Do you ever regret agreeing to something?
Maybe you said yes when you should have said “no”.
You said yes to a meeting that you knew was going to be a waste of time. It was unproductive and stopped you getting “your work” done.
You didn’t say no to that urge to opening up your emails and responding every few minutes. Then you got to the end of the day and the non-urgent but high priority goals were not achieved.
You ended up saying yes to a project from a customer that had an unrealistic deadline that you knew was wrong. Then they turned on you and blamed you for not achieving their goals.
Learning to say no is a skill that we need to nurture.
Life is a constant tension between conflicting priorities. Making the right decisions. Weeding out the non essentials from the priority tasks that will make a difference to our lives.
We need to be better at saying yes to dedicating our valuable time to doing the work that matters. Declining other people’s demands.
Saying “No”
It is often the difference between success and failure.
That is just one of the success habits that we need to nuture. Here are 3 books that will transform your thinking on success habits.
Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less
Less is more.
That is what this book by Greg McKeon is all about. Busyness and saying yes too often to other people and tasks that are not important are always threatening to turn our lives into manic activity.
Stopping us from being effective and productive. Threaten our well-being.
According to the introduction on Amazon:
“The Way of the Essentialist isn’t about getting more done in less time. It’s about getting only the right things done. It is a systematic discipline for discerning what is absolutely essential, then eliminating everything that is not, so we can make the highest possible contribution towards the things that really matter.
By forcing us to apply a more selective criteria for what is Essential, the disciplined pursuit of less empowers us to reclaim control of our own choices about where to spend our precious time and energy – instead of giving others the implicit permission to choose for us.
Essentialism is not one more thing – it’s a whole new way of doing everything”.
One of my biggest life battles is the daily priority of making life simpler but still successful. That is the core message of essentialism.
This is a must-read for anyone who wants to create success habits with proven tactics.
Principles: Life and Work
Life and work are not separate. But sometimes we like to put them in boxes.
Ray Dalio founded an investment firm, Bridgewater Associates in 1975, out of his two-bedroom apartment in New York City.
Forty years later, Bridgewater has made more money for its clients than any other hedge fund in history and grown into the fifth most important private company in the United States, according to Fortune magazine. So his message has some powerful social proof.
In this book he distills decades of learning and experience into his secret potion of principles.
One of the most insightful concepts was his principle of systematizing decision making. Using algorithms to make sense of the massive amounts of data that confront us every day.
Ray has taken the art of living to a whole new level. He has developed his own method, which is his science of success. Not as an academic but as a practitioner.
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do In Life and Business
The nurturing of good habits is something that will transform your life.
In the past it was an art.
Today we have discovered and are developing insights into the science of habits. In this book by Charles Duhigg he reveals research that will surprise you. He delves into the habits of individuals, organisations and societies and exposes the golden rule of habit change and why transformation occurs.
There is one quote in the book that resonated with me.
“Small wins not combine in a neat, linear, serial form to reach your goals…..small wins are scattered”
That reality has been proven in my life where what seems a random combination of micro-habits merge to make life the successful adventure we aspire to.
If you want to transform your life then this book about the thrilling edge of scientific discoveries that explain why habits exist and how they can be changed is worth reading.
Want more?
Here are a few more books that got onto my reading list.
Check them out.