Who Moved My Cheese was published in 1998.  A parable written by Spencer Johnson which describes change in one’s work and life.  Who Moved My Cheese was included in the New York Times business bestseller since release and remained on the list for almost five years and spent over 200 weeks on Publishers Weekly’s hardcover nonfiction list.

When Change Happens

One of the constant things in life is CHANGE.  Each day brings a new life and a different experience for us.  But our daily routine task, from the time we wake up until the time we lay down in bed again, creates a cycle that leads us to comfort.  Such comfort creates lax and negligence in our character that make us forget that life is constantly changing.  Then when change happens, we stress out, react, complain and be beaten up.

Even if it’s hard to admit it, in school, at home and in the community we live in, we were taught to believe in following rules and sets of standards that being curious and creating change is not acceptable.  That being obedient, doing what is told and what is “right”, is the key to success and happiness in life.  The attitude of obedience and resistance to change is brought by many in their professional and personal journey in life.  That’s why it is hard for majority to handle and accept change.

Upon experiencing change, our initial reaction is to resist it.  Either because we are afraid to lose the comfort of what we currently have or the fear of the unknown.

The Fable of Change

The book Who Moved My Cheese is a fable that teaches an amazing way to deal with change in your personal and professional life.

Below is a short synopsis of the fable:

There were four characters; two mice named “Sniff” and “Scurry,” and two little people named “Hem” and “Haw.”  The four characters lives in a maze (which represents environment) and their activity is to look for cheese ( which represents their life’s happiness and success).

Each morning, Sniff, Scurry, Hem and Haw wear their most comfortable shoes to run and search the maze to find cheese.  They search each day until they found Cheese Station “C”.  The four were so happy and glad to have found Station “C” which is filled with cheese.  Hem and Haw, human as they were, become comfortable having found Station C.  They thought that the Cheese in Station “C” was more than enough to sustain their needs in a lifetime.  So the next morning, Hem and Haw lazily gets up every morning and walk to station “C” without their running shoes on.  On the other hand, the two mice “Sniff” and “Scurry” still eagerly runs to Station “C” to search and find their cheese.

Then one morning, as Hem and Haw lazily walks shoeless to station “C”, they’ve arrived and found it empty.  Hem and Haw became furious and angry.  Unprepared, the humans have counted on the cheese supply to be constant.  They rant at the unfairness of the situation and were mad to those who stole their cheese.  They wanted justice.  They wanted the cheese to come back but they went home hungry.  On the other hand, when Sniff and Scurry found that Station C was empty, they are not surprised. They noticed the cheese supply were decreasing, they have mentally prepared beforehand for the tough but foreseeable task of finding new cheese.  They’ve easily accepted it and moved on to search for new cheese.

The next day, Hem and Haw still walks to Station C hoping to find their cheese.  Hoping that things were the same as the past.  But they failed for the cheese was gone and will not come back.  Beginning to realize the cheese less situation, Haw proposed to search for new cheese. But Hem is dead set in his closed mindset and rejected the proposal.  Meanwhile, Sniff and Scurry have found “Cheese Station N”, a new supply of cheese.

Hem and Haw are still lacking of cheese and blame each. Wanting to change, Haw suggested once again to search for new cheese but Hem rejected it again.  He didn’t want to change, he’s already comfortable his old cheese and he’s also afraid of the unknown, the new cheese.  He just wants the old cheese to come back and he’ll be happy again.  After many days in denial, Hem and Haw remained without cheese.

One day, having discovered his weakening fears, Haw begins to laugh at the situation and stopped taking himself so seriously.  Haw realized that he should simply move on and enter the maze to find a new cheese.  While walking down the maze in search for new cheese, Haw took time to write on the walls of the experiences and lessons he’s getting in search for change, of new cheese.  Haw did it for the intention of giving a guide to his friend, Hem, just in case he finally accepts to move on and find new cheese.  First he wrote, “If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct” Still fearful of his new quest, Haw wrote “What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?” .  In his journey he realized and wrote down “When you move beyond your fear, you feel free.” Then one day, Haw finally found Cheese Station N and realized it was better and tastier than Cheese Station C.  Wanting to remember everything he’ve learned, he wrote to the largest wall in Cheese Station N the following Six (6) Important Lessons on Change:

1. Change Happens.  They Keep Moving The Cheese
2. Anticipate Change. Get Ready For The Cheese To Move
3. Monitor Change. Smell the Cheese Often So You Know When It Is Getting Old.
4. Adapt To Change Quickly. The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Can Enjoy New Cheese.
5. Change. Move With The Cheese
6. Enjoy Change. Savor The Adventure And Enjoy The Taste Of New Cheese

Are You Like Hem?

Even we don’t admit it, we act like Hem.  When change happens in our lives, we get angry, we blame others, we lose hope and resist change.

Start Embracing Change

Who Moved My Cheese have helped me a lot in coping in a negative change that previously happened in my life.  After reading Who Moved My Cheese , it gave me a lot of new insight on why change is good and how it can lead me to much better things.  Now as I look back, I can honestly say I’m really happy to the change that reversed my life to embrace positivity and life live fully.

You too can create that change in your life.  If you don’t know where to start, begin having courage to embrace change by reading Who Moved My Cheese .

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Life became a complicated affair.  There are too much clutter and commotion that brought about the anxiety, stress and dissatisfaction for many.  A lot of us are being caught up by our own time schedule that having 24-hours in a day is not enough to fulfil all the things we need to accomplish, may it be at work, at home, for our personal and social self or our finances.

