you don’t think so then it will be very hard to do it.

So work on building that confidence in yourself. Here are three tips to get you started:

• Take action. Get it done. The most important step in building self confidence is simply to take action. Working on something and getting it done. Sitting at home and thinking about it will just make you feel worse.
• Face your fear. Look, I could tell you to do affirmations or other exercises for months in front of your mirror. It may have a positive effect. Just like preparing yourself it may help you to take action with more confidence. But to be frank, if you don’t face your fears you won’t experience any better self confidence on a deeper and more fundamental level. Having experiences where you face your fear is what really builds self confidence. There is no way around it.
• Realize that failure or being wrong will not kill you. You have to face your fear. Because it is only then that you discover the thing that billions of people throughout history have discovered before you. Failure won’t kill you. Nor will being wrong. The sky will not fall down. That’s just what people that haven’t faced their fear yet think. The thing is to reframe failure from being something that makes your legs shake to something useful and important for the growth of your self confidence and your overall growth as a human being. Because you really learn things and you become stronger and your chances of succeeding increase through failure.

2. Do the opposite.

In one episode – the on called “The Opposite” – George’s life turns from a series of disappointments and disasters to a string of successes. How does he do it? By doing the exact opposite of what he has been doing all his life.

When you start studying personal development it’s a bit like that. You realise that difference between you and more successful people isn’t just that the successful ones are working harder. They are doing something else than you are doing.

Some of these things are pretty counter intuitive. Personal growth isn’t always doing the exact opposite of what you’ve done before. But it is about trying out beliefs and methods that isn’t “common sense” or doing what you may think that most people do.

It is about taking a leap of faith and sometimes keep doing things for a period of time – not just over the weekend, but for months – until you get that first success and you realise, not just on an intellectual level but an emotional too, that this stuff really works and that you can really change.

So learn what you can from people who have already done what you want to do. Take a leap of faith once in a while and try what they say even though it may sound a bit odd. Do things that feel unusual for you – while using common sense of course – to expand your comfort zone in small and big situations and to gain and understanding of things really are. Rather than getting lost in your own theories based on what you have experienced so far in life.

3. Don’t blow things out of proportion.

George really has a knack for blowing things out of proportions. A kind gesture like paying for a big salad is interpreted as an insult and as someone looking down on him.

So why do people do such things in real life too and how can you stop yourself from doing it?

One reason could be to protect oneself from pain. By actually doing things, failing and learning you also need to expose yourself to pain and discomfort. By overcomplicating things and over thinking them you can create a helpful excuse to not take action. Instead you can remain in a state where you are “still trying to figure things out” for a long time.

Another reason is to feel good about oneself in an odd way. By making things more complicated than they need to be you can make them feel very important. And since you are involved in these important things, well, then you have to be important too, right?
Now, on to decreasing these kinds of things in your own life:

• Zoom out. Ask better questions. Not why is the whole world against me questions like George tends to ask. But: “Does someone on the planet have it worse than me?” “Will this matter in 5 years?” These questions help you zoom out and realize that in most cases things aren’t really that bad and you can handle them.
• Bring awareness to you own thought patterns. Ask yourself questions like: “Honestly, am I overcomplicating this?” and “What is the simplest and most straightforward solution to my problem that I may be avoiding to protect myself from pain?”
• Get a life. If you have too much time on your hands then it’s easy to start thinking and thinking about something until you made a hen out of a feather. If you feel like you have a habit of doing this then add more activities to your life. Then you will have more fun and less time to sit around thinking about things that are pretty pointless.

4. Sometimes coffee is not coffee.

In one hilarious scene – in the episode “The Phone Message” – George and a woman is at the end of a date. It is midnight and they are sitting in his car.

Woman: Do you want come upstairs for a cup of coffee?
George: No thanks, if I drink coffee this late at night, it keeps me up.
Woman: Well, ok, good night…
George: Take it easy.

End of date.

Sometimes a cup of coffee isn’t a cup of coffee. And words are only one part of communication. Being open to using common sense and experience and not just listening to words in a straightforward, logical manner can help you improve your communication skills. And prevent situations where a bad time is had by all.

5. Drop your grudges. Forgive and forget.

In the episode “The Apology” George wants an apology. A few years ago George was at a New Year’s party. He was freezing and wanted to borrow a sweater made of Cashmere wool. But the host said: “No, I don’t want to have the neck hole stretched out.” And everybody at the party laughed.

When George learns that the host is going through the 12-step program and is apologizing to the people he has wronged in the past George sees his chance. But the guy calmly and mockingly says that he doesn’t need to apologize.

