The purpose of practice is to have something you don't know, so you don't worry about what you don't know. The best way to learn is when you don't have to be perfect. Practice in the moment. A good idea is not necessarily a great idea; it's the taking of action toward the idea, not the idea itself, that is the key. "When you take a risk, you grow a possibility." - Charles V. Keating I learned yesterday in practice that if you don't know something, don't tell yourself that you know. Take what you think you know and work on it. Don't start from "I have an idea." Instead, go where there's the least resistance and find your way there. Sometimes that way is unexpected, and in that case, practice how to get what you want when you're lost. No matter how brilliant your idea or how good your research or how expert your thinking, take it step by step, in practice. As you do that, practice making things up when you don't know the next step. Just say "next step" in a nice tone of voice, and take one small step. Just like in life, there's no going backward in practice. "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool." -Richard Feynman Don't get hung up on how to fix things, but on simply trying to do something, without giving it a name. In practice, everything is in motion. Take a step every day. Work on one area for thirty days. Take a step every day, and in five years, you'll have a very different idea about things. That's the point of practice. Take a step every day. Make it big and small. Don't worry about the outcome. The process is what is important. Be consistent and make sure you stick with it. There's a difference between the beginning and the end. Keep going. I remember hearing people say that one of my books, Living the 80/20 Way, has helped them. As a matter of fact, it did help me. I wrote the book with the ideas that would serve me, as I was able to change some things in my own life as I read it. "The 80/20 Rule of Practice is about learning from experience and making it a better, more powerful experience." Practice is not an end in itself. At the end of each week, you want to feel a little bit better and a little bit smarter. At the end of the month, you want to feel a lot better and even smarter. At the end of a year, you'll have made a huge difference in your life. You have a better understanding of your world and of yourself. Through practice you can change your life, and through change you can get closer to what you truly want. Make sure that you find out what is the next practice. For some reason, it seems that if I have a couple of ideas on the same subject, the most recent one I'll hear more often than the others. I want to be sure to pass this onto you: If you have more than one idea, do not waste your time on them all. Only pick the most promising one. "I don't know what I think until I see what I say." - Ernest Hemingway The person who's wise is the person who knows how to have a good idea - have more ideas - and practice and practice and practice. It's about practicing how to find your way, and it's only about taking action. You can do it; if I can, you can do it. What I'm talking about here is about taking responsibility for yourself. You don't have to worry about all of the problems that are in the world. Just know that you have to be responsible for yourself. If you take responsibility for yourself, you have to be aware that what you do you will feel good about, or bad about. You'll have good or bad experiences, good or bad results, good or bad reactions. If you practice taking responsibility for yourself, you'll find that you become more and more responsible in everything you do. You'll know how to feel good and bad, or how to feel good and bad about your experiences. You'll know how to feel good about yourself, how to feel yourself responsible, and how to take responsibility for yourself. "He who cannot change his mind cannot change anything." -George Bernard Shaw If you don't get this and just assume that I'm talking about being smart, then please remember that I'm talking about what makes it through for the most part, which is in the practice. And through practice and effort you learn how to feel happy, how to feel sad, how to feel guilty or how to feel nothing, you learn how to respond. When you take responsibility for yourself, you can do this and you can become one with the universe. The next time you want to practice taking responsibility for yourself, think of the word responsibility. Think about how it feels when you are responsible. Think of an example of something where you can be responsible for yourself. You can be responsible for yourself in small things like making good decisions, giving constructive criticism, and taking care of the environment. Think about how you would like to be responsible in the future. Become involved in something that makes you feel great about yourself. Become involved in something that gives you a lot of responsibilities. "Be responsible. That is the secret of every true success." -Unknown Take some time to become good at taking responsibility for yourself. Practice it, because it's important. Practice makes perfect. Remember, this is about responsibility. As soon as you have some responsibility, then you'll see how to make it better. When you have a better idea of how to make it better, you'll see that you have a lot of responsibility. I can tell you that this is how you make it better. So, practice taking responsibility for yourself. Some say that taking responsibility means not complaining. Well, of course you can take responsibility without complaining. In fact, it's better if you don't complain. When you complain about something, you're saying that there's something wrong with it. When you complain, you're just showing your unwillingness to fix the problems. In my case, I don't complain, because I know that I'm responsible for myself. "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them." -Albert Einstein The next time someone asks you to do something, it's best not to go with it. Don't just say yes, and then say no later. Take responsibility for yourself. This is what's most important. Take responsibility for yourself. The only way that we can improve our lives is by practicing. That's the only way we can get better at anything. That's the only way we can get better at relationships, at making money, at making peace. It's by practice that we become better. We do this by taking responsibility for what we do and we practice the skills that allow us to do it. "If you want to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be great, practice generosity. And if you want to be number one, practice joy." -Wayne Dyer When you practice, the best ideas come to you. When you practice, you make a little bit of a difference in the world, and when you make a difference, then there is a change in the world. I'm not saying that the world changes, but the energy that is in the world changes. When we change, the energy that is in the world changes. When you change, you'll make a difference in the world, and the world will get better. "The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we can imagine." -J.B.S. Haldane The next time you need to practice taking responsibility for yourself, just do it. Just make a list of what's important to you, and then take responsibility for yourself. If you practice this every day, then one day you will be responsible. And after one day, you'll know how to take responsibility. This means that you'll see that you are responsible. "I have two daughters. I want them both to have two children. That's what I'm responsible for." -Joan Collins If you have good ideas about how to take responsibility, this list will help you know how to take responsibility for yourself. The list will help you learn the skills you need to take responsibility. It will teach you how to make things better. Remember, you have to be responsible for yourself. You have to learn how to feel good about yourself and how to take responsibility for yourself. Learn the skills so that when something bad happens to you, you'll have the skills to handle it. The list is not meant to be used to put other people down. Instead, it's meant to be about you. You should be able to understand what's in the list. I know that some people get upset when they read it. It's up to you to figure out why you react the way you do. "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." -Joan Crawford There are always problems, and I'm not talking about big ones here. The problems