Make the best of every day

 

The other day I came across a quote by Tony Robbins:

The Happiest People Don't HAVE the Best of Everything,

They Just MAKE the Best of Everything. 

This isn’t just a fun word-play, there is a lot behind a sentence like this. 

It holds an important message for societies where people are driven by possession and status. Where we compare ourselves to others based on what we have, not who we are. 

For me, it links back to a core concept of coaching which is called ‘Be – Do – Have’ 

What person do you need to BE, what do you need to DO in order to HAVE what you want.

Be-Do-Have

I have written before about goal setting, see my article “Be Smarter With Your Goals”. When we write down goals, we are very much in the HAVE stage: what do we want to HAVE at the end? The HAVE is typically used as the measurement of success in attaining our goals. 

In order to get to our goal, there are some (or many) steps that have to be taken to get there (important to define these intermediate steps clearly). That is the DO stage. 

To help us do what is required to attain our goal in a congruent and consistent way, it has to be aligned with our core values, or in other words, with who we ARE.

Who we are, will influence our behaviour. If that behaviour is not conducive to our goal, then we need to look at what we can change in our core values to have a more productive behaviour. 

This links perfectly with Simon Sinek’s great advice: Start with WHY. Finding your WHY is the core of leading your own life (or running a company and let’s not forget, our own life is the most important company you’ll ever manage) in a productive and consistent way. 
Simon uses three stages: WHY – HOW – WHAT, which maps perfectly to BE – DO – HAVE.

Do-Be-Have

There are however feedback loops in this system. Our behaviour also influences who we are. In order to change certain values, we can start by simply changing our behaviour. Doing that in a consistent way, will start changing brain patterns and become more and more part of who we are. I wrote about the power of change in my article “You Most Certainly Can Change”

It’s very much “Fake it till you make it”. I can highly recommend to have a look at the amazing TED Talk by Amy Cuddy on body language.

By adopting a body language of energy and confidence we can change our own thoughts about a certain person, task, ...

If you dread talking in public for example, but you put yourself in a posture of power and confidence, and really breath in the confidence through your body, you will already feel a ton more confident when you step out onto that podium, classroom, boardroom, ...

It does not ever take away the important of being well prepared, but I have seen enough well-prepared, people looking as if they were doubting every word they were saying.

The implication was every time that people simply did not take their words seriously, even though some of them were real experts in their field. 

And celebrate every little victory, to help build up more confidence.

Real confidence only comes from experience:

No one is born with self-confidence.

Self-confidence is learned and earned with experience.

-- Denis Waitley  

Conclusion

To come back to the quote:

The Happiest People 
Don’t Have the Best of Everything, 
They Just Make the Best of Everything!

When we now apply our Be-Do-Have system to it:

• BE – Happy: be content with what you have, as I discussed in my article “The Pursuit of Happiness”, surrender to the moment, do not worry about the future or fret about the past.

• DO – Make: from your core being, take action. The best intentions in the world will not materialise if you don’t apply consistent action.

• HAVE – Have: you will end up feeling you do have everything you need, which in it’s turn will increase your feeling of contentment

These days more than ever, be happy with what you have, what you can do. Don’t focus on what is not possible today.  

And like my good friend and fellow coach Frederico Panise pointed out just recently: take action every day, even if it's a baby step towards your goal.