And so George of course become angrier and angrier throughout the episode that ends with him screaming at a Rageoholics Anonymous-meeting.

Hilarious on TV. Pretty pointless in real life. It’s easy to get wrapped up in thinking that forgiveness is just about something you “should do”. But forgiving can in a practical way be extremely beneficial for you.

As long as you don’t forgive someone you are linked to that person. Your thoughts will return to the person who wronged you and what s/he did over and over again. The emotional link between the two of you is so strong and inflicts much suffering in you and – as a result of your inner turmoil – most often in other people around you too.

When you forgive you do not only release the other person. You set yourself free too from all of that agony.

6. It is a problem if you think it is a problem.

One of the big ongoing issues about George is that he’s going bald and how it makes him feel less attractive. I think the big issue here is that George so fixated on his baldness that people pick up on it. If you are going bald or perceive something to be very negative about your appearance then it’s a problem if you think it’s a problem.

If you are ok with it, people in general will be ok with it. Or rather, they won’t think about whatever the issue might be. Your world is often a response to what you think and believe.

7. You are your own worst enemy.

George tries to manipulate women and everyone is various elaborate ways. But he never really changes. And so life never changes for him. At least not for long. Soon he is back where he started. Many episodes end with George self sabotaging a good thing by for example blowing something out of proportion. He does not feel worthy of success.

So how do you get past being your own worst enemy and become better friends with yourself? It’s not a simple thing. But to feel more worthy of success and not blow it by self sabotaging you have to live a life where you feel worthy. I don’t think there is any way around this. It’s not easy but it does work.

If you do your best, if you do what you feel deep down is the right thing over and over then when some opportunity comes along you’ll think that you are indeed a good person who has worked very hard and been through ups and downs. You feel good about yourself and you feel worthy.

Another great tip to increase self-love is to love other people more. The way you behave and think towards others seems to have a big, big effect on how you behave towards yourself and think about yourself. Judge people more and you tend to judge yourself more. Be more kind to other people and help them and you tend to be more kind and helpful to yourself.

A bit counter intuitive perhaps, but that has been my experience.

Image by Wolfgang Staudt (license).

“First we make our habits, then our habits make us.”
Charles C. Noble

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Aristotle

Changing a habit is not always easy. It becomes even harder to change when you make what I believe are some common mistakes. I have at least made them quite a few times.

So I hope you’ll find something helpful in this article. Something that will make it at least a bit easier to change your habits and change your life.

1. Trying to change too many habits at once.

This is perhaps the most common mistake. It’s easy to get wrapped up in the enthusiasm and the hope that you will give your life a total overhaul. Nothing wrong with that.

But in my experience you won’t be able to keep it up until your new habits are established and stable. Sure, you can live on your enthusiasm for a week or two. But sooner or later life interferes or the stress of doing it all at once causes too much inner and outer resistance and you give up.

Changing a habit is a lot of mental effort. You have resistance from within as your mind tries to drag you back to the comfort it has known for so long (no matter if that familiar place isn’t that healthy for you). You may face resistance from the outside as people question your change.

Changing just one habit at a time may seem pretty boring. But do you want the excitement of the thought that you are completely changing your life but then have little to no results later on? Or do you want a real change in your life?

If you want the real change then you may have to take the more boring and patient route.

My advice would be to go for the one habit you want the most right now and just focus on that one. And to let go of listening to the voice of the inner child that tells you “I want it all right now!”.

2. You are not doing it long enough.

When I tried to add a habit of working out each week I think I failed about four times before it really stuck.

A common piece of knowledge is that you should do something for 21 days and it will stick as a new habit. For me it has taken longer than that. It has been messier.

It does seem to matter how much effort it takes to incorporate the new habit. And how much discomfort it causes you. Some habits I have slipped into quite easily within just a few weeks.

But allowing for at least 60 days or up to 90 days to work on your new habit – with a few periods of slumps or failure during that period – before it sticks doesn’t seem unrealistic to me.

3. Not finding the right way for you.

When I wanted to lose weight and increase my energy I knew I needed to do more cardio. I tried running. I tried the elliptical bicycle in the gym. None of them was much fun at all. I really didn’t like them.

I didn’t really get the cardio habit to stick until I started using the bodyweight circuits from the Turbulence Training program in the beginning of 2009. I liked them because they were quick and intensive and I could them anywhere as long as there was a floor. That combination really helped me to stick the program.

So experiment. Find the solution that fits you.

