A popular speaker started off a seminar by holding up a $20 bill. A crowd of 200 had gathered to hear him speak. He asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”
200 hands went up.
He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He crumpled the bill up.
He then asked, “Who still wants it?”
All 200 hands were still raised.
“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?”
Then he dropped the bill on the ground and stomped on it with his shoes.
He picked it up, and showed it to the crowd. The bill was all crumpled and dirty.
“Now who still wants it?”
All the hands still went up.
“My friends, I have just showed you a very important lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20. Many times in our lives, life crumples us and grinds us into the dirt. We make bad decisions or deal with poor circumstances. We feel worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value.”
Learning: You are special – Don’t ever forget it!
Simple advice is often the best advice. When you do your best and place your full effort into each and every day, you start to feel better about yourself. Now, your best might change from day to day – and some days, your best won’t be as good as it was the day before. That’s ok. It’s important to remind yourself that you are doing the best you can with what you have, right now – at that moment, on that day, in that situation, with that time frame, your level of skill or knowledge, you name it.
I ask my clients (and myself) this question all the time, whether they’re ruminating over something they’ve said, thinking about what they could have done better, or just disappointed about an outcome they had hoped to achieve. Did you do your best? If the answer is Yes, then there’s nothing more you can do – until next time. When you know you’ve done your best, you have no regrets and nothing about which to feel bad or guilty.
Each time you overcome a small challenge or bounce back from a set-back, you build that muscle. People don’t regret failing, they regret not trying. The more you try, the more you put yourself out there – the stronger you and your self-worth will become – and your motivation will soar. When you attempt to transform yourself for the better, and there is a long list of things you want to do or stop doing, you will be more likely to succeed if you first identify and work on one key habit, on which all the other good habits depend. That habit is called the ‘Master Trigger Habit’. Is there a key habit, which will help you change the other aspects of your life?