Are you a People-Pleaser? Are you someone who always puts other peoples’ feelings above your own or someone who makes the pursuit of other peoples happiness your main aim in life?

You become a People-Pleaser when the balance tips and the boundaries between your own happiness and other peoples become blurred.

Helping others is great when done genuinely. People-Pleasing is different from a genuine interest in other people. At the heart of this issue is the fact when you are in people-pleasing mode, you have lost sight of what makes you truly happy, let alone anyone else.

Here are some lessons I have learnt that have helped me:

1. Be Authentic

Authenticity is the nemesis of People-Pleasing. People-Pleasing is all about getting others to behave in a certain way to make you feel better. Being authentic is being real. There is no agenda; there is just you. It isn’t hard to start noticing the difference between authenticity and People-Pleasing, Authenticity feels real and honest. You have no agenda and are transparent. People-Pleasing on the other hand feels insecure, fragile, phony and desperate. Start identifying your feelings and which mode you are in. Start choosing authenticity.

2. Listen to Your Feelings

Your feelings are a communication. They are there to tell you something. Start listening. One trap I have fallen into in the past is listening to your feelings and then justifying them away. For example, if I feel disappointed with someone else and notice that feeling, I then go on to justify the other person’s behaviour i.e. “they are going through a hard time”. It is useful to be able to put yourself in other people’s shoes and understand what is going in for them, but it is important to learn to take the time to understand what is going on for you too. You don’t have to solve the problem straight away or get rid of the feeling. Learn to really listen to your feelings without judgement.

3. Realise People-Pleasing is Not “Nice”

One of the things that made a real difference to me is realising that People-Pleasing is pretty sleazy. It robs you of your self esteem and doesn’t leave the people you are trying to please with a good experience of you. People-Pleasing is one of those behaviours that sounds “nice” but which is actually the opposite. People-Pleasing isn’t really about others and making a difference, it is all about you. For example you might say “I haven’t heard from you for a while, I have been worried about you” when what is really going on is “I am not really worried about you, I just want to make sure you still like me”. We don’t say these things, but other people pick up on them anyway.

4. Let Go of Control

People-Pleasing is controlling. To make yourself feel better you need others to be ‘pleased’ or ‘happy’ with you. Imagine what pressure that is for the other person! Take a moment to remind yourself of a time that someone has been a People-Pleaser with you and how this experience made you feel.

I have noticed that when I am in People-Pleasing mode I take other peoples moods personally. I see someone is upset and I worry that I have upset them. I search my mind for ways that I may have upset them and want to apologise or at least find a way to make them happy again, even if it is nothing to do with me! Again when I am like this, it’s all about me. trying to make others feel good so I can feel good again! Realising that other people have the right to be happy or unhappy has been a huge realisation for me. That might sound kind of obvious, but when I am in People-Pleasing mode, someone else being unhappy isn’t ok. It makes me feel bad and I want that feeling to go away as soon as possible!

Learn to accept and allow others just as they are.

5. Learn to Be OK with Upsetting People

“You can’t keep all the people happy all the time”

I am not advocating being a jerk here, but it is a fact of life is that you can’t make everyone happy all the time. What you can do is be authentic and do what you feel is right. We all upset others at times. It is inevitable. Sometimes people are jealous; sometimes they don’t like other people being happy or successful and sometimes they may be upset with you and they just don’t know why! You cannot be responsible for other people’s happiness but you sure as hell are responsible for your own.

(Note: This isn’t an excuse not to apologise if you are in the wrong. Learn to listen to your intuition and be honest. Ask yourself: “Is there something I need to take responsibility for here?”)

6. Please Yourself

Learning to please yourself is one of the most important things you can do. Looking for outside validation stifles your inner voice and makes you small.

You are not small. Whenever you feel small you don’t feel good. That is because it is not true. You are huge. You are here to shine.

Start learning about you. What makes you happy? What lights your heart up with joy? Some people are so used to thinking about what makes other people happy, that this really is an alien concept. If this is the case, start finding out today. When someone asks you what you fancy for lunch don’t say the usual “I don’t mind” or “Whatever you fancy”, take a moment to think about what you would like to eat and let the other person know. Step by step you start getting clear what makes you happy.

People-Pleasing robs you of your natural expression and joy in life. As I shared, these are some of the ways I deal with this tendency in myself. Are you a recovering People-Pleaser? I would love to hear about your experiences.

