Are you choosing to live a happy, fulfilled life?
That’s right, studies have proven that ninety percent of the factors that make the difference between a happy life and an unhappy life are factors within your control. One life hack proven to help unlock your best life is setting, pursuing, and achieving goals.
But you don’t have to take my word for it; many other people are proving this point every single day. They are setting goals, doing the work and building the life of their dreams.
Don’t Take My Word For It, a new Operation Melt blog series, shares how other people – people just like you – are choosing to achieve happiness through their goals.
Yes, you can choose a happy life, but don’t take my word for it!
Amuse-Bouche Before we jump into today's post, I offer you this "dad joke" as a light "amuse-bouche" to entertain your mind before we get serious. Like any other amuse-bouche, you may hate it, but it is worth every penny you paid for it, right? What do you call a bear with no teeth? A gummy bear.
How To Overcome Your Fear And Do Hard Things
Surprise Life Coach explores the goal success strategies, tips and mindsets found in the most unlikely places. From television shows to movies to music to books and more, life coaches are all around us, hidden in the most unexpected places. We simply need to pay attention, and we can reap the rewards from this free coaching.
This week’s edition of Surprise Life Coach will be very brief. Between working on editing my new book and prepping for and running a half marathon on Saturday, I chose to de-prioritize this week’s blog. But I didn’t want to skip a week because I have committed to you (and to myself) that I will publish weekly. So I will share an important (and more relevant than ever) lesson from a surprise find three years ago.
It was March 2020 and the early days of the pandemic. In Columbus, almost everyone had suddenly moved to work from home. All non-essential businesses were ordered closed, and some were forced to be carry-out only. A small group of people were protesting and making threatening statements online – many of whom still deny there was ever a virus. People were scared, and none of us knew what would come next. We were all just doing our best to get through it.
One morning, I took a walk to get a coffee from a nearby shop. They had recently been forced to end in-store dining and limit the number of fully-masked customers allowed inside. They also were unsure of their future.
As I walked out the door with my coffee, I spotted the following words stenciled on the ground.

It was a timely reminder that being scared and intimidated by a challenge is ok. But we each have the strength inside us to rise to that challenge. “You can do hard things.”
Drawing From Your Strength
Do you want an easy tool to help you draw from your inner strength? Refer to your change resume.
What’s a change resume? I’m glad you asked. A change resume is a tool to remind you of the hard things you have successfully achieved in your life.
Here’s how to create your change resume:
- Spend a little time with a notebook (physical or digital) and reflect on situations when you’ve experienced a difficult change in your life.
- In one sentence, summarize the challenge you were facing and the surrounding context.
- In a second sentence, summarize the successful outcome that you achieved.
- Finally, list three to five bullets detailing the strategies you employed to achieve your successful outcome.
In the future, you will continue to be confronted with hard things you want or need to achieve. If you start to question whether or not you will be able to succeed, refer to your change resume. It is a good reminder that you have lived through one hundred percent of the hard things in your life. It is also an excellent resource for identifying strategies that have worked well for you in the past.
A change resume provides a factual resource to prove to yourself that you can do hard things. You’ve done them before!
Do you need some help boosting your confidence and devising your strategies for conquering your hard things? This is something I would be happy to help with as your coach.
Click here to learn more about my coaching services.

Meet Coach Tony
Tony Weaver is a master life coach, technologist, consultant, writer, and founder of Operation Melt.
He helps project managers and other left-brained high-achievers pursue their biggest goals.
Through free resources, personalized coaching, and his proven Project Manage Your Life system, Tony empowers clients to move their dreams from “someday” to success — one step at a time.
Learn more about Project Manage Your Life, the system my clients and I use to crush our goals, at OperationMelt.com/PMYL/
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