Some days it is easy to throw our hands up in the air and stop trying.

When everything becomes difficult and life becomes a struggle.

Get out of the rut.

1. Figure out the things you like to do – even in bad times – and do them every day.  Find 3 and make them a part of every day going forward.
2. Set the timer on your phone to go off every few hours and when it does make note of what you are doing at that time.  Do you like it?  Do this for several weeks or a month and you will soon discover the things that make you happy that you are not now doing.  Then start doing them.
3. When you hit a low, get busy doing things you like. 
4. Go to bed early after a bad day and hit reset the next morning.  Why drag out a bad day when you can rest up to start another good one tomorrow.
5. Have the courage to let go.  Again and again we discover the power of giving up control and so we may discover parts of life we could not have planned for.  You may have heard that Google Maps is getting ready to introduce a feature called Field Trip, a way to go beyond getting specific directions we seek and discovering places around us.  We need more of that.  Seek out the unscheduled moment because it may be your happiest one yet.

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers” – M. Scott Peck

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A man in the hospital that I never knew taught me the greatest lesson about overcoming pain and disappointment.

While visiting a friend, my friend shared with me something I have remembered since the first day I heard it.

As I was trying to cheer her up, she wound up cheering me up by telling me of a young man who was in traction and forbidden to move his limbs for the best part of six weeks.

But it was his advice that resonated.

“I added up the number of days I was expected to be laid up and then figured out what percentage of my life this painful inconvenience would cost me.  And you know what, it was something like 0.0001 days of my expected life span”.

That’s how he reminded himself that while six weeks down and out is a sizeable inconvenience today; it is a very, very small part of his entire life.

The same applies to other health problems like the burden of chemotherapy.

Working in a job you don’t like but unable to find a new one – yet.

The perspective of time is a great healer in more ways than one.

Putting in perspective the bad break with all the time we are reasonably expecting on this earth is the secret to surviving short-term inconvenience long enough to get through it.

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us” — 
E.M. Forster

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There are many books on time management, goal setting and getting things done. 

But there are three words – just three words – that, if you make them part of your life, will produce better results that you might have ever imagined.

Organize.

Deputize.

Supervise.

Make a list of things you need to do and prioritize them.  The secret is to update this list all day in real time to focus on success. 

Make someone else responsible for some of the things you need to do.  Getting things accomplished requires teamwork and by asking people to help you, you empower them to succeed and do it gladly.  The key is to ask them.

Once you have someone helping you, take responsibility to turn to your list and see that each task or project is being performed satisfactorily.

This short course in effective management is attainable by the end of the day if you commit these three things to memory.

“Surround yourself with the best people you can find, delegate authority, and don’t interfere as long as the policy you’ve decided upon is being carried out” – Ronald Reagan

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When I taught Dale Carnegie, one of my adult students got so panicked in front of her audience that she ran down the aisle and darted out of the room never to return.

Studies have shown that more people fear speaking than death!

And it’s too bad because a little nervousness guarantees your success.

Let me repeat that:  a little nervousness guarantees that you will be successful whether you are speaking to a group, doing a presentation, meeting a new acquaintance for the first time or just about any situation that can cause anxiety.

I’d like to share with you the secret and if it works for you the way it works for me, I hope you will share it with others who are unnecessarily burdening themselves with negative stress.

Get your butterflies to fly in formation.

I have seen some of the finest professionals in radio, television and public speaking feel a bit of anxiety about doing a good job.  However, they have the attitude to keep the butterflies under control or as I like to say, flying in formation.

So don’t fear a case of nerves.

Welcome it because people who succeed know that a bit of nervousness means a lot of caring about success.

“Courage is not the absence of fear but the awareness that something else is more important” – Stephen Covey

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Parents usually have their children in their hearts when they want what’s best for them.

Fairly or unfairly, parents advocate for what they think is best.  To me, that’s fair game because it is eventually up to us to decide what we think are the right choices in life.

What’s tragic is when we allow others to live our lives.  And it happens all the time.

Those around us may want certain things for us.  How we should handle our careers, relationships, family and even personal interests.

That’s why today is a good day to stop living someone else’s life and start living our own.

What’s amazing is what happens almost immediately when we consciously take control of our life’s path.

It doesn’t need to take illness, or misfortune to wake us up.  It’s the prospect of feeling as if a burden has been lifted from our backs so that we are free to be fulfilled and happy.

Perhaps you or someone you know have dedicated their lives to not disappointing someone else. 

The best way to accomplish that goal is not to disappoint yourself.

