Succeeding is very easy. All you have to do is believe and think and do what you're told. Failing requires a lot more effort. Let's look at how we can do that:
- Keep your schedule very loose. Even if you agree to do something, think very carefully in the days and hours before you do it whether you really want to do the thing. If in doubt, don't, but leave it right to the last minute to cancel, just to be sure. You know what, don't even cancel. Just don't show up. They'll figure it out. Before adopting this course, ask lots of people what they think, to make sure that, if you can't come up with an alibi yourself, you are delivered a smörgåsbord of ready-made excuses and spiritual justifications for ducking out.
- If you start something, think very carefully whether you really want to complete it. But don't give up entirely. Work in a sort of half-hearted way, stopping and starting, and giving mixed signals. This way you can get all of the drawbacks of continuing without any of the benefits.
- Engage your critical thinking at all times. When advice comes down the line from a trusted advisor, question it, think about it, raise objections, water it down, and find a way of taking it to mean continue doing everything that you're currently doing, just under a new heading. It would not do to trust another person completely, because we're supposed to be God-reliant, not reliant on fallible humans, and this particular human is obviously one of the fallible ones.
- Develop a healthy cynicism. It does no good at all to be one of those credulous milksops that just drinks in old-fashioned notions about God's love or the value of persistence. Be a realist. Nuts and bolts. Evidence. Science.
- Be a modern. This means discounting any idea from the past, on the basis that, like a radio from eighty years ago, it's been superseded. How could any idea from 1939, let alone two thousand years ago, be relevant today? After all, we know far more today, and, as one of those old books says, we have learned to put away childish things. Instead, find the latest bandwagon to jump on, the latest spiritual gimmick, as that's sure to be more effective than something tried and tested.
- Never ever have a daily routine. If you do something helpful one day, make sure you don't do it the next day. If you go to a daily meeting, go three days a week only, as otherwise you're just going to be a robot or a hamster in a wheel. It's far better to be free-spirited, free-thinking, and spontaneous. This way, on the days you do not do the 'usual thing', you'll be very aware of not doing it, which is very good for your humility.
- Be kind to yourself. This means staying in bed late rather than getting up at your usual time or even early, thereby putting yourself one to two hours behind the whole day. This way, you'll be able to cancel even some of the things you do want to do.
- Pep-talk yourself constantly. Give yourself your own ear. Ask yourself what you think about everything, particularly how you're feeling and what you're doing and whether or not you're going to fail and what people are going to think of you when you inevitably fail. After all, who knows you better than you? Who better to ask?
- Whatever you do, do not turn away from intrusive thoughts, particular negative ones. Those are just God trying to get your attention. Everything happens for a reason, so there's a reason for those intrusive thoughts. They mean that you're onto something. Follow them down the pathway to the undiscovered truth which, if fathomed, will give you the key to life and which, if denied or abandoned, will wreck your life stealthily. Even if the thoughts are enemy thoughts, it's better to have them front of mind, so you can keep an eye on them. Heaven only knows what mischief they might wreak if you refused to admit their substantive pleas.
- If you attempt something and it doesn't work straight away or you find it disagreeable, stop immediately, as it's obviously not God's will. Since God is love, if something feels tough, either practically or emotionally, the thing is clearly not loving, so admit your mistake promptly and switch to something else.
- Do not do anything that challenges your ego. You have enough conflict and enough problems in your life anyway without introducing an additional internal war between good and evil. Best to be unified with oneself, in line with Tradition One.
- Try lots of different solutions at once, switching without warning between them. This way you'll keep your options open and give God the space to choose the channel through which He will reach you. It would not do at all to close any of the open doors.
- Show humility by admitting failure promptly. Don't, whatever you do, persist with an indicated course of action in the teeth of the devil's temptations, or you're just being hubristic. God loves a tryer but, as it says in the Magnificat, will scatter the proud and put down the mighty, and this kind of persistence is just what He is talking about. No one loves a goodie two-shoes, and, in any case, Al-Anon has taught you not to force solutions, so lapse back as soon as the going gets rough and re-occupy square one or, even better, square zero.
- You know what? Get off the board completely. It's the board that's the problem!