Why climb the mountain of success when you can remain in the valley of failure?
- Listen to the voices—the ones in your head that whisper, “You can’t do it” or “You’re a failure” or “You’re wasting your time.”
- Keep busy with mundane tasks, household chores, and paperwork.
- Focus on the big, hairy, audacious end goal. It’s ambitious. It’s scary big. It’s IMPOSSIBLE. What were you thinking?
- Fantasize on how wonderful it will be when you reach that audacious goal.
- Roadblocks? No one told me there would be roadblocks.
- Always keep in mind your past failures. By reminding you of how hard this is, they will push you to do better.
- Never start something new until you know every step you must take to reach success.
- Wouldn’t it be awesome if you could change every area of your life for the better? All at once. Right now?
- Worrying over actions plans just bogs you down, so forget them and just keep moving along whatever path seems best—ooh, look! A squirrel.
- Whatever you do, make sure you don’t make a mistake. When in doubt, always play it safe.
- Search the internet for the most awesome, ultra-efficient methods to achieve your goal. Compile the top ideas. Make spreadsheets to compare them. Read the books. Become an expert in all theories relating to this goal.
- Who needs new methods when you can think positive thoughts? Sure you’ve tried the plan before and failed, but this time it’ll be different. This time that old plan is going to succeed.
- Strengthen your willpower by forcing yourself to tackle your goal when you are tired, hungry, upset, or sick.
- Further strengthen your willpower by filling your house, car, and office with items that tempt you towards the dark side. Prove you are tougher than that Boston Cream donut or that bag of BBQ potato chips.
- Accountability is for sissies.
- Never admit you need help. Or guidance. Or encouragement.
- Devote time to detailed planning of your daily schedule—Use markers to color-code each task, enter a dozen bullet points for each task on your schedule app and then figure out how to how to automatically combine five different schedule apps to utilize the strongest features of each.
- You tried. You blew it. See? You knew it was a hopeless goal, anyway. Why bother climbing back on the horse when you’re just going to fall again? Maybe your genetics aren’t suited for this type of goal.
- Priorities? No one said anything about changing my priorities.
- Don’t waste time celebrating the little milestones you achieve along the way. The big goal is all that matters.
When the cat decides to take a nap on the computer, it’s a sign. You should immediately quit working and take a nap yourself.
