I like being informed but I also like being happy and I find that I often can’t be both at the same time.

I could be informed by watching the news. But the news is frequently full of things that are negative and negativity sucks the happiness out of my day. So the less news I watch, the happier I tend to be.

It’s not entirely the newsmedia’s fault. They need to report on what goes on in the world and there ARE negative things that go on. But sometimes I think the negativity is ramped up a bit because it offers up some great soundbites in a highly competitive industry. And I’m not naive enough to think that the answer is in posting only happy news.

I realize that makes me seem like I prefer the happy oblivion of ignorance but it’s not true. I want to be informed; there is a lot of value in it. But I only have a limited amount of mental bandwidth in the day to devote to news and I don’t want to fill it entirely with negativity.

So, here is a sort-of informal framework that I’ve built to help me approach newsmedia to become as thoroughly informed as possible without damaging my happiness:

• Only go online for my news. I get a broader selection of perspectives, faster, than if I watched TV or read the newspaper.
• Use the scan-and-dip approach: Scan a series of headlines from multiple newsmedia (I like the Google News aggregator) and only dip in when I need to know more.
• Push beyond the headline news into industry specific news (i.e., tech and science) where more positive news is often reported.
• Avoid non-essential news (basically celebrity gossip).
• On news items that I do care about, try to get a couple of differing perspectives.
• Don’t spend more than 15 minutes twice a day on this.
• Don’t read the comments that people post to news articles. Ever.

On the other hand, financial issues can severely dampen our efforts at happiness and living a successful life and one of those issues is debt.

Debt can be a huge burden that can trap us in its claws and keep us from advancing toward happiness. Now, I should clarify that some debt is okay and even necessary for life. And adding to the challenge is the need for credit cards when buying things online. So getting rid of credit cards might have been good advice for your parents or grandparents, it’s not a reality for us today.

Debt is always going to be an ever-present reality in life. But that debt should not grow beyond what we can manage.

Unfortunately, it’s SO easy to get sucked into a cycle of incurring debt and then paying it off, incurring more debt and then paying it off, etc. A few minutes of shopping can really add up the debt — not only the amount that we owe but also the interest that will be added on if we don’t pay it immediately.

And debt is subtle, too. We can look at our credit card statement of only a couple thousand owing and think “I can pay that off in a couple months, easily”… but it adds up (especially if we try to pay it off without first cutting back on our spending). Before you know it, within just a few months $2,000 can turn into $4,000 which can turn into $6,000… and before you know it you owe more than you make in a year. (I’ve seen it happen to A LOT of people).

So what’s the answer? Well I should point out that I’m not a financial advisor and I obviously can’t give individualized financial advice to every person. But in general, here’s what I think needs to happen:

• First, you need a plan to curb your spending. Or cut it off completely for a short time. Yes, this is a sacrifice and sacrifices aren’t fun but I think it’s the best first step (and I also think it’s the reason that many people fail at paying off debt).
• Second, you need an austerity plan. This shouldn’t just be about no more frivolous spending. This should be about making some significant temporary sacrifices. In other words, don’t just stop using credit cards (which is a good first step) but you should also temporarily stop spending in other non-essential areas, too. Then direct your saved cash to your debt.
• Third, you need to consolidate debt to a lower-interest loan. Interest is like a silent ninja-killer and it adds up fast.
• Fourth, you need to get aggressive in paying off your debt. Don’t just make minimum payments. Pay as much as you can.
• Fifth, if at all possible, try to earn more income (even temporarily) to pay off the debt.

Again, I’m not a financial advisor but I have scene the unhappy result of debt in a person’s life. It’s such an easy situation to find yourself in and it’s imperative that you recognize the dangers and get out as quickly as possible.

When you’re in debt, it is SO HARD to be happy. But if you can get out from under the burden, you’ll be amazed at how good it feels.

I was particularly inspired by this story of one woman who paid off $6,000 in debt in only six weeks!

Life is full of projects. Pretty much everything is a project — from making a meal to driving to work to DOING your work to raising kids to running a business to weeding your garden to planning your wedding. Everything you do in life is a project.

Are you with me so far? Good. Now here is something I’ve observed:

There are three types of people in the world — People who start projects well, people who run projects well, and people who finish projects well. Let’s call them starters, managers, and finishers.

Starters are dreamers and get passionate about building something from scratch. They have the energy and drive to fight against gravity and get the wheels moving.

Managers take what has been started and work with inertia to keep things rolling in the right direction.

Finishers are people who can pick up from the manager and successfully take the project to completion.

In my experience, we are all good at ONLY one of those things and we need other people to help us with the other two parts. We might have some skills in one or two of the other areas and we might even have learned to do those other two activities out of necessity (SOMEONE has to raise your kids! haha) but I believe we are all wired to really excel and get charged up from one of those activities only.

So…

Which one are you? Which one is your spouse? Which ones describe your coworkers and/or business partners?

Understanding this can simple truth about ourselves and the people around us can dramatically transform how well we do projects.

