1. Don’t decide what you want. If you do decide what you want, don’t think about why you want it. And if you do decide why you want it, commit to believing you can’t have it.

“If we don’t change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are going.”

Chinese Proverb

2. Don’t do things on purpose.

“Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted, but getting what you have, which once you have it, you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.”

Garrison Keillor

3. Don’t stop working for a living.

“Work is more fun than fun.”

Noel Coward

4. Don’t know what you value in life (and if you do, lose sight of it).

How different our lives are when we really know what is deeply important to us, and keeping that picture in mind, we manage ourselves each day to be and to do what really matters most.”

Stephen Covey

5. Don’t spend any of your time in the future.

“Never let your memories be greater than your dreams.”

Doug Ivester

6. Don’t have any goals.

“An average person with average talents and ambition and average education can outstrip the most brilliant genius in our society if that person has clear, focused goals.”

Brian Tracy

7. If you do have goals, don’t put them in writing, and if you do, don’t think too big.

“A study conducted by David Jensen at UCLA covering a broad range of people from every walk of life concluded that people who set goals and develop a plan of action to reach them are happier and healthier, earn considerably more money, and get along better with the people at home than do people who have no clearly defined objectives. Consider this happiness factor as you set yoiur goals.

Zig Ziglar

8. Don’t plan your priorities.

“If you wish to know your past life, look to your present circumstances. If you wish to know of your future life, look to your present actions.”

Buddhist saying

9. Don’t involve other people.

“You can have everything you want in life if you just help enough other people to get what they want.”

Zig Ziglar

10. Don’t have a mentor or be a mentor.

“The fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.”

Hada Bejar

11. Don’t get advice from people you’ve never met or are dead.

“If i have seen farther than others, it was because i was standing on the shoulders of giants.”

Issac Newton

12. Don’t take action right now.

“You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

Henry Ford

13. Don’t get feedback on your actions.

“To learn anything other than the stuff you find in books, you need to be able to experiment, to make mistakes, to accept feedback and try again. It doesn’t matter whether you are learning to ride a bike or starting a new career, the cycle of experiment, feedback and new experiment is always there.”

Charles Handy

14. Don’t adjust.

“It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

15. Don’t get even more feedback, don’t be flexible…(you get the idea).

“Rules for being human. You will learn lessons. There are no mistakes - only lessons. A lesson is repeated until it is learned. If you don’t learn lessons, they get harder. Pain is one way the universe gets our attention. You’ll know when you’ve learned a lesson when your actions change.”

Anon

16. Don’t practise continuous improvement.

“Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way. If only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.”

Winnie the Pooh

17. Don’t wear a parachute.

“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”

T S Elliot

18. Don’t change your beliefs.

“If i have a belief that i can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if i may not have it at the beginning.”

Ghandi

19. Don’t stop having a deep fear of failure and of making a fool of yourself.

“Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is.”

German proverb

20. Don’t take personal responsibility for your life and results.

“First, recognise that you are not a sheep who will be satisfied with only a few nibbles of dry grass or with following the herd as they wander aimlessly, bleating and whining, all of their days. Separate yourself now from the multitude of humanity so that you will be able to control your own destiny. Remember that what others think and say and do need never influence what you think and say and do.”

Og Mandino

21. Don’t stop believing in luck.

“Success is a matter of luck. If you want proof, ask any failure.”

Earl Wilson

22. Don’t expand your comfort zone.

“If at first you DO succeed, try something harder.

Ann Landers

23. Don’t use inside-out thinking.

“Mind is the master power that moulds and makes, and man is mind, and ever more he takes the tool of thought, and shaping what he wills, beings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills. He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; environment is but his looking glass.”

James Allen

24. Don’t put things in before you try to take things out.

“They’re only putting in a nickel, but they want a dollar song.”

Song title

25. Don’t control your moods.

“I’ve suffered a great many catastrophes in my life. Most of them never happened.”

Will Rogers

26. Don’t transform your language.

“Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.”

Pearl Strachan

27. Don’t talk and think about what you want.

“Man invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.”

Lily Tomlin

28. Don’t go to the movies.

“Formulate and indelibly stamp on your mind a mental pattern of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade - and your mind will seek to develop the picture.”

Norman Vincent Peale

29. Don’t stop being an unthinking dog.

“If dogs could talk, it would take a lot of the fun out of owning one.”

Andrew A Rooney

30. Don’t ask “How do you do that?”. Don’t act “as if”. And don’t be naive.

“I pretended to be somebody i wanted to be, until i finally became that person. Or he became me.”

Cary Grant

31. Don’t change the meaning of things.

“I can’t say i was ever lost, but i sure was bewildered for three days.”

Daniel Boone

32. Don’t stop thinking only about money, money, money.

“If money is your only hope for independence, you will never have it. The only real security that a man can have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience and ability.”

Henry Ford

33. Don’t have a good laugh.

“Smile well and often, it makes people wonder what you’ve been up to.”

Satchel Paige

34. Don’t be creative or innovative.

“Creative thinking may mean simply the realisation that there is no particular virtue in doing things the way they have always been done.”

Rudolph Flesch

35. Don’t think of your own idea to go there.

“A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip, and worried to death by the frown on the right man’s brow.”

Charlie Brower

36. Don’t stop always taking “no” for an answer.

“I realised early on that success was tied to not giving up. Most people in this business gave up and went on to other things. If you simply didn’t give up, you would outlast the people who came in on the bus with you.”

Harrison Ford

37. Don’t be grateful.

“In our minds, we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful but rather gratefulness that makes us happy.”

Albert Clark

38. Don’t commit ot lifelong learning.

“Progress might have been all right once, but it’s gone on too long.”

Ogden Nash

39. Don’t step up. Don’t do extraordinary things.

“The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”

Ghandi

39.5 Don’t stop doing everything by halves, that’s if you do anything at all.

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

From “How To Be A Complete And Utter Failure In Life, Work And Everything” by Steve McDermott