Where to begin?
That’s the question I asked myself when I first started writing my book, iSucceed.
Though I had been studying seriously for two years, the thought of writing a book never even crossed my mind.
One day though, when I sat down and started reading some of the ideas I’d jotted down along with my comments, I started thinking, “Boy, some of this stuff is pretty good. Maybe I should share it with others.”
At the time seminars didn’t even occur to me but a book sounded just right.
It was something that could be shared with people all over the world quickly and easily.
My library was growing bigger and bigger each month so I knew what was out there and what wasn’t.
The one thing that struck me about many of the self-help books out there was just how intimidating they were.
Some of them could easily be used as doorstops, or used as a bulletproof vest they were that thick. And many of them aren’t just thick, but large making them a pain for people to carry them around with.
Enter my book.
A quick glimpse into parts of my life and some of the best ideas out there presented in a short, easy-to-read book.
Is it perfect? No…far from it.
But that was never my goal. My goal was to simply get it out there.
While I ran into a whole host of problems in publishing my book, a year and a half after I started my book was up on Amazon.com and I was a proud father.
Writing ideas came easy to me; it was choosing which stories and ideas made the cut that was hard.
I remember sitting at my desk with 800 pages of notes, ideas and stories just staring at me in the face. I could hardly believe I had written so much.
Time management tips, business philosophy, mindset, psychology, happiness, success stories, human interest stories, hard-hitting stories, light cheerful stories…so many to choose from, so hard to decide.
Then it hit me: Gratitude.
In my humble opinion is where it all starts.
Gratitude requires a healthy, positive attitude. It requires the right mindset. And it forces us to remove negativity from our thoughts.
Think about that for a second.
There’s a lot of good and bad that happens each day. There’s the nice lady you met at lunch, the horrible service you received at the same place. The funny joke you heard, the terrible weather you got caught it. The lovely music you heard on the way home, the awful traffic you got stuck in.
Successful people and happy people tend to appreciate the good, and let the bad be what it is; momentary.
You can choose to curse the things that happen each day, or appreciate simply having the day which is what I learned first-hand in the form of a tsunami barreling down upon me.
From that day forward I’ve seen life in a whole new light.
But you don’t have to go through what I did (and I hope you don’t) to appreciate just what you have in your life which brings me to a simple exercise that when done properly can have a profound effect on everything you do.
Here it is:
- Get out a piece of paper / journal
- Write down everything (and I do mean everything) that you have in your life to be happy about
- Keep adding to the list whenever something comes to you
- Read it regularly (once a week or ideally each morning)
How easy is that?
How many of you will actually do it? Best guess, 10%. Why? Maybe you think it’s silly or a waste of time. I get it. But I assure you it’s powerful.
By doing this simple exercise you will be constantly reminding yourself of all the good in your life and in doing so motivate yourself. And by filling yourself with positive reminders, you keep out the bad which are always lying in wait to take root in your mind. In order to be at our best we need to be gardeners of our own mind; planting the good, weeding the bad.
I hope you’ll give this exercise a shot.
It doesn’t really get any easier than this.
Adrian Shepherd