Are you choosing to live a happy, fulfilled life?
That’s right, studies have proven that ninety percent of the factors that make the difference between a happy life and an unhappy life are factors within your control. One life hack proven to help unlock your best life is setting, pursuing, and achieving goals.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; many other people are proving this point every single day. They are setting goals, doing the work and building the life of their dreams.
Don’t Take My Word For It, a new Operation Melt blog series, shares how other people – people just like you – are choosing to achieve happiness through their goals.
Yes, you can choose a happy life, but don’t take my word for it!
Amuse-Bouche Before we jump into today's post, I offer you this "dad joke" as a light "amuse-bouche" to entertain your mind before we get serious. Like any other amuse-bouche, you may hate it, but it is worth every penny you paid for it, right? Where do bad rainbows go? Prism. Thankfully, it is just a light sentence.
Surprise Life Coach: 5 Success Secrets Hidden In Frasier
Surprise Life Coach explores the goal success strategies, tips and mindsets found in the most unlikely places. From television shows to movies to music to books and more, life coaches are all around us, hidden in the most unexpected places. We simply need to pay attention, and we can reap the rewards from this free coaching.
In this week’s edition of Surprise Life Coach, I am sharing five life success secrets hidden in one of my favorite television shows: Frasier. In full transparency, it was hard to identify just 5 strategies because this show was packed full of success tips. Many of these tips don’t even come from the show’s trained psychiatrists, Frasier and Niles!
Our Choices Define Us, Choose to Be Happy
Frasier was upset that an author stole a story from his life to write a popular novel. He decided to approach the author and give him a piece of his mind. This causes the author to realize his error, apologize profusely and tell Frasier that he owes him everything.
After getting exactly what he hoped from the exchange with the author, Frasier was still unhappy and said as much to his father, Martin Crane. In response, Martin shares this important life success strategy.
Our lives are defined by the choices we make. We can look for the negative in every situation and make ourselves miserable. Alternatively, we can look at the positive side of the story and live happily. I think the choice is pretty clear.
Change is a Constant, Be Ready to Adapt
A caller to Frasier’s radio show explains how she fell into depression after ending a relationship with her boyfriend. She mentions that, after eight months, the pain hasn’t gone away, and it feels like she is mourning. That’s when Frasier shared the following poignant advice.
We all make plans and envision the life we think we will live. But the only constant in the universe is change, which means those plans may not work out. If we learn to be adaptable and accept changes, we could end up in a better place than we ever expected.
I’ll share a personal example. Ten years ago, I would never have expected that I would be living a fit, healthy life. I also didn’t expect to be a published author running my own self-improvement business. None of that was in my plan. But fast-forward to today, and I am happier than ever with my life.
Follow Your Heart, No Dream is Too Weird
Niles Crane, Frasier’s brother, has an opportunity to write a book but has pushed off the deadline multiple times with writer’s block. When his publisher visits him to check on his progress, he suggests Niles collaborate with his brother to write about sibling psychology. Frasier is not interested in this venture, and Niles works to persuade him. Niles tells Frasier that he needs help to make a life-long dream come true.
While this quote is funny, it highlights a serious life lesson. We all have different dreams and goals that we want to pursue. If we let judgment get in our way and think that our dreams are too weird, we may never achieve them. How strange was the airplane, the telephone or the automobile when they were invented?
The world needs your weird dream… follow your heart and go make it happen!
You Might Fail, But That Doesn’t Mean You Shouldn’t Try
In one of the funniest episodes, the Crane family heads to a ski lodge for a weekend retreat. Martin was cooking up a batch of hot buttered rum for the group, and he reflected on the last time he drank it. He drank a lot to find the courage to propose to his now-deceased wife and how he almost chickened out. That’s when he shared the following life lesson about courage and regret.
Fear is a natural part of life, and everybody has it. Being courageous doesn’t mean you don’t have fear; it just means you do it anyway. If you always play it safe, you stay in your comfort zone, and that’s not where you find fulfillment. If there’s something that you want to do, don’t hold back. Put yourself out there, take a risk despite being afraid and be willing to fail.
Failure isn’t something to be avoided; every failure is simply a lesson that moves you a bit closer to success.
Don’t Go It Alone
The final life lesson from Frasier comes from the episode Shrink Rap. In this episode, Frasier and Niles open a shared private psychiatry practice. Predictably, this endeavor turns out not to be a good idea – well, more like a catastrophe. A series of escalating disagreements and fights crescendos with a potted plant being thrown out the window.
A couples therapist from the same office steps in and tries to help the brothers. The retelling of the story and a series of trust exercises go horribly wrong, and the therapist delivers his diagnosis of the brothers. They are “pathologically mistrustful of each other, competitive to the point of madness,” and should go their separate ways. Reflecting on this damning diagnosis, Frasier has the following epiphany.
It isn’t easy to objectively assess our own lives; we are just too close to the situation. But you don’t have to manage all of life’s challenges alone. Having a friend, trusted advisor, or especially a coach can be your secret weapon to accomplishing more than you ever could have done alone.
Accountability partners, a team of experts, cheerleaders and truth-tellers are all critical allies in your journey to achieve your goals and live your best life. As the old proverb says, “if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together.”
Are you ready to go further than you thought possible? Maybe it is time to work with a coach. Click here to learn more about my coaching services.
Meet Coach Tony
My name is Coach Tony, and I am a coach, author and project manager on a mission. I am working to build a world where no goal ever dies of loneliness.
I almost allowed one of my biggest life goals to die without ever being attempted for forty years. My goal almost died, not of failure but of loneliness. But, I took a risk and leveraged a simple, logical process that helped me wildly exceed my goal.
I transformed my life, and you can do the same with the help of Operation Melt.
Operation Melt provides engaging, practical content and hands-on coaching to inspire, motivate and equip project managers and other left-brained high-achievers to pursue and accomplish their biggest goals.
Breathe new life into your goals
Download my free ebook to learn how to create goals that actually work and get the jump-start you need in life!
Breathe new life into your goals
Download my free ebook to learn how to create goals that actually work and get the jump-start you need in life!
