• Right click (or control click) anywhere you don’t actually have text
• Select “Substitutions” -> Show Substitutions.
• Click “Text Preferences”
• Click the + sign on the lower left, and add the substitution i and I.
• Then on the Substitutions window select “Text Replacement”

There you go. And the beauty is that you can do this in almost any area where text is available: Textedit, Mail, Addressbook, iCal, Web Sites, etc.

It’s easy, it’s an easy trap to fall into. It’s very easy to complain. What takes work is fixing what your actually complaining about. Taking some action to change, or alter what you don’t like.

To complain you have to look at the negative. You have to notice, point out, and acknowledge what doesn’t work, or what’s not working. To some degree this can be beneficial – if you’re creating something like a book or a piece of music, you have to notice and pick out the parts that you don’t like. The key is that you actually fix them. Just leaving it the way it is, you’ll end up with a crappy book or piece of music. Complaining without fixing will always end badly, and sometimes even as a disaster.

Constantly noticing what’s wrong, and what doesn’t work (without fixing it) in a relationship can be devastating. Take a marriage for example. Picking a part all the negative areas of your spouse would be a catastrophe (and some of us know this first hand). When you focus solely on the negative, you are actually emphasizing those areas, and helping them grow. What you focus on expands, so when you focus just on the negative, you’re actually growing negative. Negative thoughts, actions, reactions, and desires all grow when complaining.

What will greatly enhance your productivity and success is turning complaining into fixing. When you notice yourself complaining, think instead, “how could I fix this”. I’ve noticed successful and productive people, don’t complain much. I think they have trained themselves to bypass complaining, and go directly to fixing. They instantly turn things they don’t like into opportunities. Growth, maturity, creativity, and spontaneity come when you change from complaining to fixing. When you think about how to fix problems you become an asset, you become powerful, and proactive.

When you change your attitude from complaining to fixing, your ability to make and meet new friends becomes much easier. Think of the last time you met someone who, within the first couple minutes talking to them, managed to complain about 2 or 3 different things. You probably left the conversation thinking consciously, “What a downer”, and subconsciously “I won’t be talking to them again”. Complaining can really be a draw back when meeting new people, it just leaves them not wanting to spend time with you. On the other hand, when you meet someone with a fixing mind set, and a resolution to use problems as opportunities, the attraction to spend time with them suddenly grows. People love an up beat person who doesn’t complain and fixes problems instead of talks about them. Plus, when people see someone creative who can solve problems, and has the inner oomph to actually change things, they have an affinity for that person. Whether they conscientiously know it or not, people find ways to be around fixers, they instinctively know they’ve got something they want.

A fixing mindset that doesn’t complain will enhance your effectiveness, and ultimately your ability to succeed. Learning to fix problems instead of dwell on them changes your whole outlook. You become more productive, proactive, effective and creative. It takes action and usually hard work to fix things. It’s a lot easier to sit back and complain about something than it is to jump in an fix it. That’s one reason why people enjoy complaining, it’s a cop out. It takes literally no energy to complain about something. No extra thought or effort. Simply notice what doesn’t work and talk about it – simple. But fixing something, you have to first notice it doesn’t work (the easy part), then take action to think of ways of fixing it. This is not always very easy. You have to be creative, and very proactive, because sometimes the solutions are difficult and complicated.

Next time you see the opportunity to complain about something, ask yourself: Is it worth complaining about? Can it be fixed? And what would be 3 possible solutions to fixing it? If answers pan out to all of these questions, it might be worth bringing up, but only in the context of how you will find a solution for it.

“If you have time to whine and complain about something then you have the time to do something about it.” ~ Anthony J. D’Angelo

Tenacity comes from from the Latin word “tenax”, which means “holding fast”, or “to hold”. It describes holding on to something with great passion, and purpose. When someone is tenacious about something, it means they are holding on to it very powerfully. When someone is describes as tenacious, or as having great tenacity, they are generally a person who has goals and achieves them. They have an understanding that when they want something, they will probably hit obstacles, but their desire to get it done is so great, that they either find a way around the obstacle or they find a way through it.

Tenacity: persistent determination

Tenacity basically asks us: “How badly do you want what’s on the other side of that obstacle”? “Are you willing to do what ever it takes to get what’s on the other side”? People who succeed in life, and get what they want are tenacious. Period. When you become tenacious, and your desire for things start to out way the potential and clear walls in front of them, you become powerful – because you can accomplish anything you want. The more tenacious you are, the more you’ll accomplish. The trick is to build such a desire for things, that the obstacles don’t matter as much, and this can take time.

To build up tenacity, start with small things. Start by desiring to go to bed early, or to get up early, or to buy a CD, or make an extra $10 a week. Something small, that might have relatively small obstacles. Now, the way to do it, is to watch and listen to yourself when you hit an obstacle. You will hit obstacles, and they key is to realize how you respond to them, and learn from this. If you try 1 night to go to bed earlier, and don’t succeed, do you give up and through in the towel? Do you give it 2 nights, 3, 4? In order to grow tenacity, don’t give up, don’t give up until you have succeeded. Be creative, and find ways to accomplish your goal, but don’t give up….ever!