This information age and productive generation is the reason for this stressful lifestyle that most of us lived in. Now, you can do anything in an instant and be wherever you want to be in just a few click of the button.  That’s thanks to the marvel of technological advancement.  But isn’t technology was supposed to eliminate the work and stress for humans?  Technological advancement have created a more stressful environment and busy lifestyle because of your own mindset and choices.  Instead of seeing these technology as tools to make your life much easier, you’ve used it to accept more obligations beyond your own ability.  And that’s what most of us are unaware of. We become too attracted to have self-fulfilment and prestige in accepting a busy and fully-loaded responsibility, but then we complain on how stressful and unhappy our life is.  Like time for relaxation and inner peace is too far from reality.

The question now is how can you stop surviving the cycle of your stressful and busy lifestyle to achieve a more balanced and stress-free lifestyle?  How can you achieve a life that’s lived to the fullest?

This post will give you a five quick steps for you to start changing the stressful life you have now to change in a more positive way of life that can eventually lead you to find your inner piece, happiness and success in life.

1. TODAY IS YOURS, LIVE IT FULLY

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon – instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today. – Dale Carnegie

It’s time you stop running too fast to get ahead.  Life is not about the past or the future, it’s about today.  In a busy and cluttered world, we tend to be too much preoccupied with the material things and demands that we forget that life is temporary and short.   The only guaranteed day that you are alive is today, so live it.

2. UNDERSTAND WHAT COMPRISES A BALANCED LIFE

Everyone is a house with four rooms: Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. Unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person.

For most, life became a routine of  a long list of similar tedious tasks to be done over and over again like it will never end.  Life became only about work or one aspect of life.  We do not know how ever that stress and unhappiness is mostly blamed to lack of balance in life.  When we tend to focus only on one aspects of our life, such as work, we tend to neglect all the other aspect and when it happens, damages occur.  To change this and prevent future damages, make a renewal and try your best to meet with the four areas of your life.

3. ACCEPT CHANGE AS PART OF LIFE

The only constant in life is change.  Do not be scared for change to happen. Anticipate and accept change.

One of the biggest trap that unhappy people are faced in is change.  Because we are too busy and too preoccupied we neglect to see what’s happening around us and what are the things that change or about to change.  And when change happens, we are hit big time and become paralyzed.  Once you start doing the first two steps above, I’m sure it will be easier for you to observe change before it begins/happens.  When you learned to live today and understand how balance life works, it is much easier for you to smell a change to happen and faster for you to accept it.

4. LEARN TO FORGIVE, FORGET AND MOVE FORWARD

We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths. – Walt Disney

Failures, pains and disappointment happens either caused by our own decisions and actions or by someone else.  When ‘caused by our own decisions and actions, be kind to yourself, take it as a learning process for you to do better in the future.  And when it caused by someone else, do not push it hard and blame the other person, you cannot control other’s  decision/action, you can only accept them and move forward in your life.

5. KEEP EXPANDING YOUR COMFORT ZONE

Never be afraid to try something new. Remember, amateurs built the ark. Professionals built the Titanic.

The problem with our busy lifestyle and doing the same things over and over again is we get to comfortable with things and let ourselves become ordinary.  We settle for less and accept that what we currently are is the best we can become.  Most of us stop learning after graduating college.  However, if we want to achieve success and happiness in what we do in our day to day life, our learning should start after graduation and ends only when we die.   Start learning things other than what you do.  Learn ways on how to improve yourself in other areas of your life, who knows you will be able to discover a hidden talent that you can be the best of.  Don’t be surprised to discover that you can more than the profession/career/course you’ve took in college.

Life is neither hard or complicated, it’s imperfect, but you too can make a big positive change in your life despite life’s imperfection.  Remember, like attracts like.

Happy journey to your Life!

(Note: Image attached is a photo taken by a personal friend, Lyn Calara.  Visit her works @ http://rcalara.blogspot.com/)

Related posts:

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Some people are packed with negative and difficult attitude.  Whenever they open their mouth, all you hear are words of disapproval or criticism.  Even how hard it may sound, you have to work with difficult and negative people in your life.

There are two types of difficult and negative person:

THE VICTIM (Too Sensitive)

Those who always see themselves living in an unfair environment.  They don’t like their jobs or they don’t like their company. Their bosses and teammates are always jerks and they are always treated unfairly.  Or they don’t like the people in their family and the community they live in.  Most of these people have their standards that when somebody or the circumstance do not match that standard, they react upon it.

THE RUDE (Too Insensitive)

Those who loves to criticize and see the negative doing of others.  They see the action and failure of other’s as something to make fun of and talk to other people.  Most of these people are full of insecurities that they get envious if some people are having a great life or they are pleased to step on someone who’s having a difficult time.

The environment you live in has effect on whether you  will love the things you will do in your life.

It will bring about the joy and fun you will have in your work, at school, at home or in whatever you do.  But we’ve all been in the situation where we seem to be working/dealing with difficult and negative people.  Unfortunately, we meet them at work, school and home.  There will always be negative and difficult people everywhere you go.  Negative and difficult people can put discouragement on your positive mood and produce a stressful environment.   And those will bring frustration and can drain your motivation to enjoy what you do and live for.  Part of the frustration comes from feeling that you are helpless to do anything.  Most often, you end up searching for a new path, maybe a job, career, or move out of our house, just to avoid these difficult and negative people.

The trick, however, is not too soon in leaving the job, school or home that you love to be at, if only the negative and difficult people are not around.  The trick is to learn how to work and deal with those people.  As they say,

Do not give up your dreams and the things you love to do, just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moments.