We all have times when we feel bad or just need a boost. It is useful to have practical ways to deal with these times. Below are some of the practical ways that I have learnt that help me feel better quickly:

1. Meditation

Meditation is one of the most powerful techniques that I have found to feel better quickly. I spend ten minutes each morning in meditation. Meditation doesn’t have to be complicated. You can sit in silence. Observing your breathe is another good way to start meditating. I use a guided meditation CD. Don’t worry about ‘doing it right’. Just get started by setting aside ten minutes to sit in silence.

Meditation can diminish the effect of external influences. When I am meditating it is a way for me to switch off and press pause on my worries and day to day concerns. I don’t try to stop my thoughts completely. I have found that observing them and letting them flow through my mind is much more effective than resisting them. I always feel refreshed and centred after meditating and able to be more at peace in my day to day life. I read somewhere that an hour of meditation can leave you as refreshed as eight hours of sleep!

If you have a smartphone then I suggest downloading the headspace app and following their 10 day free trial.

2. Emotional Freedom Technique

Emotional Freedom Technique is a fairly new discovery to me but has become something I now use regularly. Glen from ViperChill recommended this link on a recent post. It worked the first time I tried it and I have started using this technique whenever I feel a negative emotion or when I feel bogged down by something.

I would highly recommend taking them time to go through this introductory video. I shared this link on Twitter recently and Nate over at The Way That You Wander tried it too with . He shared the results on this post: Get a Burst of Energy.

3. Exercise

Exercise is a sure fire way to feel better instantly. An even better way to feel better instantly is to exercise outdoors. Recent research shows that just five minutes of exercise outdoors can make a huge difference to our overall health.

My favourite ways to exercise currently are walking, running cycling and yoga. I haven’t always exercised but I have started making exercise part of my day to day life in the last couple of years and it has made the world of difference to my emotional and physical well being. I run near our home which saves time and money compared to going to a gym. I practice yoga by following a DVD at home and walk and cycle to save using my car where possible. Removing barriers to exercising, making it part of my day to day life and ensuring I enjoy the exercise I do has helped me want to do it more. I now exercise every day and it never fails to make me feel good. It’s also very good for your skin too!

4. Connect With Inspiring People

Connecting with inspiring people is a great way to feel better instantly. One of the first things I wanted to do when I came off the road in my car last year was to connect with my online friends. I felt so supported and it reminded me that I am part of a really inspiring and loving community.

If you feel like you don’t connect with enough inspiring people, seek new friends out. As I shared, being part of this online community makes a real difference to my life. You could join a new club or start a blog or maybe reach out to someone in your life that you find inspiring but haven’t got to know as well as you’d like. The people we associate with on a regular basis make a big difference to our outlook in life.

5. Affirmations

Affirmations are a great way to feel better instantly. We are actually all using affirmations all the time anyway. “I am not a people person” is an affirmation as is “I am a successful, happy person”. The trick is to be aware of our thoughts and replace negative affirmations with positive ones. I have found using affirmations very powerful, particularly when said into a mirror.

To learn more about affirmations I recommend You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay. This is one of the first personal development books I ever read and in my opinion one of the best.

I have a confession to make. I’m a smoker. Yes you’re reading a website about improving your life and changing your habits by a man who calls himself a smoker. Contradiction? Well not really. I have a surprise for you. It’s an earth shattering, mindblowing fact – there is no such thing as an ex-smoker. There never have nor will there ever be ex-smokers. There are simply people who choose not to smoke anymore. Fact. The sooner you sit back and accept the fact that there are no such things as ex-smokers the quicker you’ll make progress. Believe me. Why? Well I haven’t smoked a cigarette in close to 3 years. With every day that goes by smoking seems like more and more of a bad memory. It’s a great feeling.

