【Text, Pictures/Selected from Mactan's "You Just Didn't Forge Yourself to Be Happiness", author Ronald Hande-Sander]

We always have a lot of excuses. And unsurprisingly, many of them are our fathers’ favorite excuses. We use these excuses to explain, rationalize, and set limits ourselves to illustrate why we can’t do something. That's why we can't get promoted. That's why we can't tell the truth to someone. That's why we won't make ourselves feel excited before our first appointment.

Do you know how to tell if you are creating excuses? Money test. You have to ask yourself: If I give you one hundred, two hundred, or even five million dollars (you can choose a number), will you go to work at a time, drive a little slower, be less angry, be more patient with your children at midnight, find a new job, quit sugar, happily pick up your companion (and do this often), etc.?

It's still time to say that you can.

But would you do this? This is another problem (the gut appears). You see, suddenly, as long as you have the right reward (in this example, money), you can change anything in your life. This leads to the next question: Why are you and your dreams not worth it?

No matter which field you are in, when the result is different from what you say you want, you must find out what your favorite excuse is in this field. Once you start hearing your favorite excuses, you can start to see their true faces: dreams collapse.

I found that there are eight basic excuses to see which one sounds very familiar to me.

1. Don't care: You convince yourself, no matter what it is, you don't want or need it. For example, for a new position, the workload will be too large anyway ……

2. Passive: What happens in life will happen, not you can control it. For example, TV programs fascinate you, you don’t know where to go at night ……

3. Translation: You are born like this, you can’t have different performances, and everyone in your family is like this. For example, your father is not sociable and your mother is criticized.

4. Victim: Nothing is your fault, you can't do anything. For example, if you want to relate to customers, they drink alcohol, so you must drink it. You've been fucked because you're having sex with your friends.

5. Everyone is like this: it doesn't matter because everyone is doing this or not. For example, no one of your married friends has sex.

6. Past and Precedent: You have never done this before. You've tried it many times, but never succeeded. Why is the situation changing now? For example, you are not allowed to call, remember your birthday, and are not good at managing your time for a long time.

7. This is the thing: what you want is impossible to get. For example, if you have a sad childhood, you just can't get through this relationship. You will never be able to have a good life in that area.

8. Do it: When you have finished doing things, no one should ask you to do more, because forcing you to tighten may destroy you. For example, you have been married for twenty-five years and have raised your children, who can ask you for more, etc.

Everyone has his own favorite excuse. In fact, excuses are clever. After all, it allows us not to do what we don’t want to do, and allows us to explain why we can’t fill in the blanks. No matter it, we have permanent guarantee of no loss, and best of all, that's not our problem, it's a loss of excuses. However, what you pay for is your happiness, self-esteem and pride.

We all know how to make a promise. But how can we keep our promises? This is another matter. We'll deal with this part later. Regardless, there are a few basic points for making commitments here. The difference between these square signs and the tips of "How to Dream" in Chapter 1 is not too big. Why are you narrated? Let’s take a look at these small-font attachments that talk about humans: we are sneaky, and unless specifically specified, we are so smart that we won’t explain it specifically.

1. Be practical: You must make sure that the promise you believe can be done. For example, it may not be the best promise to guarantee yourself that you will be in the Luxury Festival today. After smoking for thirty years, you promise to quit smoking tomorrow. This may be great, but it is not practical. Since smoking is difficult, it is more reasonable to gradually reduce the amount of cigarettes and to formulate an inevitable war break.

2. Ask yourself to work harder: To determine your promise, you need to work harder yourself. Promising to use teeth every day (unless you don’t usually use them) just means that you don’t like being clean and not being too hard, right? But promises to drink a few glasses of water every day, make an appointment for mammograms, call your brother you have been hiding, and finally go to see your parents’ newly bought apartment (it’s been over a year!), these are all good promises. Go and do what you have been procrastinating. Go and do what comes to your mind when I start mentioning promises. Oh, you know, that one (or twelve).

3. Remind again and be clear. Your promise cannot be stretched. To be sure that when you promise, you should also answer these questions: How often do you do it? How long does it take to do it? At what time? How much to do? For example, "I will be better with the assistant", "commuting less", "record my expenses more", etc., these promises are all great, but what is the real meaning? Your promise must be free of loopholes. I'll call my brother on Sunday and talk to him for at least twenty minutes. I send five gifts of my life every day and tell three different people about my dreams every day. I contact three potential online appointments that I like every night. Do you see some of these promises different? They don't have much space to wonder if you will keep your promises. The only answers are "yes" and "no".

4. Use powerful language. When it comes to promises that need to be kept, using some honest and slippery words such as "hope", "try" and "but wish", which won't work. For example, the promise you make is like "I will play a table game with my daughter every time I pay tribute", which is very different from "I want to try to develop a relationship with my daughter."

5. Managing the external world: When we travel, how many of us blame the airport or flight (when free food is provided on the plane) that prevent us from controlling our diet? Think about it. For example, if you know there is a party on Saturday, you promise to only eat dessert once a week, so you are very smart to wait until the party is available. We are not naive and ignorant, so don't be stupid.

6. Hear this joke. The more you ask for a promise and follow it, the more you need that promise.