You have the power to change your environment and this article will show you how.

1. Evaluate your Response and Focus on your Behaviour

Are you responding positively or reacting negatively?

When faced with difficult situation, your character is tested.  If you react instead of responding, you tend to let go of a negative emotional feeling towards the situation.  Reacting gives you the power to push your stand against the other person.  So you end up blaming other people in the situation  you are faced in.  On the other hand, if you respond to the situation, you take control and you care less about who caused the situation, you focus on what you can control and that’s you.

Working with difficult and negative people needs a positive respond.  Try not to react for it will not solve anything but will just leave you bad feelings.  Stop agonizing and reacting.  You have a choice in a situation.  Choose to focus on what needs to be done and move on.

2. Put your Negative Feelings into Writing

After a heated situation with difficult people, you tend to become really pissed off and you can’t help it.  When it happens, instead of calling a dearest person, maybe a friend, co-worker or a family member, what you do is grab a paper and a pen or open your Microsoft word, then start typing what you feel about the person and the situation. Write everything that you feel, the pain, the frustration and all the negative emotion you currently have.  And then, erase it or throw it out.

Do not read what you’ve written over and over  for it will just cause you more and more negative feelings.  Instead, after writing your emotions out, tear it up as soon as possible so you can easily move on to more important things.

Writing it helped you erased the negative feeling to yourself and avoiding the temptation of spreading that negative feelings to others.

3. When Sharing is Bad

The best things in life happens when shared with others.  However, not all things should be shared to other people especially negative stories.

When you react to negative and difficult people, you tend to bring the negative feeling wherever you go.  And even if you don’t intend to do it, you often share the negative feeling to others when you start to tell the story about how difficult that person is.  And when it happens, you only not ‘caused negative feeling to others but also started a negative story about the other person that can spread to others.  And once it spreads, it may cause more bigger and more stressful negative environment.  ‘Cause other may follow what you’ve started, that’s spreading negative stories to others.

You may not realize it but negative environment can start with you.   Thus, negative environment can turn to positive environment, and it can start with you too.  Stop spreading negative stories and start spreading positive things.

4. Be on the Other Person’s Shoe

Difficult and negative people are caused by their reaction in a given negative circumstances that they are faced in.  However, there are just some who are born to be negative.

So have the humility of heart to understand the other person.  Try to see the circumstance at the other’s person’s view before you start reacting and spreading negative conclusions.

Most often, difficult people are those who needs the most love and understanding.

5. Have the Humility of Heart to Ask and Listen

Confrontation is one of our most feared moments.  I’ve used to be fearful of this situation that’s why I tend to follow straight whatever other people will direct me or say.  I hated to disappoint other’s and be faced with confrontations.

But one of the best part of the maturity and success I’ve had started when I decided let go of my fear of confrontation.  Confrontation is not all negative.  Reacting is a negative form of confrontation.  It’s a situation where both of the person try to prove themselves right that’s why nothing is solved.  While responding is a positive confrontation of recognizing that there is differences and they try make up to that differences by agreeing and moving forward without negative grudges.

Positive confrontation, asking and listening to the other person’s feelings and point of view gave me more wisdom and emotional intelligence to lived up in life.  It widen my perspective and open my mind to respect each other differences.  Plus it made it easier for me to deal with people even if we do not believe on the same things.  Step back, try to open your mind and hearts to other’s and you’ll see and experience greater things.  Who knows, you’ll even gain another best friend.

6. Show Respect

I’ve always believed that any problem can be solved with positive confrontation.  When both sides have positive mental attitude of respect to each one’s opinion and decision.

Never try to prove yourself right to others for you’ll never win.  Each one of us are born to believe that you are always right and what you do is right.  That’s the human nature that you cannot do anything about.

So instead of attacking the person by proving yourself right and the other is wrong, just show respect on other’s decision, behaviour and opinion.  Take control of yourself, focus and correct your own behaviour.

7. Be a Model of Positive Attitude and Encourage Others

You cannot avoid negative people to approach you and start sharing negative stories with you.  But instead of supporting and adding up to the negative story that’s spreading, always bring up the positive side of each situation.  Begin changing the negative environment with you.  If the big bosses or other people can’t do it, be the one to start spreading positive ambiance in your environment.  Start seeing and complimenting good stuff about others, be cheerful and smile even to those who appear to dislike you, and speak only of words of positivity.

It may be hard at the start since you are not used to being too positive and change is really hard at the start.  But make it a habit of doing positive things at least 5 times a day, and you’ll start to see the positive change in you as days goes by.

8. Avoid the Difficult People and Mingle With the Positive People

The old saying, “Birds of the same feather flock together”, is always true and will remain true.

Remember, you cannot please everyone and that means, you cannot be friends with everyone.  If there are a lot of negative and difficult people around you, I’m sure there are also a lot of positive and like-minded people around you too.  Focus your attention on finding and spending time with these people so as to avoid focusing your attention to the heart blowing difficult and negative people.

Choose to eliminate acquaintance to the difficult and negative people.  Deal with them with fair manner when needed for a job or situation but do not force yourself to agree and hang-out with them.

9. Wait it Out and Take a Break

After taking all the steps into action and nothing happens, you still feel  the frustration and stress of having to work and deal with negative/difficult people, now it’s time for you to relax and take that break.  Use the vacation leave and sick leaves you’ve been saving up to take a days or weeks of vacation.  It’s best if you go out of town and not just stay at home.  If you’ll just stay home, you’ll just end up feeling sorry and stupid for even taking off from work.  Use this time to enjoy yourself and your life outside your comfort and normal zone.

