A report from Lifescope's "How2Win@Life" Series.   How to get what you want from life... Happiness can be attained via a simple (but not necessarily easy) three-step process: 1. Know yourself. 2. Decide what you want. 3. Make it so. Several phrases can represent this process -- but we prefer this one: "DISCOVER IT -- DESIGN IT -- DO IT!" DISCOVER IT! Get ready to know yourself better. An appraisal of your life is essential to getting what you want. If you need to get to Chicago in twelve hours, you need to know where you're starting from. A serious self-appraisal may take weeks to complete. How well educated are you in the things you would like to know? How much effort do you put into each aspect of your life? What are your best and worst points? How do you choose your friends, your home, your job and your hobbies? How do treat your friends, family and strangers? How deep is your personal spirituality? You have hundreds and hundreds of special traits, but how well-developed is each of them? Which of your traits are your weakest? What have you accomplished over the past twenty, ten, five, or two years? In the past month? The past week? Today? Who have you hurt?Who deserves better than you've given them? What behaviors have you learned but which no longer serve you? How close are you now to where you hoped you'd be when you looked ahead a year ago, five years ago, or even as a child? Draw upon your courage and self-honesty. Be prepared to cry a little as you review your history and assess the real condition of your life. Humans are far from perfect, and even the minor goals we set for ourselves are not achieved, and it can hurt to see exactly where you are. Draw upon every bit of serenity you have when making this assessment, and always keep in mind you are on a fact-finding, not fault-finding, mission. Whether your strengths match your weaknesses on paper is not important. What you want is a written record of who and what you are in significant depth, a blueprint which you can use as a basis for future growth. Keeping a journal through this process is a very potent tool for discovery. It is often observed that we don't really know what we think or feel until we write it down. Part of the discovery process is as simple as asking yourself probing questions -- perhaps questions you've not thought or dared to ask before. The answers that come out of you will astound you. Their depth and power will impress and empower you. The time and emotion spent in such an appraisal is tiny indeed compared to the value you will receive from it. Make a victory log during this process, and include everything you ever did which you didn't think you could do. This is vital! It will provide you with enormous inspiration when faced with a problem you don't think you can overcome. These are not only real-life success stories, they are your success stories -- proof positive that there's more in you than you might think. These experiences provide the energy you'll use to power the shovels which will move mountains in the future. Regardless of what you call it: Victory Log, Success Stories, My Best Side -- keep it handy and refer to it often. This will be a valuable document in the tough times that inevitably come. DESIGN IT! [to top] Decide where you want to go. Most people fail because they don't set goals worthy of themselves. If they do, they do not live each day in pursuit these goals. This, and every other step outlined here, is a requirement to living successfully. When you set your goals, make them better than you've done before, but make them achievable. But don't set them too low either, or you'll be breezing through life, bored and unchallenged. Set goals for each day, for the next week, month, year, two years, five years, twenty years, and fifty years (regardless of your age). Be definite about what you want. Write your goals down and use as much detail as possible. Make them firm... for the moment. You will find as you achieve certain things that some goals will have to change, and that's fine. Just don't go around changing your mind every time the wind changes or you won't know which way is up. Set as many goals as you like, and include among them: what you'd like to be doing, where you'd like to go, what you want for your family & friends, what kind of person you'd like to be, how much you'd like to be earning, your net worth, your health, personality, education and spiritual growth. Keep your daily goals confined to activities which will lead to accomplishment of your long-term goals. Don't be afraid to set goals. Mistakes can be corrected; doing nothing cannot be corrected. The next step takes no real effort, and strangely enough, it is the most difficult step for the average person to take. DO IT! [to top] It's time to commit! Make the decision to achieve those goals, to strive for the things you want which will make your life and yourself all that much better. Make that commitment from the heart, not just the lips! It will take time to really feel that commitment, and regularly reviewing the goals you've written down will make it possible to truly feel that commitment. You'll go through agonies at first and wonder if any of this is really worth it, and that's the point most people give up. Remember this and you'll look forward to that agony. Every change comes with pain. It hurts to be born, to fall in love, to pass an exam, to run a marathon. Once you start feeling that pain, know it for what it is -- your old self screaming for life. Let your old self win and your future self loses! Once you pass through that barrier of pain between what you are and what you want, you will know what it is worth every bit of discomfort. You've been through it before, and you'll need the memory of past incidents where you've made it to help you get through it. You'll need the support of others, too. So consider the people with whom you spend most of your time. If they are not as interested in improving themselves as you are, it's time to expand your circle of friends to include those people, and make them the best you could want. Choose friends who inspire you in your quest for a better life. The final step is so simple and so tough. It means sacrificing immediate pleasure for real satisfaction down the road, so if you're not ready to make the trade, go back two steps. Persist! Spend every moment of your life in the most effective, efficient way possible in the pursuit of your goals. If you are uncertain that this is the best possible use of your time, then you should re-examine your goals. Nobody spends all their time as effectively as possible. You'll never be able to do this as well as you will want to, but that's fine. The degree to which you can tune your desire to the things you want and discipline yourself to do the things that lead to getting them -- will determine how successful you will be. Regardless of how weak you are now, you can and will increase the value of your time and actions. You will win more happiness than you might think fair only if you keep your failures in perspective. Think of them as lessons and gain something from them. Use your successes as a well of strength on which you can draw when you're ready to quit. These simple steps are the true secret to getting what you want out of life. It has been proven time and time again by great thinkers down through history. The words may change, but the ideas are timeless. For centuries men and women have tried to find ways of making this simple set of guidelines more complicated and more difficult to understand and follow. Most of them succeeded admirably. Getting what you truly want is so difficult precisely because it is so simple. Humans are very complex beings and thrive on making things even more complicated. It might help to remember that the foundation of every religion, belief, system and philosophy that has worked its way into a culture and taken root is based on personal happiness. In every case, the likelihood of achieving happiness is increased by reducing things to their simplest possible elements: DISCOVER IT -- DESIGN IT -- DO IT!