Part of the guide: Personal Brand
I like to think I know a lot of people. I also like to think I know a lot of people who are happy, as well as many who aren’t. As a kid, I always used to appear happy, but underneath it all, I was unhappy. I wanted more than I had. I carried on that way for a long time, all the way into the years I started Network Marketing and actually started making A LOT of money for the first time. The truth is, I didn’t ever reach my income goals or break through in business until I figured out how to be happy with what I had.
Here are just 5 common habits of happy people:
1. Don’t Aim For Perfection
I used to be a perfectionist. I strived for excellence in everything I did. The only place it got me was nowhere. After years of being a total perfectionist, something profound happened that changed me. I ended up spending 12 months too long on a project. I realized I set the launch date for March. A year had passed and it was March again, still working on this project. The problem was I wanted everything to be perfect. It was supposed to be a 3-month project but took four times as long simply because I wasn’t accepting anything less than perfect. If I settled for good enough, I would have launched four more projects in the same time period.
There is only one thing you can do to stop perfectionism; settle for good enough. Good enough is the middle ground between perfect and good. Good enough is often better than perfect. It will take you far less time and allow you to get things out the door faster. You can always change things after they are released, published, or whatever it is. Set a deadline, work towards that deadline, and finish on the deadline. If the work is so bad that you couldn’t possibly finish it on the deadline, allow yourself a little more time. Don’t use ‘good enough’ as an excuse to be lazy, but don’t go overboard and spend twice as long on something to make it slightly better.
2. Be Kind & Help Others
One thing you’ll notice with all genuinely happy people is that they are kind to others and physically help them. There is no greater joy in life than helping others achieve their dreams. It’s my dream to help others achieve their dreams, my purpose, and to make money doing it. If my bad habits have taught me one thing, it’s that karma exists. There is this weird universal law that gives you back what you put out into the world. Consciously, physically, and unconsciously. Help as many people as you can at all times. Whether it’s taking your parents for lunch, believing in someone when no one else will, or giving $10 to the homeless lady on the side of the street.
3. Give More Back Than What You Take
Another habit touching on number 2; give back more than you take. If you have an employee who’s making you a lot more money than you’re paying him, find another way to give back to him. Whether it’s a career advancement, business advice, coaching, or a cash bonus. Always give back more than you take. It always results in more prosperity and happiness for you.
4. Gratitude
Gratitude is another one of those universal laws that seems to always be in motion. If you’re not grateful for what you have now, you can’t be happy and you’ll have a difficult time attracting anything more than you already have.
You were never meant to do this alone
Reading this changes nothing. Doing it with people who show up changes everything. That is the whole difference between the people who transform and the people who keep starting over.
Start free →5. Self Belief
Happy people tend to have a lot of self-belief. They believe they can do whatever they set their minds on because the reality is most people can. I’m sure you’re not going to grow a pair of wings and fly to Mars any time soon. But building a business, reaching your income goals, and moving into that dream home; your goals should be inevitable in your mind.
In Prosperity,
David Wood
P.S. Leave me your thoughts, comments, and questions in the box below!
Comments (carried over from the previous site)
John Doe, February 12 2013, 15:30
This article really resonated with me. I’ve always struggled with perfectionism. Thanks for the great tips!
Jane Smith, February 13 2013, 10:45
Great article! I especially loved the part about gratitude. It’s something I need to work on more.
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You spent a year on a three-month project chasing perfect — did the extra nine months actually change the outcome, or just the launch date?
Built a script that force-publishes the draft at 11:59pm on deadline day no matter how finished it feels. Solves the ‘good enough’ habit for me since I clearly can’t manage it manually — turns out the fix for my perfectionism was just removing my own veto.
A script? You mean you set an alarm. My mother called that ‘a deadline’ in 1974 and never needed code to enforce it.
Force-publishing works when the thing is genuinely eighty percent there. I’ve seen plenty of people use the deadline trick to ship something that was forty percent there and call it ‘good enough’ because the alarm went off. Rare that it’s actually ready. Not impossible — rare.
Give back more than you take. Convenient rule for whoever’s on the receiving end.
Roy’s right that it only runs one direction as written. Model it as a loop — give, observe what comes back, adjust the ratio. Written the way it is, there’s no stop condition. Eventually someone needs to notice the loop isn’t closing.
Tomas is right there’s no stop condition in the post, and I don’t think that’s an accident. I spent eight years on the field development side of a large direct-sales company, and ‘give back more than you take’ was practically doctrine — we taught it to every new leader. What I can tell you is why: a downline that keeps giving without asking what it’s owed is enormously convenient for whoever sits above it, and the habit gets dressed up as virtue instead of what it also is, which is an incentive structure. I’m not saying David built this post to serve that. I’m saying the phrase does useful work for people who never examine why it feels so noble to keep giving.
Help as many people as you can at all times, it says. I work nights. Some weeks there isn’t enough left over for me, let alone the woman on the corner.