Once you go out,  try to stop thinking about the work and people you’ve left behind.  Just enjoy the peaceful and happy situation you have in your vacation.  Believe me, once you go back, you’re more energized and more clear-headed to decide on what you really want to do and how you really want to approach with the situation with the difficult people.

10. Quit the environment and find your place

Once you get into this stage, you’ve already sorted out all the options and had come to the conclusion that the negative and difficult environment and people isn’t worth of your time.  If you see yourself not growing to the place and that you cannot do some changes, then it’s time for you to move on and find the place you can grow as a person.

It’s the same in any situation or people you have to deal with.  When you even think of quitting, quit not because you can’t handle the stress that other people or circumstance is bringing you, but instead, quit because you do not see yourself growing and be the best in that environment.

Remember, in any situation, you have a choice.  Always choose to be a winner of your own life including your emotions, not a victim or a rude person that ruins it.  Again, you always have a choice on how to respond to it.

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Studies have tested that human failure, unhappiness, stress, brokenness, and lack of success are caused by lack of decision, of choice.

In Life, we are filled with choices, especially in our current world. But despite that overflowing choice, we are still often trapped by a world that sends us nothing but difficulty, which we often blamed to destiny. But the truth, no one should be blamed but you. You had the choice, you just decided not to choose.

This simple principle of decision is often neglected when what’s at stake is the seriousness of one’s personal life and future. When we want something small, it’s so easy for us to decide and take action upon it. But when important things should be decided on, we let destiny do the decision. This is sad but most often reality for many.

Below is a story of Two (2) Eggs deciding:

Two eggs were telling each other what they wanted to be when they hatch.

The 1^st Egg said, “I want to be an OYSTER when I hatch. An oyster just stays in the water and never has to make any decisions.  The currents of the ocean just move it about and it doesn’t have to plan on what’s ahead of him.  The ocean water brings its food.  Whatever the ocean provides is what the oyster receives, no more, no less.  That’s the life for me.  It may be limited, but there are no decisions to make and no responsibilities to accomplish.  There’s a secure existence controlled only by the ocean.”

The 2^nd Egg however said, “That’s not the life for me.  I wish to be an EAGLE for it is free to go where it wants to go and do what it pleases.  Of course, it is responsible for hunting its own food and making survival decisions, but it is also free to fly as high as the highest mountains.  The eagle is in control, instead of being controlled by others.  I want no limits placed upon me, nor do I want to be slave of the ocean.  I am willing to expend the efforts required to live the life of an eagle.  I will create my own destiny.”

The decision is yours, which do you want to be, an OYSTER or an EAGLE?  It’s your choice.

If you decide to be an oyster, I guess you can now leave this blog since it is a guide to decision making and it’s something you don’t seek for.  Guide to decision making is about taking control of your life like an eagle does.

I’m not going to say being oyster is bad, for who would want to have a life of no choice and responsibility?  It’s a perfect scenario in a perfect world.  But in a world like where I live, and the world you probably live as well, life isn’t perfect.  Life is actually full of imperfect circumstances that makes it more harder to live by.  How much more if I’m not deciding on it?

Life without freedom is no life at all. – Braveheart

If you’re reading this far, I’m thinking you’re either one of the brave souls who wants to take control of their life or the “not-so-brave-soul” but have seen the bad effects of indecision so you want to change and do something about it, and you just need a guide to decision making.  Either way, I congratulate you for you’ve made a decision and you won’t regret it, for this post will be of great help to you now and in your future decision makings.  So to start bringing freedom, fulfilment, happiness and success to your life by learning and applying these three (3) Guides to Decision Making:

1) Determine the WHAT:  Want, Do and Be

The first guide to decision making is to list down WHAT you really WANT, DO and BE.

• Want – Things you want to have.
• Do – Something you want to act upon.
• BE – The qualities, traits, values and attitudes you want to be.

(Refer to 3 Negative Traits Paralyzing Life’s Success and Happiness for detail steps and samples)

Listing down the WHAT determine the RESULT of your decision in life.

Knowing what you want is like having a “blueprint”.  When you have a blueprint or a guide, it will be easier for you to decide if a circumstance or offer is worth giving up or taking in.  And in times of difficult moments, you have a clear objective on what to decide and take action.  You will never feel lost if you have this blueprint in your hand.  For it will be easier for you to direct the path you have to take or quit a path that’s not align to your blueprint.  This blueprint is the reason why most successful people can easily decide and take action.

2) Determine the WHY: Motivation

The second guide to decision making is to examine the WHY which motivates you in your quest to life.

We want something for a reason and the density of our reason is the fuel that drives us more or less to what we want, do and be.  Our wants will be meaningless without our whys.  This is the reason why there are wants we achieve and we do not.  The former is usually rooted with a deep why.

Typical reasons include:

• To provide the lifestyle that you want
• To provide the needs of your family and significant others
• To bring fulfilment in your life
• To make your family proud
• To gain power, prestige and honor
• To have the time and freedom in your life
• To acquire all the good things in life
• To tour your family around the world
• To teach and help people
• To serve God
• To bring happiness and peace
• And the list goes on

Remember, you have to support the WHAT with a WHY.  Having a WHAT backed up by WHY doubles the ability of your blueprint to come to reality.  And whenever circumstances happens that you have to decide on quitting or staying, you have more confidence and firmness in the decision that you’ll take because you know what and why is it for.

3)      Determine the HOW: Machine

The third guide to decision making and probably the hardest of the three is the HOW can you pursue and stick to your decision.

