Asking others who are strong in areas where you are weak to help you is a great skill that you should develop no matter what, as it will help you develop guardrails that will prevent you from doing what you shouldn’t be doing.

Because it is difficult to see oneself objectively, you need to rely on the input of others and the whole body of evidence.

If you are open-minded enough and determined, you can get virtually anything you want.

Use the 5-Step Process to Get What You Want Out of Life

Have clear goals.

Prioritize: While you can have virtually anything you want, you can’t have everything you want.

Don’t confuse goals with desires.

Decide what you really want in life by reconciling your goals and your desires.

Don’t mistake the trappings of success for success itself.

Never rule out a goal because you think it’s unattainable.

Remember that great expectations create great capabilities.

Almost nothing can stop you from succeeding if you have a) flexibility and b) self-accountability.

Knowing how to deal well with your setbacks is as important as knowing how to move forward.

Identify and don’t tolerate problems.

View painful problems as potential improvements that are screaming at you.

Don’t avoid confronting problems because they are rooted in harsh realities that are unpleasant to look at.

Be specific in identifying your problems.

Don’t mistake a cause of a problem with the real problem.

Distinguish big problems from small ones.

Once you identify a problem, don’t tolerate it.

Diagnose problems to get at their root causes.

Focus on the “what is” before deciding “what to do about it.”

Distinguish proximate causes from root causes.

Recognize that knowing what someone (including you) is like will tell you what you can expect from them.

Design a plan.

Go back before you go forward.

Think about your problem as a set of outcomes produced by a machine.

Remember that there are typically many paths to achieving your goals.