The Secret To Quitting Smoking

Now you’re waiting for my magic, secret solution to quitting smoking right? This is the point where I drop the bombshell on you completely. Folks there is no secret to quitting smoking. Smoking is a choice. We choose to do it. We can choose to give it up. The power that smoking has over you is entirely self-inflicted. We all chose to smoke that first cigarette and the one after that and the next 1,000 after that. Nobody has frog marched us at gunpoint to tobaconists, supermarkets or service stations. Nobody ordered us to smoke one stupid cigarette after another. Smoking is simply a habit we’ve all developed over time. It’s something we’ve been introduced to from an early age from seeing our parents, guardians or other “grownups” smoking. We’re also been “conned” into smoking through most visual and audio media. We see it on TV, at the movies, in magazine, hear it on the radio. Hell we even see it on sports channels. They advertise smoking, which causes innumerable, crippling diseases, on channels which are devoted to the pursuit of mental and physical agility and strength. How sick is that? How did I quit? I made a choice. I chose to quit smoking.Here’s the honesty part. I’ve quit smoking maybe a dozen times over the last 12 years. At one point I’d not had a cigarette for 5 years….. until the day my father died. I made the foolish mistake of smoking that day as a crutch. I continued to do so for the next 2 years. My father died of a smoking related disease by the way. How ironic is that? His smoking related death is what caused me to start smoking again. After 2 long years of smoking again I decided that enough was enough. I had to do something about it. This is when I had help from a friend of mine – Angela. Angela had recently quit smoking using e-cigarettes and couldn’t stop talking about how easy it had been. Having previously quit using only will power and grit, I found this hard to believe. However, she went on to explain that e-cigarettes and vaping devices have completely changed the way people smoke and have made it much easier to quit. Before we talk about exactly how she quit, let’s take a second to give a quick background on what vaping is.

What is Vaping?

Vaping can be defined as inhaling and exhaling the vapor produced by an electronic cigarette or vaping device. An e-cigarette consists of a battery, a tank to hold what is called vape juice (more on that later) and a mouth piece to inhale the vapor created by the device. The battery heats up a wire coil under the tank. This coil then heats up the liquid nicotine or vape juice in the tank which creates vapor when you inhale via the mouth piece.

How Does This Help?

Now you’re thinking, how does help me at all? To start with, even if you simply moved from smoking regular cigarettes to vaping you would automatically reduce your risk of cancer and other smoking related issues dramatically. A 2015 study conducted by the UK Government stated that vaping is 95% safer than smoking regular cigarettes. This is because when you smoke you are inhaling combined with thousands of other harmful chemicals. When you vape you are simply inhaling nicotine and nothing else. On top of that, vape juice comes in many different nicotine strengths so over time you are able to reduce your nicotine consumption to zero without battling the cravings that most people experience when trying to quit. Eventually you will only be smoking flavored vapor and nothing else. At this point you can completely stop. If you ever get a strong desire to smoke again you can simply inhale nicotine free vapor without completely relapsing.

What is the Plan of Action?

The first thing you need to do is find an e-cigarette. There are many options out there, but the best e-cigarette for you will really depend on a number of different factors such as how big you want your clouds to be, how long you want the battery to last and how much vape jucie you want your tank to hold. The e- cigarette that both Angela and I used was the Vaporfi Pro 3. This is both high quality and affordable at only $50. We both wanted something small and portable that resembled a traditional cigarette with good battery life and the PRO 3 ticked all those boxes. Not to mention that VaporFi is one of the highest quality e-cigarette brands out there.

You then need to find the best vape juice for your current smoking habit. If you smoke unfiltered cigarettes for example you are going to have to start with a vape juice that contains at least 36mg of nicotine to satisfy your cravings. If you smoke lights then you can start with a vape juice that contains only 12mg of nicotine. We have created a list below so that you can easily decide on which nicotine level will be right for you.

Unfilitered (Very Strong) – 36mg
Full Flavored (Strong) – 24mg
Regular (Average) – 18mg
Light (Medium) 12mg
Ultra Light – 6mg
No Nicotine – 0mg

It takes approximately 30 days to form a habit so we suggest smoking at each level for at least 30 days before moving on to a lower strength. You can find vape juices that go down in 2mg increments so if you are finding it hard to make the drop, consider moving down in smaller increments.

Tell us Your Story

Both myself and Angela have successfully used this method to quit smoking and have read the stories of many other people who have successfully used this method. We both agreed that reading other people’s stories really encouraging and hope that you will share your story with us in the comments below.

“Chase down your passion like it’s the last bus of the night.” Glade Byron Addams

We are all unique. Sometimes this can sound a little clichéd, but it’s true. Think about it for a moment, how many people are exactly like you? That’s right, no-one. Sure some people are similar, but there truly is no-one exactly like you. It follows then that there is something (or many things) that you have to contribute to the world, that no-one else can do.