This is the bridge that separates the 10% of successful and happy individual from the rest of the 90% unsuccessful and unhappy ones.  At this stage, most people feels like they’re in a crossroad of their current life and their dream life.  And sadly, a lot of people gives up at this stage.

If you’re in a stage where the deciding is urgent, if you already know you WHAT and WHY, this stage will be much easier for you.  If the decision to stay or give up is align to what you’ve listed in your WHAT and WHY, don’t be afraid to take that decision now and just learn the HOW’s along the way.  It will be easier for you to do the HOW as long as it’s align with your WHAT and WHY.

But if the deciding stage isn’t urgent, it’s time you first identify the HOW of your WHAT and WHY.  Give at least 6 months after you’ve determine your HOW before you jump into it.  It will give you proper time to prepare.

HOW can be achieve thru:

• Observation;
• Attending seminars/classes/trainings/etc;
• Reading books;
• Talking to those who’ve already achieved it; and
• Endless more ways to determine how

But just a bit of reminder that you shouldn’t prolong deciding your how and before you take action because you might be trapped by the syndrome “Someday May Never Come” of most indecision.

I hope the three (3) Guide to Decision Making didn’t just entertained you but have left a great insight you will apply in your real life.

A simple quote I want to leave:

When you have to make a choice and don’t make it, that is in itself a choice.  – William James

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What separates a successful, happy and contented person from the rest of the crowd, is its attitude.

People who have ability and do not use that ability represent one of the real tragedies of life.

Are you the same person of ability but comprises of attitudes and traits that paralyzes your life?

Learn the negative traits you have to avoid so you can achieve greatness in your life.

1)  INDECISION

Most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want.

We hear a lot of people complaining endlessly about their life. May it be about their work, co-workers, bosses, children, parents, spouses, partners, siblings, friends, government, poverty, stress, ill-health, and all other stuff they could fill in their “I don’t like” or “I hate” list.  We have numerous negative things to include in our “I hate” list but did we ever think of our “I like” or “I want” list?

INDECISION is the opposite of DECISION.  DECISION is synonyms to CHOICE.  And that’s what most people lack on.

If you want to achieve anything in life, may it be success, riches, happiness, good relationships, good health, and all other things that comprises a good life, you have to create that “decision” to choose and seek these good things in life.

To start creating a life of “decision”, begin in listing down what you really WANT, DO and BE.

• Want – Things you want to have.  May be material things, like car, house, nice clothes, etc., or non-material things, like good relationships with your friends, family, co-workers, etc.

• Do – Something you want to act upon. Visit and tour places, start your own business/company, sing in public, trainings/classes you want to attend, treat your family to fancy dinner, etc.

• BE – The qualities, traits, values and attitudes you want to be. Become optimist, leader, extrovert, charismatic, humble, patient, smart, generous, loving, mature, understanding, etc.

Focus and decide on what you want then start acting upon it.

Here’s a sample of creating a list of decisions or wants:

1. I’ll look more into the positive things instead of the negative.
2. I’ll be more patient and understanding
3. I’ll read more books, attend seminars/trainings that can enhance my intellectual, emotional and social self.
4. I’ll save (specify the amount) every month so I don’t have to feel i’m broke
5. I’ll visit one place I’ve never been once a year
6. I’ll accept the imperfection of other people and be more considerate.
7. I’ll sleep at least (specify the hours) to preserve my health.
8. I’ll spend a day with my friends or family once a week.

The list may sound material or not, serious or not, it doesn’t matter.  Whatever you want to have or do or be, just list it down and make that decision of living such.

These blogs are great references:

• Create The Life That You Want
• Make Choice a Habit

2)  FEAR

FEAR is an acronym in the English language for “FALSE EVIDENCE APPEARING REAL”

After knowing and deciding what you want, be and do in life, one major factor that hinders you to act upon your success and happiness is FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real).

Basically, all humans being have Six (6) Basic Fear:

1. Poverty
2. Criticism
3. Ill-health
4. Lose of Love
5. Old Age
6. Death

People are paralyzed to pursue what they want, be and do in life because of these six (6) basic fear.  They’re afraid that if they take chance to act on what they want to achieve, they’ll be faced with poverty, criticism, lose of love, ill health, etc.  And upon thinking such, they back off and just settle for what they have.  But when they settle back to their current life, they can’t stop complaining.  So ironic isn’t?

A great example I can tell you is my own personal story of FEAR, that’s Criticism. I’ve grown up to be an achiever and bread-winner of the family.  Since I was young, I was taught to strive and work hard to achieve great status such as academic excellence, study in reputable school, pass licensure professional examination and work on prestigious companies and organizations.  And believe it or not, I was able to achieve them all.  I was able to achieve good grades in school and receive medals, I was able to pass the professional exam for Accountants in my country, I was able to work in three (3) prestigious companies (The Top Audit Firm in my country, Fortune 500 Multinational Oil Firm and the Central Bank in my country).  So far it was all working good until I was faced in the decision that the path I’ve took wasn’t really the path I was going to be happy as a person.  And it took me years to fully decide and pursue what I really wanted because of fear, of criticism.  And the years I was delaying my decision, I was unhappy.  Now, I was able to conquer that fear and pursue what I really wanted.  And to tell you honestly, it wasn’t scary as I thought it will be.

If we root down to the source of FEAR, the main source is our thought.  We think of negative thoughts, such as the six (6) basic fears, and we make them appear real.