“Tis’ better to live your own life imperfectly than to imitate someone else’s perfectly” — Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

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When you’ve tried just about everything and have decided to finally give up, consider this.

Edison tried 10,000 times (unsuccessfully) before he invented the light bulb.

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper because he didn’t have any ideas.

Colonel Sanders tried to sell his chicken recipe to over 1,000 places before someone bit – seven years later he sold his fried chicken company for millions.

The first “Chicken Soup For Your Soul” was rejected by 33 publishers.

General Douglas MacArthur was turned down for admission to West Point not once but twice, but he kept on trying and was accepted the third time before his eventual march to military glory.

Henry Ford failed and went broke 5 times before he succeeded in making the Model T.

FedEx Founder Fred Smith got a C on a college paper outlining his idea for the successful delivery service.

And what was our excuse again for giving up?

Here are 50 more people who will inspire you to never, ever give up.

“I’ve failed over and over again in my life.  That’s is why I succeed” – Michael Jordan, cut from his high school basketball team.

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Perhaps nothing is more devastating than when we are disappointed by those closest to us – our friends, family, or colleagues.

All our lives we always wanted to believe these people would be there for us – stand up and speak up for us and yet when push comes to shove, most do not.

This can be the final blow in a relationship and it can launch a lot of understandable but needless negative self-talk in our minds.

The rule of thumb usually is when you’re riding high and happy, everyone around you is there for you.  In fact, some of them may be there because of you.

But when adversity strikes, people often choose to save their jobs, reputations and relationships even as we may they should also stand for us.

I have found this to be a most effective way in dealing with the feeling of betrayal from others.

A study was done recently about who tends to be saved when a ship sinks.  The study focused on numerous ship sinkings where 100 or more lives were at stake.

The findings are dramatic.

The captain gets off the ship last, right?  And the children get off first?

That would be wrong.

According to the findings, the crew gets off first (they know how), then the men, then the women and yes, the children are last.

The human condition is for one under duress to save their own skin first.

When I think of this graphic example, although I don’t like it, it makes me realize that when someone stands for us, be grateful.

When others disappoint, remember the Titanic.

                  “A good friend will always stab you in the front” – Oscar Wilde

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It’s hard to let go.

Maybe that’s why the world is filled with control freaks.  Maybe we are even a bit of a control freak from time to time.

But if you’ve ever noticed, control freaks are some of the unhappiest people in the world.  They can’t help themselves.  They just have to get their way to be happy.

Unfortunately, it makes them unhappy and it drives others away.  Think about it: the price of a relationship shouldn’t always be giving in to someone else.

The irony is that we gain control by giving up control.

So for one day, try this challenge:  see yourself as an enabler of others.  Actually try to let them have their way as much as possible without compromising your morals or ethics.

People I know who are able to let go and free themselves of the stresses and irritations of life, are active enablers of others.

We must stand by our principles but we can also enable others to stand by theirs.

“Diplomacy is the art of letting someone else have your way” — Daniele Vare

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Why do we let others make us feel badly about ourselves?

And why do we forget good things almost as fast as we hear them?

This is backwards.

No one can make us think negatively about ourselves unless we allow.

And conversely, the most important weapon we have – that is rarely used – to combat the negatives comments, statements or attitudes we receive from others is remembering the good ones, erasing the bad ones immediately.

This is not to say we can’t work on being better – that’s actually life’s mission. More importantly, take control of the self-talk we allow in our heads.

Negative self-talk from others usually gets re-run by us – over and over again.

Pledge today to put a stop/loss on negative talk from everyone and let’s give ourselves a chance to be happy and successful.

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent” – Eleanor Roosevelt

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When we get hit with a problem, it seems like it’s always more than one at a time to add to our already growing list.

That causes stress that can actually force us to make bad decisions and prolong the grief.

But there is a better way:

1. Don’t try to solve a new problem on the spot, manage it.  Put it on a priority list with everything else. 
2. Resist the urge to solve the next problem that comes along.
3. Know the there are three kinds of problems and we would do well to know them inside and out:  the kind that can be solved, the kind that can’t be solved and the ones that for some reason or the other resolve themselves.
4. Put emotion in its place.  Getting emotional usually makes a problem more important than it may actually be.  Resist that temptation.
5. My favorite:  every time you chip away at an existing problem, try to see it as making a small payment one installment at a time as opposed to one giant move to make it go away.

“Troubles are often the tools by which God fashions us for better things” — Henry Ward Beecher

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