Hope is the cocaine of the self-improvement industry.

Who sounds like they might be more successful next year, is it:
a) “I’m hoping that next year I’ll find some time to start a business.”
b) “I’m certain next year I’ll have more time to start a business.”

You tell me. But yet, a lot of gurus sell hope, and it’s a great product to sell…

Hope is beautiful.
Hope has no chance of failure.
Hope is effortless and easy.
Hope is addictive.
Hope has you going back to those seminars making you feel so good.
Hope sucks and is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Hope is crippling people’s desire to take action.

Nothing wrong with feeling good, but if you’re doing it with Hope, you might as well snort a like of coke while you’re at it. 

The hope for a tomorrow that’s amazing will feel good, it will feel reassuring, and almost feels certain. But it’s not Certainty.  If you’re certain, you’re certain tomorrow will be better, but if you’re hopeful, you only believe there’s a chance.

Hope can live for years in people’s minds. The only thing that destroys hope is Certainty. If you feel certain of a tomorrow, you’re inclined to take action to do something to make it happen.

However, if you try that new business idea you hope will succeed, and it fails b/c no one is interested, then you no longer have hope. Instead, you have certainty – because you’re certain it failed, which is not nearly as fun as having Hope for a year by dragging your feet, but Certainty is infinitely more productive.

Stop giving yourself permission to feel good from hope, otherwise it becomes addictive, and then you won’t want to take any risks of losing hope by trying anything that could possibly fail, which everything can.

So sober up…Get off the hope drug and destroy it with Certainty.