This brings us to another one of our success principles – upgrade. When things break, or before they break if we’re really on the ball, we can upgrade them to a better model instead of simply replacing them with something similar. If you drop your phone in the toilet, you can upgrade to a phone with a bigger screen, more storage, and a better camera. And you can use that opportunity to clean out your contacts and delete some unused apps. You probably needed to do that anyway.
Here’s the key to upgrading: get rid of the old version. When we replace electronics, appliances, etc., we often hang on to the old version “just in case.” But have you ever actually gone back to the old version? Let’s say you buy a new vacuum because your current one doesn’t pick up dirt like it used to. That’s great. But often, if the old one still “works” – meaning it still turns on – we tend to hang on to it in case the new one gives out. Here’s where we need to be honest with ourselves. If the new vacuum breaks, which probably won’t happen for at least a couple years, are we more likely to start using the old one again, or are we more likely to go buy an even newer vacuum? In all likelihood, that old vacuum will just be taking up valuable space in the closet until one day we have a garage sale and end up giving it away when nobody will give us the five bucks we’re asking for it.