However sometimes our passion isn’t immediately obvious to us. We may need to hunt it down! Here are some ways to help you find your passion:

1. Be patient

Sometimes a life event is the catalyst to finding our passion. We’ve all heard of people who realised what they wanted to do after a major event in their lives or maybe in response to a trauma they experienced. For example, parents who have a child die of cancer that sets up a charity for child cancer patients. Susan Boyle achieved world wide fame over night at the age of 48 after singing on Britain’s Got Talent. It really is never too late.

2. Get yourself out of the way

Sometimes we put barriers up. We are too young to find what we want to do, or too old and now it’s too late to bother. It’s never too late or too early. It was only in the last few years that I started to think that I could make my passion (personal development) into a job. I just used to think that I hadn’t found my passion yet and personal development was my hobby. Have a look and see what the thing you love doing all the time is? Just because you might not be able to see how you could convert it into your passion, doesn’t mean you can’t.

3. Believe in yourself

What did you think when you read this part of my opening sentence: “there is something (or many things) that you have to contribute to the world, that no-one else can do.”? Examine your reactions to this statement. For many of us myself included, it is sometimes hard to see the difference we make to the world. Sometimes what’s even harder is imagining what we could do and our potential. Believing in ourselves and our abilities is vital for our self esteem and also to enable us to give birth to our own passions and bring them forth into the world.

4. Try new things

If we don’t try new things, how will we find our passion? There are some people who are born with an innate talent or clear what they are here to do, but for a lot of us it isn’t as simple as that. We need to be proactive and try new things. I never thought I’d be able to (or even want to) create my own website, but through doing this for my coaching practice I have stumbled across a new passion: blogging. Don’t be afraid to try things that you wouldn’t normally try.

5. Remove labels

Following on from my last point, be careful about labelling yourself. When we say things like ‘I’m an outdoors person’ or ‘I am no good with computers’, this eliminates certain possibilities. You may prefer to be outdoors and there is nothing wrong with that but sticking to that rigidly may stop you finding your passion of blogging about your garden (for example).

6. Notice what you enjoy

On a simple level, pay attention to what you enjoy. I can read personal development type books all day long and I have always been like that. For me that isn’t work. Now I can see that is a strong pointer to my passion in life. What do you enjoy? Sometimes we can create hurdles in finding our passion by thinking we should automatically know how to make it into a job. Don’t worry about that to start with. Just notice what you enjoy.

These are some ways that I have found that have helped me find my passion and that continue to be helpful to me as my passions develop. Now I would love to hear yours.

Often when we think of productivity and how we can get more done, we focus on doing more. It seems obvious right? More action equals more results. Not necessarily. Sometimes this is the case, but a lot of the time we are busy with so many different things that nothing gets done properly. Slowing down and re-evaluating your commitments can help you to really look at what you are doing and take a more focussed and ultimately satisfying approach to what you need to do.

1. Pare Down Your Commitments

Do you have to do everything that you do? Take some time to sit down and evaluate your day to day life. Often we inherit tasks or take on things over time that we may not really enjoy or need to do. They may seem harmless or small but when added to similar tasks they can start to clog up your time. You may enjoy some of these things and if you do I am obviously not suggesting you give them up, however just taking time to be clear about what you do and why you do it can be incredibly powerful. It can give you the opportunity to reassess and be clear about what you really enjoy doing.

2. Say No

Many people find it difficult to say “no”, however it is a really important skill to learn particularly with regards to getting more done. Value your time and remind yourself that you don’t have to say yes to every request. Once you have re-evaluated your commitments, get clear about the things you want to continue doing and those that you want to drop and then let people know if necessary. If you find this difficult, practice with a friend beforehand, it does get easier. If you find yourself feeling on the spot and agreeing to things when people ask you, ask them if you can get back to them so you can consider their request and if it’s going to work. This gives you the time to assess what is being asked of you, see if it works for you and think about how to let the other person know. Once people know where they stand with you it becomes easier.

3. Use a Simple To – Do List

Keeping a To – Do list helps you to be clear about what needs to be done and remain focussed. I have found keeping it simple helps you to focus on the important and lessens your chances of overwhelm. Each day record the most important two or three things that you need to do and then work through them. Acknowledge what you achieve as well. Celebrating your progress will help keep you motivated and inspired to achieve more. Regularly review what you are doing and ensure you are spending your time in the most efficient way possible.