4. Missing the comfort of the old habit and slipping back into that.

The mind doesn’t like when you step out of your comfort zone to change your habits. You feel discomfort. You feel some kind of pain perhaps. Your body is giving you signals that something is not as it has been for a long while. The body tells you that what you are doing doesn’t feel “safe” and familiar.

It’s easy to miss that old familiarity enough to slip back into your old behaviour.

So what do you do?

You have to be aware that this is probably how a change in habits will work. Your mind will offer resistance. There were probably also some benefits that you got from your old habit. You have to accept that you are giving up those benefits for the even better benefits of your new habit.

When you are feeling like going back to your old ways remind yourself of all the new and good things you will get out of your new habit.

5. Aiming for perfection instead of improvement.

Take it easy on yourself. If you slip back into your old behaviour even though you reminded yourself of the new benefits then don’t beat yourself up. It’s not a big deal. Everyone slips from time to time. Just get back on the horse the next day again. But learn what you can so you don’t fall into the same hole or do the same mistake again.

If you are working on for instance a habit of being present during your daily life understand that such a habit is gradual. It would be nice if you could flick it like a light switch.

With simple, physical habits like decluttering for 5 minutes each day you may be able to do this 95 percent or even 100 percent of the time. With being present or being positive in all situations you build it up gradually. You will most likely not be able to do it 100 percent of the time. And that’s OK.

Striving for perfection for such big changes is just you setting the bar at an inhuman level and it will not help you.

6. You leave a vacuum.

If you just stop doing something, like for instance eating junk food and sweets or stopping to see the negative stuff in every conversation you create a vacuum. It is possible to just stop. But I have found that it becomes easier to change if you replace your old habit with a new and more positive one. You fill out the space you created and so you are less likely to get sucked back into the old habit.

When I got into better shape I filled my cupboards and fridge with vegetables, fruits, nuts and healthy stuff. I had no candy or cookies at home. Because I knew that I would inevitably snack on them. I replaced one snacking habit with a healthier one instead of stopping completely.

7. You don’t consider likely obstacles and pitfalls along the way.

No matter what habit you trying to add to your life you are not the first person to do so. So look for what other people have done.

What pitfalls or problems did they run into? What plan did they follow? What problems or obstacles do you think you might run into?

Don’t look for a perfect plan before you get started because then you may never get started. But do some research. Google for articles. Ask the people around you that have done what you want to do.

Learning from other people’s mistakes and successes can save you time and effort.

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“May you have warmth in your igloo, oil in your lamp, and peace in your heart!”
Eskimo proverb

“The simplification of life is one of the steps to inner peace. A persistent simplification will create an inner and outer well-being that places harmony in one’s life.”
Peace Pilgrim

I believe a lot of people want more inner peace and calmness in their lives. But how can we find it in the busy daily life?

Here are 9 of my own favorite tips.

1. Set limits. If your life is overfilled with stuff you may need to set some limits. You may need to stop doing some of the least important things, the things that if you are honest really don’t matter that much. Don’t hold yourself to “perfect” standards. And set a limit for how many times you will check inboxes etc. per day. Checking on stuff all the time creates a lot of stress. And say no if you really don’t have the time.
2. Find a relaxation technique that works for you. I like belly breathing and working out to release tensions and recharge during the day. What works for you? Long walks, music, yoga, meditation or going for a swim? Find out and do that.
3. Don’t make mountains out of molehills. This can create a lot of unnecessary stress. When facing what looks like a mountain then ask yourself questions like: Does someone on the planet have it worse than me? Will this matter in 5 years? These questions help you zoom out and realize that in most cases things aren’t really that bad and you can handle them.
4. Slow down. Your emotions work backwards too. If you slow down then while walking, moving your body or talking you can often start to feel less stressed (compared to if you move/talk fast).Slowing down to decrease stress goes for many other things you do in everyday life too like riding your bicycle, driving the car, working at your desk and eating.
5. Declutter your world, declutter your mind. Just take 5 minutes to declutter your workspace or the room you are in. A decluttered, simplified and ordered space around you brings clarity and order to the mind. So don’t stop at the workspace. Declutter, simplify and organize your home and life too to live in a more relaxing environment.
6. Accept and let go. Now is now. But if something negative from the past – something someone said, something someone did – is still in your mind then accept and let that feeling and thought in instead of trying to push it away. When it is there, when you accept that it is then it starts to lose power. And while the facts may still be there in your head the negative feelings are much less powerful or gone. At this point, let that thing go like you are throwing out a bag of old clothes. And direct your focus to the present moment and something better instead.
7. Escape for a while. Read a novel (I like twisty thrillers), watch your favorite TV-show or a movie. It’s simple but it works well to just release pressure and relax.
8. Do one thing at a time. Multitasking splits your focus and leaves you with mediocre results and less enjoyment while sucking the energy out of you. When you do a thing do just that. Be there. Don’t try to do something else physically or in your mind. I have found that doing this always helps me to find inner calmness again.
9. Solve a problem that is weighing down on you. Don’t procrastinate anymore. Solve your problem and release it and all the underlying stress and tension that it is creating in your life. You probably already know what to do, you are just not doing it yet. But the longer you wait the worse the tension inside becomes. So get up from your chair and get started on doing it now.