Maybe you’re a starter who has been tasked with managing at work. Maybe you’re a new parent who finishes well but struggles with management. Maybe you’re a finisher and you’re trying to start a business.

We need other people to help us. When we figure out which of those 3 “work-types” we are and which of the 3 our friends and family members are, we can all work together better.

Take something like supper: Maybe you’re a great starter who can dream up amazing dishes from next to nothing and your spouse is a great finisher who plates up dishes that could be in 5-star restaurants. Rather than taking turns making supper, why not use the way you’re wired to help: You start supper and you hand it off to your spouse to finish. Sure, you both end up cooking every day instead of every other day but you end up doing things you’re good at.

Okay, so I used a “make supper” example and you were hoping that I used a “raise the kids” example. With kids, maybe you’re a starter who can start a craft or a sand castle or the bedtime routine or homework and your spouse is a finisher. Yeah, someone will need to manage it through the middle. I’m not saying this is a perfect model that will keep you from ever doing the other two things you’re not as good at. But at least you understand yourself a bit better and can maybe look at the various projects in life with a new perspective.

I have a question for you.

What is the best advice you have for someone who wants to achieve their goals?

I share a lot of advice and insight on this blog but I know that each of you has your own valuable insight and I want to hear it… we ALL want to hear it! We’re a community and your participation is important.

So what do you suggest?

What’s the best advice you have?

Put in the comments below… and see what others are also writing. You never know what you might find that you can apply to your own life!

Many people seem unwilling to roll up their sleeves and do the hard work necessary to achieve the success they want. They hope that a lottery win or a sex tape will skyrocket them to the stratosphere of achievement. The persistent popularity of get rich quick schemes is a great example of this. So are many of the ridiculously unhealthy ways to achieve a healthy physical look.

But it doesn’t work that way. Success is the long-term result of small, incremental advances. Yes, there are “win-falls” and “lucky breaks” but we shouldn’t build our lives around those.We shouldn’t strive to suddenly wake up successful. We should strive to wake up and take one more step toward success.

And, I think that there are many people (in Hollywood, especially) who show us that too much success too quickly is detrimental. (Hello, Lindsay Lohan? This is your self-respect calling).

Instead, we should adopt the “success the slow way” model of achievement.

Rather than trying to fast track our way to financial success or popularity, we should accept that success will come to those who have the tenacity and discipline to achieve it.

So what does success the slow way look like?

• It looks like waking up every day earlier than your competitors.
• It looks like paying in sweat and time to get what we want rather than buying our way into it.
• It looks like the athlete who gets up again after falling down.
• It looks like 10000 failed attempts at a lightbulb
• It looks like hours of study.
• It looks like sacrifice.

I love this video. I think it sums it up perfectly. This is true, meaningful, lasting success that springs from a willingness to work harder and sacrifice more to achieve it.

Successful people take action.

They list their dreams and, create goals around those dreams… but lots of people do that that.

What really makes someone successful is that they move forward with their dreams. They slowly move the needle farther and farther each day. They accept the risk that they’ll make mistakes and they move forward even during those times when they don’t know EXACTLY what they should be doing. They push through and figure it out as they go.

How to take action

If all you do is dream, you’re not doing enough. If all you do is set goals, you’re not doing enough. Instead, you need to…

Dream and then (from that dream) create goals and then (from those goals) create action steps.

And then you need to do those action steps every single day.

That’s it! That’s the recipe for success. I see a lot of people (especially on Twitter) posting about the secret to success and they often list visualization or the principle of attraction as two ways to become more successful. I think there is merit to both of those ideas but as success principles they fall short if you’re not also acting to move your goals forward.

Something magical happens when you act. Action can break you out of a slump of depression, procrastination, unhappiness, or feeling unomotivated. For some reason, when we take action and cross our tasks off of our to-do list, we overcome those internal feelings of negativity and laziness. So action-taking not only helps us to achieve our goals, it also helps us to overcome mental and emotional set-backs, too!

Do you have a to-do list? Perhaps you do but is it drawn specifically from your goals? Make sure your dreams and goals and to-do’s are aligned and make sure you adopt the one success principle that has never failed:

Act now!

It made me think about who or what is in control of our lives.

In some cases, we willingly let others control some aspect of our lives –  kids tend to set the parents’ schedules, for example; bosses require employees to be at work at a certain time. Those things are fine because we willingly accept the responsibilities that come with those relationships.

But there are people who control our lives even when we don’t want them to. Friends might ask more of us than they deserve. Clients might demand more of us than they deserve. Coworkers might ask more of us than we need to give.

And this is true, not just for relationships but for habits in our lives as well. Sometimes we become enslaved to habits that tend to control us. (Some of these habits are well-known — like drinking or smoking — and some of these habits can sneak in without us realizing — like laziness, procrastination, or excessive television-watching).

So it’s worth pausing from time to time to review our lives and ask ourselves…

“Who is in charge of my life?”

Sometimes you’ll be okay with the answer. For the most part, it should be YOU in charge of your life and you willingly and occasionally give up some control of your life to someone else (like your kids or your boss as I mentioned above).