Tenacity also goes well with a little dose of intelligence: Sometimes we find an obstacle that gives us a really hard time, that’s OK. One possible way of getting around an obstacle is to let it go for a time and come back to it later. Often while something is on the back burner, we can think of a great solution to it, and something comes to mind that doesn’t while it’s in our immediate focus. So intelligent tenacity is an even greater asset.

Few things are so tightly tied to our success. Tenacity is definitely one of the highest factors. When I hear the word and can associate it with a person, my immediate thoughts are: work with them, hire them, pay them, get them on my team, they will succeed and help me succeed. There are few greater adjectives I like to hear about people.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: The ability to control ones self, and to use great self discipline, is they key to achieving your goals. In light of that, here are some tips I’ve found that help build and exercise our self discipline.

1. Start Small. Remember What About Bob: “baby steps”. This is one of the oldest, and most common forms of attaining our goals. But it really is one of the best ways to exercise our self control. Makes me wonder what a list of lessons learned from Bill Murray might look like.

2. Recognize Too Big: Sometimes instead of starting small we start too big. If you have told yourself you will do something, and you don’t do it. Shake it off – your not a failure. Simply start tomorrow with something smaller. If it’s not clear how to make something ‘smaller’ be creative.

3. Do it “anyway”. You sit down to read a book, then wonder, “Is it worth it?”. You start to do the dishes, and think, “do I really have time for this?”. You start to get ready to go to the gym and think, “Maybe reading would be a better use of my time”. blah, blah, do it *anyway*.

4. Learn from yourself. What areas need the most self discipline? We are all different, some of us find it very simple to keep the house clean, but yet hate to exercise. If you find some of these areas in your life, observe: 1) What is it you enjoy about the one area, can it be applied to the other areas?. 2) focus more on the harder areas, those will need the most work, and could give us the most results. Why? You will feel much more ‘accomplished’ having finished the harder areas.

5. Work Hard: It’s best to understand that self discipline and accomplishing goals will take work, and usually lots of it. In our era of Internet instant-ness, and fast-everything, something that takes time and work, is very easy to put off, or to rationalize as not important. But the reality is that self disciplined people who accomplish their dreams and goals work hard – very, very, very hard.

6. Imagine Control: Visualize and imagine yourself accomplishing the task. Think deeply about how it feels to be done, how it feels to know you can tell yourself to do something and you do it. Feels good doesn’t it?

7. Use “self discipline” as little as possible. I once read that self control was a finite resource, meaning we all only a limited amount of it. Once we start to run short we start to give in more easily. Therefore some of the best advise I’ve heard regarding self discipline, is to not actually use self discipline at all. Let me explain with an example, trying not to eat the ice cream in the freezer will only last so long, don’t buy it in the first place, and you can use that self discipline in other areas. Practice completely eliminating the use of self discipline in the beginning, and that leaves more reservers for the things that can’t be automatically done, such as going to the gym, or washing dishes.

Self Discipline: Noun The act of controlling or power to control one’s own feelings, desires, or behavior

The words you use are a very powerful tool, period. Take a look at the words you use, and you can learn quiet a bit about yourself. You can also learn a great deal about other people by listening to the words they use. The average person uses about 10,000 words. That’s the limit of their vocabulary. What’s interesting is what those 10,000 words are. Are they powerful words, that produce change, and influence. Or, are they lazy words that don’t produce anything, and most likely leave people questioning your purpose, peace, and value? I want to tweak my 10,000 words – take out the toxic entries that don’t produce anything positive and add new entries that communicate purpose, value, and intelligence. Here we go…

Items to remove:

• I Can’t
• I Don’t Know – Google it, or find the answer.
• Never-mind – Why did I bring it up if it wasn’t important?
• What if – When used to think of negative outcomes.
• Problem(s) – I want to only think in terms of “Opportunities” and “Solutions”
• Cheap – It sounds poor
• Sit – sounds lazy
• Never
• Won’t
• Maybe – there’s no resolution
• Nice – too easy, and none descriptive enough
• Easy – I always shoot myself in the foot with this.
• I have time – Untrue, I almost never do.
• Good/Bad – Don’t judge, just except.
• It will take too long – Doesn’t matter, if it’s worth doing, do it.

Items to add

• Action – it’s always good.
• Plan
• Adventure
• Sure – it’s up beat and positive.
• Can
• Yes – say it with confidence and certainty.
• No – say it with confidence and certainty.
• Important
• Opportunities – There are no problems, only opportunities.
• I love it
• I will
• Thank you – Be nice and courteous.
• Rich – I need to be more used to saying this.
• Wealthy – I need to be more used to saying this.
• Producer – As in “He/She/They/We/I get things done.”
• Possible – Everything is possible.
• Definitely

Obviously this will take some time and work but I believe that with daily attention, and persistence it can happen.

Words may be either the servants or masters. If the former they may safely guide us in the way of truth. If the latter they intoxicate the brain and lead into swamps of thought where there is no solid footing. Among the sources of those innumerable calamities which from age to age have overwhelmed mankind, may be reckoned as one of the principal, the abuse of words. —George Horne.

Words are weapons, and it is dangerous in speculation, as in politics, to borrow them from the arsenal of the enemy. —George Santayana, Obiter Scripta.