4. Minimize Distractions

There are so many distractions around us these days. To get more done, be smart and strategic about what you need to do. If you need to get work done on your computer, turn off the internet, social media applications and your phone. If you work best when everyone is out of the house, plan you what you need to do for that part of the day. If you work with other people, let them know that you are not available for a period of time. You don’t have to respond to everything that comes your way. Learn to minimise distractions in order to get things done. By being strategic and planning what you need to do to get the most done you will save yourself time and energy.

5. Batch Items Together

Batching similar tasks together has been proven to help productivity. Your mind works well when it focuses on one task at a time, rather than jumping from one thing to another. See if you can arrange to do similar tasks together, and schedule them into your week in that way. For example, if you have lots of emails each week, schedule times in the week to answer them rather than answering every email as it arrives. Batching items will help you to stay focussed and get into a state of flow.

6. Work Smart

Everyone is different. Learn to observe yourself and your habits and adjust your actions accordingly. If you are more alert in the mornings, get more done then. If you can spend hours procrastinating on the internet or doing less important tasks instead of what needs to be done, don’t let yourself do these things until you complete the tasks you have set yourself. Be honest with yourself and assess your strengths and weaknesses and act accordingly. You may find that it works for you to hire a coach (especially if you have a big project or goal) or have a buddy to be accountable to.

Inspired by two awesome posts – one by Jonathan Fields and one by Seth Godin – I’ve had yet another epiphany.

At its core, it’s this: always be willing to go the extra mile, to do what others might deem ‘unreasonable’, to do the right thing.

Why? Because, my friends, that’s just what you do. Doing what’s right and spending the extra energy to make sure it gets done should be a part of you, something that’s just part of your identity. It should be automatic.

Now – getting to that point isn’t easy. In fact, it’s incredibly difficult, since you’ll be fighting the temptation to give in and only give what’s deemed “good enough”.

But you have to tell yourself that being “good enough” just isn’t good enough anymore. Being you – a person of power, respect, love, creativity, and integrity – demands more. It demands a higher standard – not perfection, but the willingness to go above and beyond what others expect of you to produce something excellent.

In the Way You Do Anything, You Do Everything

If the world could be changed by thought alone, we’d be moving things with our minds.

Action is the only thing that can produce any sort of lasting change on the world, because it makes your thoughts manifest themselves in reality.

The attitude you have when taking action ultimately determines the quality of whatever you end up doing.

Are you going to accept anything less than your best? If you do at least once, then you’re going to set up a pattern of inconsistency, where sometimes you really shine, and others – you don’t.

This is why they say “In the way you do anything, you do everything.” Excellence is a habit, as Aristotle so astutely pointed out. Consistency is what separates the men from the boys. If you want to be great and not just good, becoming consistently excellent is the price you have to pay – but the rewards are immense.

So, even when you’re feeling your worst, things aren’t going right, or you’re just not motivated to do work, you still have to show up and prove your emotions wrong. You have to prove that, despite the nausea and the cramps, you can still try to do your best work.

It’s all a game, with one rule: if anything holds you back from giving your best effort, you lose.

Will you perform at your best? Probably not. However, if you go into it with the determination and the belief that, no matter how you feel, you are still going to try your best, you will still perform much better than if you had just wallowed in your misery.

The key isn’t to be perfect all the time, or even be perfect at all.

No, what separates the true professionals from the rest of us is that they make the best out of what they have. They’re not excellent every time they work. Sometimes, they’re not even great. Or good. But the key is, whenever they sit down and do anything, they have the attitude to get the most out of whatever they’re doing.

And, even when they’re about to break, they always go one step further. They go beyond everyone else’s expectations to provide something better than just “good”. They make it great with their willingness to put the extra work in, whether that’s taking some personal time out of their day to help a client or putting some finishing touches on their blog post, even when they thought it was ‘done’.

Because, they think, that’s what pros do. So they do it.

And that’s what you can do, too – if you’re willing to make the commitment.

Becoming a professional at living life is scary because there aren’t any more excuses. You can’t throw in the towel on doing work or even having fun for the day just because you woke up with a headache. Now, you’re gonna have to wake up, take some Advil with your morning cup o’ joe, and you’re going to have to face the day and give your all.