If you don’t like your answer to this question — for example, if you realize that someone is taking advantage of you or you have a habit that has snuck its way into the control room of your mind — then it’s time to root it out.

How to take back control

Taking back control is NOT easy but it IS simple: The solution is to say “no”.

• If you want to take back control of your life from a relationship, you need to learn to say no to the person who is trying to control you.
• If you want to take back control of your life from a habit, you need to learn to say no to the desires and promptings of the habit.

As I said, the solution is simple… but it’s NOT easy.

Saying “no” to a habit takes discipline and focus. Saying “no” to a person takes guts and an acceptance of temporarily negative consequences. And in both situations, taking control of your life means you have to walk through the fire to get to the other side.

In spite of the brief pain of saying no to people and habits, being the one in control of your life is worth any hardship you have to face to achieve it.

1. Don’t eat (especially junk food… although if you have to eat a meal, eat something healthy).
2. Don’t watch TV (especially the news).
3. Don’t talk to your co-workers.
4. Don’t talk to your boss.
5. Don’t talk about work.
6. Don’t clean your house.
7. Don’t try to solve your problems.
8. Don’t bring your car to the mechanic’s to get fixed.
9. Don’t buy anything using a credit card.
10. Don’t try to assemble furniture.
11. Don’t do any chores.
12. Don’t get a tattoo.
13. Don’t drink alcohol.
14. Don’t be a dare devil.
15. Don’t talk to people you don’t like.
16. Don’t go grocery shopping.
17. Don’t try something new.
18. Don’t quit your job.
19. Don’t drive in traffic.
20. Don’t look in old photo albums (they have a funny way of making us less happy than we think they do).
21. Don’t take medication (unless it’s prescribed… and then, only take the doses you should take).
22. Don’t call up your old boyfriend or girlfriend.
23. Don’t work around heavy machinery.
24. Don’t post anything on Facebook or Twitter.
25. Don’t move the furniture around.
26. Don’t buy or sell stocks.
27. Don’t write or send emails.
28. Don’t get your hair cut.
29. Don’t go out to a bar.
30. Don’t remodel your home.
31. Don’t put your home up for sale.

Life is never perfect. And when things become a little messed up, as they tend to do sometimes, it’s easy to start doing some of these activities. But they can make us feel worse and they can be drastic and permanent.

1. Do something nice for someone else

Pick someone you know and do something nice for them. If possible, do something nice for them without them realizing that it’s you. Buy them groceries. Send them tickets to the movie theater. Leave a gift card for their favorite coffee shop in their mailbox. Bake them something. The universe has a weird way of rewarding us with happiness when we first generously give to someone else.

2. Drink water and stretch

I would have written “exercise” but that can seem like hard work and when you’re down, a vigorous workout doesn’t always seem like something you want to do. But drinking water and stretching is a great way to release the tension of life. You can do this formally (like at a yoga place) or you can do it informally by listening to peaceful music in a darkened room while you stretch. Give it a good half hour, and try to drink a quart of water. To most people, that sounds like a lot of stretching and a lot of water but it will make a huge difference.

3. Play with a child

If you have kids, go play with them. If you don’t have your own kids, offer to babysit for a friend who does while they go out (which means you’ll also accomplish the first happiness quick fix, too!!!). Kids are funny and cute and weird and wacky, and their innocent happiness is infectious. Don’t just keep an eye on them while they play, get into their world and join them. Yeah, you might end up wearing a princess costume and drinking tea with an ugly doll but you’ll be happy!

4. Do something impulsively fun with someone else

Keep it simple and unscheduled. On the spur of the moment, find someone to go out for ice cream with or to hit golf balls at a driving range with.

5. Go for a walk in the woods or on the beach

You’ll not only get some good exercise, you’ll take in some scenery and fresh air. If possible, take a dog with you and let them have a really good run. Take your camera with you and take a bunch of pictures.

But my favorite time management system is Stephen Covey’s First Things First system. (He might not call it a time management system but that’s a simple way to describe one of its functions).

With First Things First, you really do put “first things first”. Rather than starting with your list of tasks and to-do’s, you start with the relationships that are important to you. You choose a few of those relationships, set specific goals to accomplish with them in the week, and schedule those goals. You also add in some personal growth time, too.

Once you’ve scheduled in those essential parts, THEN you add all of your other tasks and to-dos around those.

What I like about his system is that it puts our relationships first. That’s so powerful because it’s really our relationships that enrich our lives. And I like that it forces me to think about how I can add value to key people in my life. (To be honest, it’s so easy to let a day, a week, and even a month slip by without thinking about how I can improve my relationships. But with Covey’s First Things First system, I’m forced to think first about the people who are important to me before I figure out everything else)

Like all time management systems, Covey’s isn’t perfect. I think we all need to cobble together a time management “Frankensystem” that works for us individually. But if I could recommend any changes to your time management, it would be to figure out how you can adopt a First Things First approach and start intentionally adding more value to your relationships.