Supritha S

Otherwise we end up with too many possessions that evoke negative emotions: shame, guilt, regret, revulsion. When you look in your closet, chances are half the clothes in there make you feel bad for one reason or another.

While most people get demotivated and off–track after a bad performance, a bad workout, or simply a bad day at work, top performers settle right back into their pattern the next day.

The originators of these and other ideas didn’t begin with status, affiliation or convenience, but that’s what ended up working.

If you step too far outside the bounds of your normal performance, then nearly all of the forces in your life will be screaming to get you back to equilibrium. If you take massive action, then you quickly run into a massive roadblock.

“Every morning I would start with 120 paper clips in one jar and I would keep dialing the phone until I had moved them all to the second jar,” he told me.

Best of all, practicing renunciation of this sort doesn’t come with a feeling of martyrdom. You don’t have to wall anything off or deprive yourself of frivolous pleasures. The option’s always there. You’re just adding a new pleasure to the list of possibilities, and for once, it’s a kind that stays with you.

Creating an everyday habit isn’t quite trivially easy, but entering a number on a chart is about as easy as it gets. There’s something immediately satisfying about it, regardless of the numbers. It’s interesting, and often fun, to see what in your life affects your numbers, and what your numbers affect in your life.