Why? When that day comes, you’ll say to yourself, “Well, that’s just what I do.”

Action Steps!

1. From now on, no matter what you feel like, show up for your work (and your life) and give all that you have.

2. Smile in satisfaction to yourself when you go to bed each night because you know you made the most of your day, no matter how you felt or what went wrong.

All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone. Pascal

Do you take time out for yourself to be alone or are you always surrounded by other people?

Like most people, I have both tendencies within me. When I want to be I can enjoy being sociable and other peoples company and at other times I want to batten down the hatches and shut the rest of the world out. Usually I fall somewhere in between but I have been thinking recently about the benefits of spending time alone and disconnecting from the world.

Hear Your Inner Voice

Over the last few years I have realised that I often haven’t taken the time to ask myself what I want. If there was a group of friends arranging a night out for example, I would be the one to say “I don’t mind” or “Whatever you fancy”. I have realised that a lot of the time I just didn’t take the time to listen to my answer. I have started practising choosing what I want and letting other people know.

This example may seem trivial (and sometimes I really didn’t mind where I ate ) but it highlighted for me, what I was doing all over my life: letting other people make all the decisions. That wasn’t other peoples fault; I was handing the responsibility over to them. Once I stopped doing this and started to listen to myself on the smaller decisions in life, I build up that muscle and started to get in touch with my inner voice in other areas of my life.

I have shared similar realisations here before and the reason I am sharing it in this post is because I have found that spending time alone has been one of the best ways to get in touch with my inner voice. From deciding what I want for dinner to what I want to do as a career, taking regular time out to be alone has been one of the best things I have found to get clear on my own answers.

Recharge Your Batteries

It is good for the soul to disconnect every now and then and recharge your batteries. Think for a moment about all the external influences that affect you every day. From your immediate circle to advertisers or even online friends on Twitter and Facebook; we deal with an onslaught of information every day. Some of this might be positive and some might be negative, but it is all external influences and it does us good to switch off from it all sometimes.

When you give yourself space from the outside world you leave yourself room to really breathe and just be. This allows you to let go of the external you (whether we like it or not we all have a face or maybe faces that we present to the world) and get in touch with your inner world.

Get to Know Yourself

I have found the more comfortable I am by myself the more comfortable I am when I am around other people. Meditation in particular helps me to disconnect and get to know the real me. I personally find meditating to a guided meditation beneficial but meditation doesn’t have to be done by sitting quietly. We can meditate when washing the dishes or gardening: it’s really about being fully present in the moment. When we are fully present, we let go of thoughts and our ego and allow ourselves to just be.

Listen to Your “Hermit Cycle”

I have found that there is often a cycle to how much time I want to spend alone or with other people. It’s not a predictable cycle, I find that it is really about listening to that inner voice and respecting the answers I get. I often find if I have had lots of time alone, I will naturally want to “dehermitize” (yep, that’s a word I made up! ) and be with people again. Taking the time to enjoy my own company makes me appreciate others when I am with them.

Quality not Quantity

Your life is different to my life and you may be thinking “I haven’t got the time to be a hermit or spend more time alone although I’d like to”. If you want more time to be alone then this is something you will have to look at. In the meantime, quality time is what is important. For now, if you have ten minutes spare in your day, use that to be alone and gradually increase it as you wish.

Unleash Your Inner Hermit

We are all different and what works for me might not necessarily be for you. However, I believe we can all benefit from unleashing our inner hermit to some degree! Maybe you spend a lot of time alone already but would like to make that time more of a quality experience, maybe you can see that more alone time could enhance your creativity or maybe you are never alone and this will be a new experience.

Take a moment to see what a difference some time alone could make to you. I’d love to hear from you; how could unleashing your inner hermit help you?

How many times have you been bogged down in the middle of a project, feeling like giving up because there’s no light at the end of the tunnel? The project feels as if it’ll never get done, everything you do takes forever, you’re starting to get frustrated with the process, and the best option – the option that will seemingly free you – is to quit.

Unfortunately, quitting renders all the time you spent and all the frustration you had meaningless. All those sleepless nights, cringe-worthy meetings, and the tens or hundreds of hours dedicated to getting things done? All gone. Don’t mean anything.