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“Character is doing the right thing when nobody’s looking.  There are too many people who think that the only thing that’s right is to get by, and the only thing that’s wrong is to get caught.”
J.C. Watts

“Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.”
Henry David Thoreau

One of the most powerful things you can do for yourself and your world is doing what you feel deep down is the right thing.

What is the right thing? Well, that is up to you. Often you have a little voice in your head that tells what the right thing is. Or a gut feeling.

Here are a few suggestions though:

• Being kind instead of being judgmental/ trying to put someone down to feel better about yourself.
• Eating a healthy meal and then going to the gym instead of lying on the couch eating chips and watching TV.
• Doing the dishes and other chores instead of slacking off.
• Putting a stop to feeling like a victim with everything against you and instead looking at the opportunities and taking action.

It isn’t always easy. So I use these win/win-reasons to motivate myself to do the right thing. If you know why you are doing something and how it benefits you and the people around you then it becomes easier to do. And over time you can become more and more consistent with it.

1. You raise your self esteem.

When you don’t do the right thing you are not only sending out signals out into your world. You are also sending signals to yourself. When you don’t do the right thing you don’t feel good about yourself. You may experience emptiness or get stuck in negative thought loops. It’s like you are letting yourself down. You are telling yourself that you can’t handle doing the right thing. To not do the right thing is a bit like punching yourself in the stomach.

But the more you do the right thing on a consistent basis the more you tend to like yourself. Your esteem of yourself goes up.

This is also a cure to the often common habit of being a validation/approval junkie. That’s when you do things to get people to like you, compliment you etc. You want to feel good about yourself so you try to get other people to give you those feelings.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with getting positive feelings from other people as an extra bonus. But if you have no inner spring of positive feelings about yourself at all then life becomes a rollercoaster of positive and negative emotions. Everyone around you control how you feel and may also wield a big influence over how you think.

By doing the right thing you create that inner spring of validation and positive emotions. You become steadier, calmer and more centred.

2. It feels really good.

One of the simplest ways to create positive feelings within and maintaining them in a steady way is to do the right thing throughout your day. This of course starts a positive upward spiral of positivity not only within you but around you as positive feelings are highly contagious.

3. You get great results.

By doing what you feel is the right thing you focus on creating a better outside and inside while at the same time you cut out less relevant stuff from your inner and outer life.

So you become more focused on doing that is most important to you.

And as with anything you tend to get what you give. When you give value to people, when you help them then they will often want to help you and give you value in some form. Not everyone will do it but many will. Not always right away but somewhere down the line. Things tend to even out.

But most people wait for the other person to do something positive first. Don’t get stuck in that wait that just causes frustration. Be proactive, create a habit of taking the first step, put in the extra effort and you tend to get good stuff back. Don’t do it and you tend to get less good stuff back from the world.

4. Deservedness.

I believe this may be one benefit of doing the right thing that people often forget about. Because is it just enough to get motivated and take action to get what you want?

Maybe. But if you deep down don’t really think you deserve what you go after then you will tend to sabotage for yourself. Perhaps in subtle ways. You may get a gut feeling that this success is wrong and so you start doing stuff that screws things up.

So how do you make yourself feel like you deserve something? Well, you may do affirmations or some other exercise to make yourself feel better about yourself. But I think that what is most potent for your mind is actual proof. When you do the right thing over and over you tell your mind that you are indeed a good person.

And slowly it starts to accept that this is indeed the new truth about you.

The feelings of deservedness are also essential to maintaining a new self image.

When you try to make a big change in your life and make it stick then in some way your self image needs to be changed. You need to start seeing yourself as a healthy and fit person for example instead of couch potato or you will easily slip back into your old habits once again.

Doing the right thing not only in the health area of your life but also for example your work and relationships provides your mind with a ton of proof that you are someone who deserves what s/he want.

Just from my own experience I have found that if I have a day when I do nothing right then it is very easy slip back into old thought patterns. But by doing the right thing in many areas I tend to rarely slip back into old and more negative behavior and thoughts. I become steadier in my new, more positive self image.

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