I recently read an article titled, “7 things to stop doing right now if you want to be happier” and I loved the article. I thought to myself, “Most people would have the exact life they desired if they would stop doing these seven things. Here is the list:
1. Comparing yourself to others
I think this is one of the most difficult parts of being alive in 2018. We have so much information in front of us and there are so many amazing people in all aspects of life, that we can find ourselves comparing our own abilities and talents to experts in every field.
I know that personally I have been guilty of this in the past. I’ll be on Instagram and I’ll be comparing my physical fitness to experts in the field like Drew Manning or Steve Cook. I’ll be comparing my travels and adventure to someone that dedicates his life to it such as Garrett Gee and the Bucket List Family. All while comparing my real estate business to others such as Dave Bateman of Entrata and Todd Peterson of Vivint.
Thankfully I realized that I wasn’t being fair to myself when I do this because these are the best in the world at all of these things. I have to trade in this comparison with them for a comparison to myself. How am I truly doing compared to my best ability in this department? When I can get in this space, I can have a true appreciation for myself and the life I live. Pride doesn’t come from being the best, it comes from trying to be better than others. Find appreciation for these guru’s and experts that motivate you, all the while loving your own efforts and improvement in each area of your own life.
Through my podcast I’ve gotten to sit down with a lot of these experts and people that are excelling in their lives and every single one of them has their own struggles that you will never know about or see. In short, don’t be so hard on yourself and quit comparing your life to anyone else’s!
2. Trying to change other people
As I have grown older, I have realized more and more that nobody changes their lives until they are ready to. You can’t make anyone change, you can only inspire them to want to. So much pain and heartache come from looking at what you want someone to be instead of accepting them where they are. I am 100% for living an extraordinary life and showing others what is possible. Reaching out to people that seem like they need it. And sharing love and dreams that inspire people to do more with their lives. But to truly love someone in their place and see them without any expectations of what you want them to be, this is true love.
I read a book once title, “The Anatomy of Peace” and it explained this so beautifully. It talks about how we see others through our own life circumstances and this is why we put expectations on what their actions should be. The problem is, they never had our same life experiences, so they are dealing with a different set of knowledge than we are. This is why to love them is to accept them as they are and not to want to change them. They can learn new concepts and knowledge through seeing us living a different way and this will inspire them to desire the same in their own lives.
3. Fearing Failure
One of the biggest myths we deal with in 2018 is the idea that failure is bad. We associate failing with shame and fear. We think that others won’t find us to be worthy of their love if we have failure. The truth is, the opposite is actually true. It is beautiful when we can open up to another and share our disappointments and be vulnerable enough to allow them that same place to share theirs with us.
I truly believe that the only true failure is when we don’t try something because of the fear that we won’t succeed. It’s not sad to me when a guy shoots his shot and asks out a beautiful woman only to get turned down. It’s not sad to me when a young business person loses all his money trying to grow an amazing business. There is honor in knowing that you put yourself out there. There is beauty in accepting that you did the best you can.
This is how you end up with no regrets when you pass away. I think the movie ‘Brave Heart’ sums this up so beautifully when Mel Gibson as William Wallace is trying to rally the Scottish to fight the much larger British Army. As they are beginning to walk away, fearing failure, Wallace says, “Fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live. For a while. And dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all of this, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our Freedom!”
It gives us all goosebumps because we all know that fear that can creep in when we are faced with a giant task and one that gives us great fear. But I be most people, dying on their beds, would give anything to go back and take on that challenge if they passed on it back when it presented itself.
Fail often, fail every day, fail quickly and enjoy every minute of it. I know in my life I have learned the most from the times that I failed, not the times I have succeeded.
4. Regretting the past
This is such a fascinating one for me. Regret can serve us to help us reflect on what we could have done differently and how we can improve our decision making going forward to have a better life. But the problem with regret is that we usually look at a situation from the past with our current knowledge, not the knowledge we had at the time.
