DOING WHAT MATTERS MOST:
ROADMAP TO THE LAND OF SIMPLE

By Bill Cottringer



Shhh…stop, shut down your brain and listen for a moment. The land of simple is beckoning us! Alvin Toffler was right in his 1967 Book Future Shock. We are victims of the current chaotic overload, and the gap between those who are trying to keep up and those who have given up is widening by the nanosecond. We have those who try to know and those who only know they don’t care. Most of us are somewhere in between, but perched on a slippery slope.

I have been a student of personal development and success all my life, but my mind is about to explode with all the good information on this topic that is currently overloading the Internet and the bookstores. So, I am doing what matters most. I am writing a roadmap to the land of simple for myself and all those others who are tired of overload. And all I have to do to have a best-seller is keep it simple. Because that is what most of us need to get what we want—inner peace from the turmoil of chaos.

Enough is enough. Up with simplicity and down with complexity. Who wants to undergo major brain surgery or a complete personality makeover, to be successful? Not me! I have always preferred the K.I.S.S. principle. By the way, getting this simple title to come to mind wasn’t easy. It is a real challenge to wade through all the mountains of good and bad ideas to find out what matters most and to then be able to just say it. But now I have to keep with the spirit of the simple title in all that I am saying from here on out. Every word has to count.

If we are to take this personal development stuff seriously enough to make progress at getting the inner peace we want, then it is probably time to focus on the few things that matter most. That means we can delete the other 95% useless BS nonsense, which is easier done than said for obvious reasons. That should be a relief. My mind can certainly use some breathing room. So here is a user-friendly roadmap to The Land of Simple. More is not better, less is, at least for now! These are the ten simple things we can concentrate on in silently chanting a new mantra: “Control the few controllables, and let go of all the rest.”

WRITING A PERSONAL LIFE PLAN

This plan doesn’t have to be anything elaborate or fancy. It can be as simple as filling in a few blanks, such as coming up with reasonable answers to the five main questions we all have about anything we try to do:


• Why am I here
• What am I supposed to be doing?
• How do I know if I am doing it right?
• What’s in it for me?
• Where do I go when I need help?

Not wondering enough about these questions was the one thing that a group of over 100 year old seniors regretted most in their long lives. The next thing on their regret list was not taking enough chances in living their answers. But, better late than never in finding out what does matter most, right?

HAVING THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE

What matters most is leaning in the direction of having a positive attitude about life, especially when things aren’t going your way. It is easy to get discouraged and negative when things go sideways, but adversity is a real test of your character and your best response is to step up to the plate and hit a home run. What I will always emphasize to my children and grandchildren is: Dream big, believe in yourself, and let your imagination run wild.” Research about such an optimistic viewpoint towards life proves its value: Optimistic people live longer, are happier, make more money, have fewer physical complaints and stay married longer. Aren’t those the things that matter most?

PUSHING DOWN THE TOWER OF BABEL

I am sure you have noticed that we are way too wordy, that the volume and velocity of information is overwhelming and that good communication is a rare commodity. In fact miscommunication is the norm. Since talking and writing are our main ways of dealing with each other, it does matter to fix our verbal and writing skills and push down the Tower of Babel. Keep it simple though: Talk once and listen twice, and think about what you want to say, say what you mean and say it clearly and simply. And try to avoid the unproductive habit of assuming you can interpret non-verbal behavior correctly, without clarifying what is or isn’t meant. That is where most of the problems occur.

BUILDING BETTER RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships are deteriorating today because we aren’t focusing on what matters—doing the simple things that build good relationships like listening, accepting, giving, loving, including and being assertive when something offends your soul. The one thing that wastes the most time and doesn’t really matter is the futile effort to change someone else’s thinking and behavior. You will only end up frustrated and annoy the other person. As Garfield says, “Love me, feed me and never leave me.” That sounds like he knows what matters most in building good relationships. And there is one other thing that really matters—what starts out right usually has a better chance of finishing right. Being with the right person is something on which your inner voice either agrees or disagrees. It is your mind that gets you confused.


FINDING THE SUCCESS DOORS

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel to be successful. Nor do we need to be hard-wired with fantastic genetic endowments. Success is open to everyone, because we each get to choose how to define it for ourselves and how we know if we have it or not. Fortunately there are plenty of clues left behind by people who have already traveled this road. And the good clues are all behind three doors: Successful thinking, passionate determination and social skills. Successful thinking is doing what matters most to help you get from where you are to where you want to be. Passionate determination is doing what you like to do because it feels good to do it. It is in your blood. Social skills are simple too. They are being likeable, communicating well and doing what matters most to build good relationships. These three success doors only seem to be invisible because they are so close to your natural self.

LEARNING, GROWING AND IMPROVING

I think what gives me more inner peace than anything else is when I feel confident I am making an honest effort to learn, grow and improve into my best self. This is what I am convinced God wants from me and how my life will be judged. I also know I like to be loved unconditionally and accepted for who I am, first—foibles, oddities, limitations and all—and then gently encouraged to improve. These are the two voices I hear God speaking in to the whole universe. But one other thing I have learned the hard way is to work more on my strengths than worrying about my weakness. That is because it is my strengths that matter most. All I have to do is avoid getting into precarious situations that exploit my weaknesses. And a lot of times silence and listening are good forms of self-protection.

KNOWING HOW LIFE WORKS

By now The Secret is out, thanks to Oprah, Larry King and The today Show. In case you have not yet read the book, seen the video, or watched these shows, The Secret reveals a fundamental truth about how life works: Positive energy attracts positive realities and negative energy attracts negative realities. It is quite simple. You get what you ask for. What matters most about the secret is why most people have difficulty in tapping into its awesome power. Some religious folks say it is too spiritual, but I say look closer and you will see where it is coming from. But that takes believing and applying all these other things that matter most. If you are not getting what you want, consider how you may be asking for it in the wrong way. That matters a lot.

REPAIRING SOME REALITIES

What matters most, is to become sensitive to the few things that bring tears to God’s eyes and take a stand to do whatever you can to stop these tragedies. The older we get, the less reality-repairing we feel compelled to do and so these tragedies that do need repairing stand out even more. Some things do need our interventions and to ignore them is reckless and irresponsible. You can recognize them when you feel a burning in your soul that says, “no” very clearly and decisively. They are non-negotiable.

BEING REVERENT, GENEROUS AND APPRECIATIVE

These three virtues represent the championship aspects of humility and activate the awesome power of The Secret. When you learn to want what you have—by treating everything reverently, enjoying what you have and being generous with your gifts—you will always have what you want. And you can take that to the bank. This is the fundamental process of giving to get. It works because these three virtues matter in helping to join these nine other simple things that matter in bringing about inner peace.

LIVING A GOOD LIFE

I guess if you do all these other nine things that matter most, you are living a good life. For me a good life is defined as using my gifts to be successful in helping others to be more successful in find their inner peace. That is what matters to me most. What matters to you most?

We have made life more complicated than it needs to be at this point in our evolution. It is time we consider agreeing to simplify and restore some reasonable order in this mountain of chaos we all helped create. That is the only way to close this gap between those who know and those who don’t. We all have an obligation to help each other to get to the finish line together. That is what matters most.

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security, Business Success Coach, Sport Psychologist, Writer and Photographer from Issaquah, WA. He is author of Passwords To The Prosperity Zone, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, and The Bow-Wow Secrets. Bill can be reached for comments and questions at (425) 454-5011 or bcottringer.pssp.net