To enable you conquer your fears so you can pursue the things you want to achieve in life, make the decision to know what you want, be and do, then act upon it, regardless.  Stop worrying on the negative outcomes, instead focus your thoughts on the whole possibility of success.

On the other hand, for the fear of uncontrollable situations like, death and old age, conquer it by accepting that it is part of life and take it as a sign that you have to make the most of your life while you are alive. That you may live your life to the fullest.

These blogs are great references:

• Someday May Never Come
• Ticking Clock
• Why Do We Love Starbucks?

3) DOUBT

When you doubt your power, you give power to your doubt.

You’re done knowing and DECIDING what you want to achieve in life and have conquered your FEARS that’s stopping you to move on your decision, then the last negative traits sets in.  You begin to doubt if you can achieve success in your decision and action.

Doubt means you lack belief on what you’ve decided to want, be and do.  And when you start to doubt, the consequence happens.

Doubt always creates worry.  Worry is like a rocking chair; it requires a lot of energy, but it doesn’t get you nowhere.  It paralyzes you and your success to achieving whatever goals you have in life.

Worrying is a waste of time.  It brings nothing but bad feelings, and forces you not to act.

If you don’t like your situation in life, don’t fret or worry – do something about it.  Worry less and act more.

Remember, just believe.  You can achieve things if you believe.

These blogs are great references:

• A Great Lesson Learned, but its a Secret! (A Book Review)
• Parable About Worry
• 7-Up Success Story: Is It The Same With Yours?

Related posts:

1. What is the Difference Between Success and Happiness?
2. How to Work With Difficult and Negative People
3. 17 Reasons Why You Can’t Achieve Success

All of us have gone through failures and sufferings, it may weigh differently, but for sure we’ve gone thru it one way or another.  And whenever failure and suffering comes our way, we search for meaning and reason why it has to happen.

Don’t be annoyed with yourself ’cause you can’t stop asking why because it is perfectly normal. However, the best way to live out failure and suffering is to stop asking why it has to happen.

Once you repeatedly stop asking why, the acceptance process comes in.  And at acceptance stage, you will begin to ask what and how.   That is, what will you do next and how you will do it?

I’ve used to fear failure and suffering.  And most people do.   My personal reason was because I do not like it when people look down on me.  I’ve always strived to be at my best and I’m unsatisfied if I’m not.  At this time, I still strive to be my best but the difference is I’m not afraid of failure and suffering as I’ve used to.

If you wonder why and how, it’s because I’ve realized that failure and suffering are actually good.  Failure and suffering are ways for me to learn and be better.

You may find it illogical but that’s how failure and suffering should work.  But it also depend on how the person will take it.  If you will take the positive approach, you will look at failure and suffering as a learning process.  However, if it’s the opposite, by now you’re probably be mentally incapacitated, unmotivated, wasted or worse, dead.  *smile*  I’m making a laugh out of it, but it does happen.  Failure and suffering are most often reasons for suicide.

As for me, I think I’ve took failure and suffering in a good way.  That is why here I am typing and sharing learnings from my own personal experience of getting up from failing and suffering.

I’ve gone through alot of “life-wrecking-changing” events in life that ’caused me alot of failure and suffering.  If I took the negative perspective, I’m already dead.  Alot of people are amazed on how I was able to handle it and be the person that I am now.  I’m lucky because I have my good friends and family around to keep me going and guiding me all through it out.  But honestly, I’ve realized that no matter how people would be there for you, the only person who can help you rise from failure and suffering is yourself.  And the best thing I’ve learned through all the failure and suffering I’ve handled is that I have a choice on how to take it, the positive or negative.  It’s not as easy as said, that’s true, especially when you’re filled with emotions of anger and pain.  What I did then was to seek help from my creator, so he will change my heart to see things the way he wants me to see it, and that’s the positive one.

Before I was a pessimist, I’ve lived in an environment where people jump into conclusions and loves to see negative things but doesn’t appreciate the positive ones, but look how I am now, so I guess now you believe that miracles do happen.*smile*

It was a hard process on how I became the optimistic me and it was all thanks to failure and suffering.  If failure and suffering didn’t come my way, I wouldn’t be different.  That’s the reason why I don’t fear failure and suffering because I know when it comes my way, something good will come out.

Remember,

Life is a one way journey to waste your time mourning on things you can’t change.  Instead of searching for meanings of why, indulge your time on what and how you’ll do next.  Be happy and live your life to the fullest!

Related posts:

1. 5 Stages of Change
2. 5 Steps to Begin a Positive Change in Your Stressful Life
3. How to Start All Over Again?

GuestPost by: Dave Ursillo.

Dave is a 24-year-old author and enjoys writing about self-improvement and personal development subjects for his blog, DaveUrsillo.com. Dave founded “Renegadeism,” a positive mindset that encourages young men and women to believe in human goodness and optimistic thinking, in spite of cynicism. He lives in the state of Rhode Island, USA.

I often hear complaining—especially from young people—who feel that they routinely become victims of a characteristic of their individual personalities: “caring to a fault.” When someone complains about “caring too much” in friendships and relationships, the opinion is merely a negative perspective on a unique personality trait that results from the insecurity of being emotionally hurt and the natural tendency for human beings to strive for self-preservation. While “caring too much” can indeed lead to emotional pain in friendships and relationships, undertaking a more “evolved” and positive perspective about “caring to a fault” can lead you to better understand yourself to be an impassioned, caring soul who can embrace and utilize your compassionate nature as the means to achieve both success and happiness.

