May God give you the strength to overcome difficulties and the confidence to walk on the difficult road to success!
Learn To Take Risks
“Self-knowledge is the beginning of self-improvement.” Baltasar Gracian
Your life may be so boring and fade because… err, you made it like this? When was the last time you tried something really difficult? When was the last time you challenged the odds of doing something risky? Do it now. The ability to take risks is a fundamental ingredient of your life. We often associate the reward of a certain action with the risk involved. If there’s no risk, we usually don’t value the result either. We end up living a life without value. Taking risks is not easy. It’s not a game and it should not be treated like this. You can lose some things, but you can also win other things. Exercising your risking capacities is one of the most rewarding, yet consuming, I admit, ways of enriching your life. No risk it, no biscuit, they say, and they say that for a good reason.
Start Your Own Business
Be your own boss. Work your own hours. I know, it sounds so shallow, for you, who hate your job but still have to stay there because of that mortgage. Well, unless you make the first step, nothing is going to change. That’s for sure. When I started my own business, I did it mainly out of curiosity. Money wasn’t a key ingredient in my decision. I was making a decent living as an employee. But I was curious how a not so decent life would look like. A better life, that is. There are risks involved, that’s for sure. But the reward is fantastic. It’s not the freedom you get. It’s not the money, although it does count. It’s the ability to control the throughput of your generated value. You can give as much as you want. Starting your own business means giving more of what you can offer and receive more of what you can get.
Change Your Work Space
Clean up your desk. Re-arrange furniture. Add some color to that space. Make the place where you work really enjoyable. So enjoyable that work there won’t be perceived as work anymore. It will be something you love to do. I love to change my workspace every now and then. Because I consider that workspace to be a mirror of my thoughts. Imagine how would you feel if you would think the same thoughts day in and day out. They have a name for that: being crazy. Small changes in the workspace around you can have a huge impact on your life. Not only you can become more productive, so to speak, but you will feel that every day is unfolding in a different way. Changing your workspace around should give you the feeling that work is in fact just a disguised holiday. Until the real one starts, of course.
Learn A New Language
Challenge your mind. Constantly. If you’re going to do number 10, you’re going to learn some new languages too. From my experience, learning a new language is a fantastic mind opener. Sometimes you don’t even have to travel there. And if we’re talking about languages, remember that we do live in an information era. Everything is language. Try learning simple things related to this like HTML. Or, even simpler, try to learn the meaning of emoticons in a chat. Back to real languages, every time you describe reality in a new way, it will expand. So, every time you will name the same thing in different languages, you will actually re-create that thing. This is why I consider polyglots to be very rich people. Try describing the part in your life you want to grow in different languages. You’ll be surprised by the results.
Find Reasons To Agree
Rather than disagree. We have this mindset of competition which makes us constantly arguing over things. Well, stop that. You don’t have to force yourself into the agreement, if it’s not the case, just trying to find some reasons will be enough. There’s also another subtle implication of this approach: whenever you force yourself to see the resolution of a situation, rather than its potential conflict, you help the resolution manifest and throw away the conflict. It happens more often than you think. Changing your approach to conflictual the situation has great growth potential because we do live in a conflicted world. And the most constant friction in this world is the one between the old and new. Finding reasons to agree rather than disagree will feed harmony and starve worthlessly conflict.
Pay Yourself First
You can’t give something if you don’t have it. You can’t spread light onto others if you don’t have light from within. You can’t give wealth to others if you don’t have it for yourself first. Make yourself a service and pay yourself first. I’m all in for altruism but for real, sustainable altruism. I’m not buying into people who can’t take care of themselves but at the same time, they’re preaching giving as a religion. If you want to give something, you have to have it first. Paying yourself first is another way of saying that you have to make more than you need prior to giving to others. Depriving yourself for feeding others won’t solve the problem. Have more love, have more money, more happiness, then start giving away. Pay yourself first in order to have more for others. Then giving will just come in naturally.
Wake Up Early
This is not a habit, this is a lifestyle. Don’t just wake up early without a purpose. Be early. Be there before others. Look for opportunities and embrace them. Waking up early means keeping your eye open to every available opportunity. This is not a contest: who is waking up earlier than the other. This is a new perspective: being there before any other person will. Being first at your own business office before your employees. Creating a certain type of value before somebody else does it. Many people think that just by waking up early they’ll be better. That’s not true. Waking up early without a clear purpose will just clear some more time for procrastination. First, find out what you want to do with your life, then squeeze every second of your time doing it. Waking up early means in fact creating your day, instead of taking it for granted.
Train Your Focus
Your focus is in fact your reality. Use it wisely. Train it constantly for it will enhance your reality in ways you never imagined. Keep your focus sharp as a razor blade and be prepared to experience life in fantastic shapes and colors. Let’s make this little exercise: take your eyes out of the book and look at the wall in front of you. Now, which is part of your reality? The book, or your wall? You may think it’s the book, but it isn’t: since your focus changed, all you have in your reality now is the wall in front of you. It’s the same in all areas of your life. If you focus on your problems, even if you think you have their solution, you will just make them grow. It’s like looking at the wall while ignoring what you have in your hands. The problems will become more real than their solutions. Your focus is on creating your reality: whatever you focus on it will grow.
Start A Blog
On whatever topic you want. Not only it will give you the opportunity to create something new and valuable but it will also bring new people into your life. Blogging is far more than hype, is a personal development tool. A very good one. Many people think a blog is just an instrument for making money. To some extent, it is. But it is also much more than that. A blog will structure information and will allow you to express it in a different way and to a wider audience. In many ways, a blog can become your personal brand. And if you don’t know what a personal brand is, maybe it’s time to find out: a personal brand is an immaterial version of you, working for yourself even when you’re not there. And a blog can help you create that version of you faster than any other tool. Maybe you think your life is not good enough to blog about it. Well, you’ll never find out until you really try.
Write An Ebook
You may think you don’t have a talent, but that’s completely wrong. And the easiest way to prove it wrong is to start writing an ebook. Any ebook. You pick the topic. It might be something you know or want to learn about. Write it. It’s fun. An ebook is something different than a blog. It’s like a story on something you really know. Maybe your only talent is cooking. By all means, write a book about cooking. There are also 1 other million books on cooking? So what? There is no end to human creativity and your presence on this earth is the biggest proof. You’re unique, You’re special. Even if you think you don’t have anything to offer, you have. Just think of the one thing you know to do best and start writing about it, The rest will follow. An ebook is a very easy way to let other people know you exist and have something to offer. Something as unique as you.
© Jay Plus 2024
The Global Bookshelf 