So, of course, you have to press on in spite of your growing sense of frustration and hopelessness. But, in order to do so and keep yourself sane, you have to change the way that you’re doing your project. If you keep doing what you’re doing and press on valiantly, sure – you’ll get the project done. But, by the end, you won’t be doing your work to its fullest potential. You’re going to experience “burn-out” even more, with greater frustration and resentment for the work that has to be done. You’ll be cutting corners and taking shortcuts just so the project gets done. Not good – that’s why burn-out is so tricky to manage.

What’s Causing the Burn-Out?

Quite simply, your obsession with the end result of the project – completion – is what’s making you burn out.

If you keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing without taking a break or even generating some positive emotions along the way, you’re going to start to let the frustration get to you and start questioning the usefulness of what you’re doing.

The way your mind is set up is in what I like to call the Big Win mindset.

For a person in a “big win” mindset, the only thing that is worth celebrating – the only thing worth feeling good about – is the final product. It’s the grade on their test, how well their book is received, how much money they’re making, and so on. They don’t see the work and creativity that went into their project as worthwhile or something to be proud of. Their only concern, again, is what their work and creativity produced – and that’s very unhealthy.

The Big Win mindset results in burn-out because the people who have it are constantly waiting for the end of the project so they can finally celebrate a job well done. That means that they keep all their energy inside, pent up, during the entirety of the project. Without a positive outlet – they’ll refuse to say anything remotely positive until it’s done – their positive energy turns into negativity because the project prevents them from expressing any positive emotions since they can’t “celebrate” their Big Win until after it’s done.

Because the project quite literally is the cause of their inability to let themselves feel good, they begin to resent it. What happens as a result?

Burn-out. If you’re putting off feeling good about yourself and your work until the project is done, you’re going to burn-out. Trust me. I’ve done it hundreds of times.

The Burn-Out Cure

The cure to burn-out, as you’ve probably figured out already, is to celebrate everything that you do related to a project – I call this the Little Victory mindset.

In the Little Victory mindset, you keep yourself motivated and feeling good to finish a project because you will let yourself experience positive emotions for every little thing you complete that’s related to your project.

Whereas the Big Win mindset says, “Well, doing the little stuff is useless if the whole project doesn’t get done,” the Little Victory mindset counters, “But each little thing adds up to the whole. Why not feel good about them? They’re like projects in their own right.”

And that’s really how I approach projects now – and I feel so much better while doing them. No longer am I dreading the project plateau – that time when we feel like giving up and pursuing a new shiny idea because what we’re doing is no longer working.

Instead, take the time to let yourself feel good whenever you complete a part of a project – celebrating your Little Victories. That way, you won’t build up the resentment and faitgue that accompanies burn-out.

You’ll be replacing burn-out with positive momentum – feedback that serves to move your project forward instead of grinding it to a halt.

Let’s face it – if you like what you’re doing, you’re going to be more excited to do it all the time, and you’re going to feel better when you do it.

You start to burn out because you feel negative emotions in connection with your project.

The solution, then, is to get to the source of those bad emotions – the Big Win mindset – and replace it with a Little Victory mindset.

Setting goals can help you move forward and measure what you want to achieve. Many times hwever we set an unrealistic goal and end up getting frustrated when it doesn’t come to fruition. It can be difficult to maintain an unrealistic goal if you don’t have the right support and guidance to help you reach it.

Here’s some suggestions to help you set better goals to achieve success with your business in 2016. Please leave other suggestions in the comments, I’d love to hear other tricks to tackle your goals!

*Set Clear Goals

It’s very important that the goals you set for yourself are clear and something you could easily share with a colleague (they would understand it). Don’t set fuzzy goals. An example of a clear goal would be: Writing a 3 paragraph blog post once a week (have it due every Tues at 5pm, publish on Wed at 12pm).

Just saying that you’d like to do more YouTube videos or blog posts isn’t enough, you need to be explicit and write down exactly what you want to accomplish.

Put the goals in a place in your office where you can see them daily or weekly if possible. I’ve read that it’s good to move things around at your desk every week or so, so that you still can SEE them. After a while, you can’t really see a piece of paper, especially if it’s been sitting in the same place for week. Mix it up!

*Have Someone Hold You Accountable!