Have ever told yourself, “I care so much that I just get hurt in the end” or “I care to a fault, it just forces the ones I love away”? Most of us have said something similar, at one point or another in our lives. However, for some of us, it seems as if we care too much too many times, and that the overextension of our willingness to give love, thoughtfulness and care actually has a negative impact in friendships and relationships. Ironically, caring too much can often cause someone we care about to be pushed further away from us. Moreover, when emotional anguish from a friendship or relationship is what results, those who “care to a fault” are left to wonder why their natural, caring personalities ultimately become a hazard to their happiness and well-being: as if “caring too much” becomes a character flaw that only causes suffering, instead of love and support for those that they care most about.

The pain that results from a tough breakup or the end of a friendship is always difficult, particularly when you feel like you are to blame and especially if “caring too much” is what forced someone else away. Nevertheless, the pain and hurt that results from “caring too much” provides us with the opportunity to learn and grow and improve who we are on the inside. But even more beneficial is that through the reflection and self-exploration that results from feeling victimized by “caring too much,” we begin to understand that “caring to a fault” isn’t a character flaw at all; it is a unique trait of our personalities that can be used to our benefit. When we choose to refuse to feel like a victim from being so compassionate, we then begin to nurture it as a unique characteristic that can be used like a tool. Through different channels that require our impassioned and caring spirit, we can use “caring to a fault” to drive us to new heights of achievement and success.

Once one understands that “caring to a fault” is not a flaw of character—one misunderstood to only cause self-endangerment, exploitation, and ultimately pain—but rather, a unique personality trait that reveals one’s compassionate nature, then it can be embraced as an empowering motor that will aptly drive someone to achieve new successes and happiness. Understanding one’s own personality is a major source of personal power because one’s ability to care so much about someone or something can be harnessed and utilized in a career, for personal passions and other such pursuits. In a world wherein it often feels that not enough people care to dream, try, strive, and achieve, we should be so lucky to have more people among us who care “too much and to a fault.”

Related posts:

1. How to Listen?
2. Why is everybody else so difficult?
3. How To Turn Anxiety To Happiness

This book is written by one of the modern-day best-selling author, Seth Godin.  His books have brought great insights on how our “information age” have revolved the old principles that “traditional age” have taught us.  The Dip challenged the old belief that “Winners Never Quits”.  This book gave better rationale about Quitting.

Seth Godin has stated, in his book The Dip, the biggest mistake they taught us in school is: Being well rounded is the secret to success.  That we should never quit for quitters never win.  The truth, however, is that strategic quitting is the secret to success.   Reactive quitting and serial quitting are the bane of those who strive to get what they want but most often fail because they quit when it’s painful and stick when they can’t be bothered to quit.

Seth Godin have illustrated, in his book The Dip, the following:

THREE CURVES that Define Life’s Situations

1)    THE DIP

The dip is the long slog between starting and mastery.  The dip is the long stretch between beginner’s luck and real accomplishments.

2)    THE CUL-DE-SAC (French for “Dead End”)

It’s a situation where you work and work, you work and you work and nothing much changes.  It doesn’t get a lot harder, it doesn’t get a lot worse.  It just is.

When you find one, you need to get off it, fast.  Because a dead end keeps you from doing something else.  Something that can make you successful.

3)    THE CLIFF

It’s a situation where you can’t quit until you fall off and the whole thing falls apart.

If you find yourself into these last two curves (Cul-de-Sac and Cliff), you need to quit. Not soon, but now.  The biggest obstacle to success is our inability to quit these curves soon enough.  The Cul-de-sac and the cliff are the curves that lead to failure.  While “The Dip” is where success happens.

The people who set out to make it through the dip – the people who invest the time and energy and effort to power through the Dip – these are the ones who become the best in the world.

Simple Rule: If you can’t make it through the dip, don’t start.

If you’re going to quit, quit before you start. Reject the system. Don’t play the game if you realize you can’t be the best in the world.  Find out where you can do best of all, then focus your resources on that and when faced with the dip, don’t quit.  Slog through the Dip, relentlessly changing tactics but never quitting the big idea.  If you can keep going when the circumstance is expecting you to stop, you will achieve extraordinary results.

Persistent people are able to visualize the idea of light at the end of the tunnel when others can’t see it.

Winners understand that taking that pain now prevents a lot more pain later.  However, the decision to quit or not is a simple evaluation: is the pain of the dip worth the benefit of the light in the end of the tunnel?

It’s okay to quit sometimes, in fact, its okay to quit often.

Quit when:

1. You’re on a dead-end path;
2. Facing a cliff;
3. The reward at the end is not worth it;
4. You don’t have the time or the passion or the resources to be the best in the world.

QUITING IS NOT THE SAME AS FAILING

Failing happens when you give up. When your dreams are over.

Strategic quitting is a conscious decision you make based on the choices that are available to you.  If you realize you’re at a dead-end compared with what you could be investing in, quitting is not a reasonable choice, it’s a smart one.

COPING IS A BAD ALTERNATIVE TO QUITTING

The problem with coping is that it never leads to exceptional performance.  All coping does is waster your time and misdirect your energy.  Quitting is better than coping because quitting frees you up to excel at something else.  Quitting for short term is a bad idea.  Quitting for long term is an excellent idea.

Never quit something with great long-term potential just because you can’t deal with the stress of the moment.

PRIDE IS THE ENEMY OF THE SMART QUITTER

One reason people feel really good after they quit a dead-end project is that they discover that hurting one’s pride is not fatal.

Do you want to spend the rest of your life doing something you didn’t enjoy in order to preserve your pride?  I think it’s a bad idea.

