Rule Your World!
You may have heard that to succeed, you need to adjust yourself to the world around you.
“You’d better get used to it because that’s just the way it is.”
“To be happy, you must compromise.”
“Don’t make waves!”
Successful people never agree with this approach.
To truly succeed, you must take a different approach.
“Man succeeds because he adjusts his environment to him, not by adjusting himself to the environment.” — L. Ron Hubbard from Self Analysis
You change the world around you. You decide what you want and you get it. You take an active role.
Who are the most successful people you know? Do they mold themselves to fit in? Or do they disrupt things around them?
Jack and Jill
Jack tries to get along and not cause trouble. His neighbor plays loud rock-and-roll music all night long, so Jack buys earplugs. Even though Jack hates all the junk around his apartment building, he just steps around the messes. Jack’s coworker Fred makes Jack drive him to work each day, with no compensation, “. . . since you drive near my house anyway.” Jack feels ripped off, but he never complains.
Each year, Jack develops some kind of illness or needs an operation. One year his sinuses were infected. The next, he broke a toe. The next year, it was severe back pain. After 25 years at the same company, Jack is only making $22 per hour which irritates Jack, but he accepts it as he does not want to lose his health insurance policy and retirement plan. Unfortunately, at the age of 51, Jack gets cancer and dies.
After Jack dies, Jill moves into his vacant apartment, but can’t sleep because of the neighbor’s loud music. She calls the neighbor and works out an agreement so the neighbor plays music during the day while she works, but does not play the music at night when she needs to sleep. Jill convinces this neighbor and a few of the other tenants to spend a few hours cleaning up the junk around the building. They even wash the sidewalk and plant some flowers.
Even though Jill has earned several management promotions and pay increases at her company, she leaves to start her own business and makes it successful. She buys the apartment building and takes over the top floor for herself. Jill is never ill and at the age of 88, still spends a few hours each week working at her company.
Jack adjusts himself to the environment. Jill adjusts the environment to herself.
Are you more like Jack or like Jill?
Recommendations
1. Decide you will find more ways to adjust your world to your needs and wants.
2. Make a list of everything around you that you would like to change. Examples:
- Change my car oil
- Get Fred to pay back the $1000 he owes to me
- Exercise daily and lose 10 pounds
- Reorganize my desk
- Get Lucy and Rickie to stop asking me to volunteer
- Get the city to fix the broken streetlight
3. Select the easiest item on your list and do whatever you need to make the improvement. Do not give up. Make it go right to take command of this one single thing.
4. Go to the next easiest item on your list and make that change. Continue like this through the entire list.
5. Constantly change and improve the world around you. Never settle for less, suffer or stand by as your world gets worse. Make steady progress while maintaining your control of the parts you have already conquered.
As you do this, your health will improve. You will feel happier and more successful. You will rule your world!
Next, discover your personal power with this TipsForSuccess article.