This could be a colleague, a mentor, or a business coach. Personally I found it hard to hold myself accountable to goals and noticed a huge change when I promise someone I’ll get something done. Be sure to maintain this accountability on some kind of schedule. Perhaps meeting with your accountability person every 2 weeks or once a month. Explain and give valid reasons why you didn’t achieve a goal and have your accountability person help you re-evaluate the goal to make it more attainable. Also, celebrate when you have accomplished your goals!

*Look at Your Habits Over the Last Year

Did you have hurdles in your business that caused you to slow down or not accomplish what you wanted? I’ve seen it happen with myself and colleagues, we become afraid of finishing that one step that will lead to bigger and greater things such as hiring an assistant, investing in software that will free up our time, partnering up with a colleague, and many more.

Take a look and examine those hurdles and figure out some strategies to help you break free to them. Incorporate the strategies into your goals.

*Use Visual Aids

Having visual triggers can help keep you motivated as well as provide you with a daily dose of inspiration. I wanted to double my web hosting customer base over the last year. My office mate wanted to help me, so he created a graph to reflect my current customers and how many more I needed to reach my goal. Every time I got a new customer, I would physically stamp a little deer on the chart. I can’t tell you how excited I got very time I signed up a new customer and had the chance to add more deer!

*Break Goals into Bite-Size Chunks

Don’t forget to break the goals into weekly, monthly, quarterly, and yearly goals. This can help you reflect on data and numbers in different ways and give you an overall sense of where your business is going. Many times, business is seasonal, maybe you have a slow time in Quarter 1, but always double your sales in Quarter 2. Perhaps you sell a lot of products around holidays, so you can set more timely goals and plan to market for those occasions!

*Reward Yourself

If you do make your goals, be sure to have a way to reward yourself. This could be as simple as taking a day off, getting a massage, or doing an activity you love, but don’t make time for (golf, hiking, skiing, camping, etc). Sometimes the best rewards are making memories with family and friends.

Dream up those goals out and be creative. Imagine that they are as important as the supporting posts in your house. Without the posts, the house would collapse. They are necessary for a house and how it functions, just like in your business!

I came across this –The Theory Of Multiple Intelligences, written by a professor Howard Gardner from the Harvard graduate School of education. He argues that the school system only recognises one of these.

There are 7 Intelligences which I will summarise and make it as short as possible

Verbal- Linguistic; People in this area learn best by taking notes, listening to lectures and reading. They tend to be good at reading, writing and memorising words and dates. School is relatively easy if you are strong in this intelligence.

Logical-mathematical;Those gifted in this intelligence, are good in maths. They are comfortable with numbers, numerical problems, logic and abstractions. Students with this intelligent do very well in traditional educational environments and often become “A” students. Many go on to be engineers, scientists, doctors, accountants.

Body – kinesthetic; These students are gifted physically. They learn better by moving around and doing. Professional athletes, dancers, actors, models, surgeons, fire fighters, soldiers, pilots, racer drivers and mechanics are often gifted with this intelligence.

Spatial; This intelligence is strong in art, visualization, design and solving puzzles. Students with this gift tend not to do well in traditional education environment They do better in schools that focus on art, design, colour and architecture. These students go on to become artists, interior designers, fashion designers and architects.

Musical; This intelligence is sensitive to music, rhythm, pitch, melody and timbre. This intelligence does not do well in traditional education setting. This student is better of in musical environments of learning such as schools of performing arts.

Intrapersonal; This intelligence is often called emotional intelligence. It deal with self refection and being introspective. It refers to having a deep understanding of oneself, knowing own strengths and weakness, what makes one unique, with the ability to handle reactions and emotions.  This intelligence is crucial in high stress environments and is crucial for success in almost any field or profession.

Interpersonal; These people are communicators, usually popular and extroverts, displaying sensitivity to others’ moods, feelings, temperaments and motivations. Person gifted with this intelligence does well in school, especially in popularity contests such as running for student government. These people usually go into sales, politics, teaching and social work.

I grew up in a society that favoured one group of intelligence over the other. If one was not good in maths, or the science subjects, you were deemed , “dofo”, which means dull, or stupid. And sadly if one excelled in the not so popular intelligent group, you were still deemed as a dofo.

How ironic that all the above are listed as gifts and intelligence group. How empowering is it to know this.

Food for thought. Which one do you fall into, and more seriously how can you use this knowledge to help you go after your goals?