"9 Things You Simply Must Do to Succeed in Love and Life" by Dr. Henry Cloud.
This book changed my life in 1 week! I pray it blesses yours...
Principle #1 “Dig it Up”
Every visible achievement starts as an invisible dream deep inside of us and this dream is where our life lies. Dig up those loss treasures and gifts and invest them back into your life. When God said in Genesis 1:3 “Let there be light…” and then there was light, He not only was demonstrating His creative ability, we also see that before the manifestation of light in the physical, words are spoken in the spiritual. God dreamed it, he saw it, and he spoke it, and it was. We have that same creative ability. We must visualize our dreams, see them, and speak them into existence.
Principle #2 “Pull the Tooth”
Successful people don’t hold on to bad things. They eliminate them, rather they be a marriage, a dating relationship or a bad habit. Don’t allow negative things to take up space in your life, draining you of your energy and resources. “Pull the Tooth.” Stop trying to clean it and brighten it up. It’s still that same bad tooth. New things can’t come to you until you get rid of what’s taking up the space that the new things need.
Principle #3 “Play the Movie”
Envision how decisions you make will affect you or your family in the long run. Play it out in your head. For example, what are the long terms effects when you decide to come home and put your child in front of a television set instead of spending time with them after a long days work? Your child may end up believing you don’t value your relationship with them and they may seek the attention elsewhere. This principle doesn’t just work for decision- making. You can play a movie in your head of decisions you want to make to help guide you in the process of actually achieving the goal you visualize.
Principle #4 “Do Something”
Ask yourself, what can I do to make this situation better? Take positive, initiating steps as opposed to just reacting to what happens to you. Don’t see yourself as a victim. Take note of your “locus of control.” Is it outside or inside of you? Who’s making your decisions for you? People who approach life being overly dependent are generally less successful than others. Be responsible for your existence. Own your life.
Principle #5 “Act Like an Ant”
You may need to achieve your goal by taking tiny steps over a period of time instead of giant steps in a short period of time. Don’t judge how you’re doing by the goal but by the fact that you’re doing the small things to reach it. The beauty of taking small steps is that your first step serves as a reminder that it is possible to take another and gives encouragement to keep going. Baby steps are testimonials to look back on and be encouraged that if you took the first step you can take another one.
Principle #6 “Hate Well”
Hate is not all bad, like when we hate injustice, violence or disrespect. But hate objectively. Character is formed by what we hate, as we find ourselves trying to move away from those things. What we hate says a lot about who we are. Subjective hate draws from a pool of feelings and attitudes residing in the soul with no direction and no reason behind it but presents itself in any given opportunity, like road rage. Hating objectively means to find the real object or reasons behind the feelings of hate and enforce them productively. It is possible to express hate in a respectable, kind, yet firm way.
Principle #7 “Don’t Play Fair”
Don’t just give what is given to you or do what’s done to you. Give back better than you were given. Luke 6:32 says, “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them.” If someone has wronged you, sow the opposite, as to not fuel the fire. To become the very thing you despise is “self-defeating.”
Principle #8 “Be Humble”
Apologize to the people you fail. Seek to understand the situations of others. Lose defensiveness. Root out the spirit of entitlement and replace it with gratitude. Serve those below you. They may very well be superior to you in many ways. Humility causes us to not want to take credit, to not want be the center of attention, to be on the outskirts, to be on the sideline, to be in the background, to be behind the scenes and still make it happen from there. When someone is hurt by you, listen to them to understand what you did. When you hurt someone, acknowledge it. Embrace your imperfections and those of others. Use failure as a teacher.
Principle #9 “Upset the Right People”
If you’re successful in life you’re guaranteed not to keep everyone happy. None-the-less, don’t make decisions based on the fear of other people’s reactions. You can care about their feelings but caring about their feelings and making the choice that’s right for you are two different things. Remember, your locus of control is within you, not in other people.