In life, you don’t get what you want, you get what you work for.

Here are some ideas for making it happen:

1. Every morning ask: “Is this what I want for myself?”

Whenever the answer has been “no” for too many mornings in a row, you know it’s time to make a change. If you follow this principle a lot of life’s big decisions are actually pretty simple.

Long-term happiness is the settling of your soul into its most appropriate spot. This spot contains the ideas, passions, people, and places that move you.

Accept responsibility for making these things possible in your life. Know that it is you who will get you where you want to go, no one else. Be honest with yourself. If you catch yourself following the crowd on automatic pilot simply because it’s the easiest option, it’s time to pause and reflect. Read Quitter .

2. Turn your dream into actionable steps and execute.

Action breeds results. Slice your big-picture dream into a set of small goals and meet them.

Execute, execute, execute. You are responsible for getting things done. It always comes down to your actions. You choose: either action and results or inaction and excuses. You can’t have both.

The pain of discipline is far less than the pain of regret. Do what you have to do – 100% of it. No one has ever given a dream their best shot and regretted it.

3. Take a few small steps every single day.

Don’t build mountains in your mind. Don’t try to conquer it all at once. Take everything in stride, one step at a time.

When you seek instant gratification you make life unnecessarily painful and frustrating. When you choose instead to treat each moment as an opportunity to make a small, positive, long-term investment in your future, the rewards come naturally.

Although each individual effort may seem to have no effect when you make it, at some point you’ll look back and realize the momentous impact your efforts created once they were added together. By moving at this sustainable pace, you’ll be able to continue moving forward for as long as it takes to get precisely where you want to go.

4. Exercise rock solid self-control.

Your ability to restrain an impulse by cross-referencing your moral values and goals creates the essence of your long-term happiness and success.

You are never going to get what you want until you learn how to do what’s right even when it feels wrong. Every time you do what’s right by a decision of your will using discipline and self control to go beyond momentary feelings of weakness, you get that much closer to what you want.

5. Practice until you’re an expert, and keep practicing.

In all walks of life, achieving greatness is a choice. Practice makes it possible. You are what you practice most.

Whatever you decide to do, do it well. Do it so well that when others see you do it, they enjoy it so much that they want to come back and see you do it again, and they also want to bring their friends along so they can show them how incredible you are at doing what you do. Read The Success Principles .

6. Mind your thoughts and your words.

Understand the power of your thoughts, and guard them more closely. Understand the power of your words, and prefer silence to anything negative. Through your thoughts and words you create your own weaknesses and strengths. Your limitations begin in your mind where you can always replace negative with positive.

So stop worrying about negative scenarios that are merely figments of your imagination. Allow your thoughts to encourage you rather than hinder you. Focus on the moment in front of you. Free yourself to deal effectively and successfully with what is real and what is now.

7. Surround yourself with people who lift you higher.

You are the average of the people you spend the most time with. The great danger of being around negative people is that you start to become like them without even knowing it.

Relationships must be chosen wisely. Bad company corrupts good morals and human potential. There’s no need to rush into a relationship you are unsure of, or associate with those who hold you back.

8. Give back.

The great Zig Ziglar once said, “You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.”

For it is in giving that we receive. In other words, what goes around comes around in this world. As we work to create light for others, we naturally light our own way. Read Better Than Good .

9. Create balance.

Be diligent and committed to your work, but also make sure you leave time for pleasure and exploration. It is not enough to succeed at one specific goal; you also have to take part in the different dimensions of your life – while you can, while there’s time.

Lift your head up from your work every now and then and take a long walk, hold hands with your beloved, go fishing, spend time with your friends, swim, bask in the sunlight, try something new, meditate, breathe deep, or sit quietly for a while and contemplate the goodness around you.

In other words, balance yourself – work diligently, but don’t ignore every other aspect of your life. Keep your mind fresh, your body active and alive, and your relationships nurtured. Do so, and the things you want most in life will come more naturally.