3 Questions to Ask Before Quitting

• Question 1:  Am I panicking?
• Question 2: Who Am I trying to Influence?
• Question 3: What sort of measurable progress am I making?

The best quitters are those who decide in advance when they’re going to quit.  Without a compass or a plan, the easiest thing to do is to give up.

If you are making a decision based on how you feel at the moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.  You should outline your quitting strategy before the discomfort sets in.

Setting your limits before you start is a powerful strategy.  Just as a smart venture capitalist pressures the board of directors to have a plan in case they run out of money, every individual and every organization that wants to use quitting as a competitive tool ought to have plan about when it’s time to quit.

For a final note, remember:

Quit the wrong stuff.  Stick with the right stuff. Have the guts to do one or the other. – Seth Godin, The Dip

References: The Dip at Amazon.com click here.

Related posts:

1. Who Moved My Cheese (A Book Summary & Review)
2. A Great Lesson Learned, but its a Secret! (A Book Review)
3. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Summary and Review

The road to success is never said to be easy.  As the saying goes,

“If the road to success was easy, everyone would take it.”

This is definitely true that’s why 80% of us stop and turn back just to avoid the hardship.  But how about the 20%, did they take it easily?

While most of us are wondering around not really sure where we are going, there are few who knows what they want and does something about it.  They take the steps then fail countless time, they get back to start all over then struggle some more.  Isn’t pitiful?  I don’t think so. Because oftentimes, these 20% few ends up to be the successful people we all look up to.  These are the few people we call “lucky” to receive so many blessings.  These are the few people we call “the right people”, “the one”, “the great”, “the talented”, “the smart”, and a lot more great phrases.

The reason why we NEVER achieved success is we stop before we start or a few steps after we’ve started.

For my personal experience, I’ve faced failures, struggles and frustrations in my road to success.  And every time I want to stop and go back, I just remind myself of

The 7-UP Success Story:

The story was about A Company that was formulating a product that it envisions to sell to the market.  They know their goal, they have the ingredients, and they know how to do it.  Below here is the story:

1^st Experiment – FAILED

2^nd Experiment – FAILED

3^rd Experiment – FAILED

4^th Experiment – FAILED

5^th Experiment – FAILED

6^th Experiment – FAILED

Okay, if you were A Company, what will you do?  You will continue the experiment, right?  It may have been the right thing or should have been, but the sad news is, A Company didn’t do the same.

A Company loses hope, gave up and sold the formula to B Company.  B Company, on the other hand, still had hopes on the success of the formula, so it continued the experiment.  And below was the result:

7^th Experiment – SUCCESSFUL

The successful formula gave birth to 7-UP.  You probably know the rest of the story.  7-Up became one of the popular beverage drinks from then and up to now.

Is the Reward of Success Worth While?

The answer is based on your own personal opinion and perception.  We all have different views on this topic.  But if you allow me to give my side, I’d tell you that if you’re happy with who you are and what you have now, that’s great. There’s nothing you should change for you probably don’t need the results of further success.

But if it’s the opposite, maybe, just maybe, you have to think and evaluate what more you can do to change it.  And once you say “yes, there’s a need for a change and success”; remember the 7-up Story along your journey.

Related posts:

1. What is the Difference Between Success and Happiness?
2. How to Start All Over Again?
3. 17 Reasons Why You Can’t Achieve Success

Beware:  Not for the weak heart.  =D

The truths on this article might hurt you a bit, but if you keep an open-mind, it can help you clear your path to success.

There are a lot of articles, books, trainings and movies that were made and published to teach us how to achieve success.  But despite, we are still left wondering around unsuccessful.

In this article, instead of listing down the attributes, character and secrets of successful people, I’m going to show you the reasons why you are not and may never become successful.

Success comes three things:

How you Think + How you Feel + How You Act = Success

How You Think

1. You Don’t Know What You Want

2. You Believe That You’re Not Capable to be Successful

How You Feel

3. You Lack Fuel to Drive to Success (No Desire, No Motivation, No Time, No Money, etc.)

4. You’re Scared of a lot of Things (Fear of failure, criticism, or rejection)

5. You’re Unwilling to Learn (Especially on New Things or Weak Points)

6. You’re Too Emotional and Idealistic

(You won’t be able to start anything if you wait for things to be right and    perfect.)

7. You Hate Successful People

(Talk back negative things behind other people’s successes instead of being inspired to acquire the same success)

How You Act

8. You Stick to Something That’s Getting You Nowhere

9. You Like to Settle For Less And Then Be Ungrateful (Complains Why Life is so hard and unfair)

10. You Know What You Want but You Lack FOCUS

(Prefer watching TV instead of growing yourself through learning and action.)

11. You Gaze on the Short-term and Neglect the Long-term Effect of Your Action/Inaction.

12. You Spend More Than You Earn

13. You Fight Change and Progress

14. You Quit Before You Win

15. You Don’t Value People

16. You Wait For Things to Happen Instead of Making Things Happen

17. You Let Tomorrow Do The Action (Procrastination)

For a final word, there’s a catch in this post.  If you want to start bringing success into your life, do the following:

• List down the item(s) that applies to you (the way you think, feel and act);
• Remove the negative words from the item to change it into positive (E.g.: You don’t know what you want)
• Make a renewal in your life and change into the positive way.

The more negative thinking, feeling and action you can change, the better and faster you arrive to success.

Happy journey to your success! =D

Related posts:

1. What is the Difference Between Success and Happiness?
2. 3 Negative Traits Paralyzing Life’s Success and Happiness
3. Someday May Never Come