From Greek philosophers and Roman emperors to Renaissance scientists, authors and painters, the fundamentals for achieving a fulfilled, happy life has been documented, spoken about and lived for thousands of years. Yet today, most people struggle through life in states of misery, stress and unhappiness. Why is that and what are these fundamentals that, if practised, lead to a happy fulfilled life?

Below are just a few of these fundamental principles you can follow to give you a fulfilled, stress-free and happy life.

Discipline

Everything flows back to this one trait. Without discipline you will always choose the cake over the healthy option, you will always drink that one too many glasses of wine and you will always choose the sofa over a thirty-minute jog or walk. It is your self-discipline that will catapult you towards achieving many of the goals, ambitions and objectives you set for yourself. From losing weight to creating a successful blog you need the discipline to take action every day to make these outcomes happen.

No excuses

We humans seem to be much better at coming up with excuses about why we cannot do something than we are at coming up with reasons why we can do something. We seem to have reversed things somewhere along the way.

There’s an old saying: “energy flows where your focus goes” which means if you spend all your time thinking of reasons why you cannot do something, all your energy will be focused on finding excuses for not doing it. The most common ones being, “I’m not ready yet” or “I just have to do this first” or “I don’t have time”. Whenever you find yourself saying these excuses, you need to mentally check yourself. Recognise immediately what these are — excuses — and take steps to remove them from your thinking. The best way to do that is to have this conversion with yourself:

I don’t have time to write a blog post this week

Why is that? What is taking up all my time?

I have to do this first.

Why? Why is doing that first so important?

I’m not ready yet

Why? What do I need to do to be ready now?

Asking these “why” questions forces you to recognise you are making excuses and opens your thinking to finding reasons to overcome these self-imposed barriers. It’s a process called ‘interrupting patterns of thinking’ and is very effective at preventing you from making excuses.

Whatever it is you want to accomplish, stop making excuses and instead make a list of all the reasons why you can, should and must do something. Just this one act of writing out all the reasons why you can do something will start to make whatever it is you want to achieve much more likely to happen.

Have a plan

The majority of the people you will meet today woke up without a plan for the day. The only thing on their agenda was probably that they had to go to work. That was it. The only thing they will do all day is follow the instructions of their boss or customers. When they get home, because there is now nobody telling them what to do, they will sit down in front of the TV or binge-watch YouTube videos until bedtime and then repeat the same process the next day.

If you are not planning your days with one or two clear objectives you are going to find yourself in a repetitive cycle of missed opportunities, stress and unhappiness because instead of you setting the direction of your life, you are giving up that responsibility to someone else and their plan for you is never likely to be in your interests it will be in their interests.

Instead, give yourself ten to twenty minutes at the end of the day to look at your calendar, see where you are going to be and plan a few personal projects around them. Schedule thirty to forty minutes of exercise, one hour of reading in a coffee shop or arrange a meeting with a lost friend.

Just the fact you are making a plan to do something constructive for you every day will give you something to look forward to and will give you a sense of accomplishment. It’s that sense of accomplishment that will drive your motivation and pull you towards repeating the process the next day.

Write down your goals

Unless your goals are written down and you review them regularly you will never likely achieve them. Goals give you a direction in life, they help to keep you moving in the direction you want your life to go. Without goals, you will drift. Drift from one career to another, one relationship to another and one job to another.

What is it you want out of life? What do you want to achieve in your career? What kind of relationships do you want? What lifestyle do you want?

Answering these questions will give you a set of goals you can turn into daily actions that will help to take you towards achieving them. The joy and purpose you get by pursuing your goals are worth it even if you never actually achieve your goals.

The ability to focus

This seems to be a lost art. There are so many distractions competing for our attention from social media, advertising and entertainment to people and things that it has become very easy to have our attention hijacked by the latest, loudest thing. If you want to achieve success at anything you must resist these distractions.

People like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Nelson Mandela and Oprah Winfrey never allowed themselves to be distracted by trivialities. They had or have a purpose and they stay focused on that purpose. They knew where their priorities were and that was where their focus went. Remember, “where your focus goes your energy flows”. Focus on the latest and loudest and you will be pursuing trivialities, focus on improving yourself, mentally and physically, and you will become an improved version of yourself.

These five traits and habits will serve you well in life. They will guide you to make the right choices and will be the driving force of taking you from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. These are simple steps but can be difficult to make. It’s up to you to take that first step. Over time you will find they are so ingrained into who you are it will become natural for you to live a disciplined, focused life.

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My purpose is to help 1 million people by 2020 to live the lives they desire. To help people find happiness and become better organised and more productive so they can do more of the important things in life.

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