We need to give ourselves a break because in most circumstances we made the choice we did because of the knowledge we possessed. You can’t look back at a problem we didn’t fully grasp now that we have the foresight of the future. I always tell people, “move on from every moment quickly, whether good or bad!”
Don’t live in the past. Don’t beat yourself up over the bad decisions you have made and don’t boast about things that are already done. You succeeded, great! Now go do the next great thing. You failed? Great! Now you know how not to do it so go do something else and succeed!
5. Expecting things from other people
Tony Robbins talks about this all the time, he says “Trade in your expectations for appreciation and watch your world change.”
What a great piece of advice! When we do things for others with an expectation of something in return, we have the wrong motives for what we are doing. The beauty of helping another or giving a gift to someone else is that we get to make that person’s life better in that moment. We can know that we did something to help another in need. This is the gift we give ourselves! It has nothing to do with what we get back in return from the other person. In fact, you rob yourself of this self-given gift anytime you expect something in return.
Give often, give for no reason what so ever. Most people don’t know how to show appreciation, most of us take for granted the beauty of our own lives. This is why expecting from others can cause so much pain. We have a mechanism in our brain that is designed to look for what is wrong. This is there to keep us alive so that we can avoid trouble and fix things that are wrong. Because of this we often look for what is wrong and miss all the things that are right.
Don’t ruin a good thing by expecting it to be something else. More self-inflicted pain comes from our own expectations of what others should be instead of appreciating them for what they are.
6. Trying to please everyone
We all have heard the saying, “When you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one.” I would go a step further and say that no one ends up trusting you as well. The problem with trying to please everyone is that they know they can’t count on you to take a stand on important things. I love it when people love me enough to tell me I am wrong or that I need to make changes.
One of my closest friends is the founder and CEO of a company here in Utah that employs over 1800 people. He recently asked me to be a part of his board and he told me it was because, “He knows I never tell him what he wants to hear so he trusts me more than anyone else.” He doesn’t need an echo chamber of people in his life letting him know how great he is because just like you and I, he is trying to improve in every aspect of his life as well. He needs people that he can trust to help him be the best version of himself.
A wise man once told me, “The most attractive trait you can have as a person is 100% unapologetically whoever you are.” This means you own who you are while constantly becoming the best version of yourself. To truly do this is to attract all of the right people into your life.
7. Holding onto grudges
This to me is the last but maybe the most important of all. When we hold onto a grudge, we do a couple of things: 1. We waste important time and resources towards this grudge. 2. We miss an opportunity to make an enemy an ally.
I believe it was Abraham Lincoln that said, “If you want to kill your enemy, make him your friend!” What a powerful statement. This is the ultimate revenge when you love somebody even after they have wronged you. It leaves them nowhere to go but to turn to love themselves. It is very hard to hate someone that still loves you, it will literally destroy the person trying to hold on to the grudge.
A few years back I had a man working for me that I spent a significant amount of time and energy training. He was a good friend and I wanted to help him get out of a bad spot in his life. After spending 5-6 months putting him in charge of this entire business, he came to me one day and said, “I have decided I need to make more money so I’m going to do this same thing but on my own.” I had literally created my biggest competition. I was sad at first and a little disappointed, but I also loved this man and didn’t want to be angry.
I truly honored his decision and wished him the best. He did very well with the new venture and was indeed making 4 times as much on his own as he had been with us. I wasn’t upset though, he was talented, and we were lucky to work together as long as we did. I even helped him in his new business with contacts and people with investment money that could help him. About 6 months later, through doing his new business, he met a man that hired him to work for his new company. They were actually looking for a real estate team to help them buy a large number of homes in Salt Lake City. This guy immediately told them they needed to work with me and set it up so that we could.
Over the next 3 months we were able to work with this man in his new role and we literally sold his group over 60 houses and netted our 2 biggest months in the company’s history. I was so grateful I hadn’t held a grudge or burned a bridge when he left our company. This is karma at its best and while you never know if you will gain anything from people that you would just as soon hold a grudge over, sometimes you will never know what you missed just because you wanted to hate them.