Two Years of Self-Help in 10 Points
Just 5 minutes of your time, too.
So, I stole most of this content. Like most self-help articles, I shamelessly scoured the internet and self-help literature.
I fielded many subjects, from relationship coaching, philosophy, psychology, personal finance, dieting and nutrition. To save you a hundred hours and thousands of pages of reading, I distilled these lessons into 10 rules to live by.
· Don’t force any situation or outcome.
Whether a job opportunity, promotion, start-up venture or love. If it doesn’t happen — it wasn’t meant to be, at least not right now.
This is the crux of both eastern philosophy, Buddhism and equally wise relationship experts. Nobody wants to be with that clingy, desperate person.
Respect yourself enough to walk away — or as Corey Wayne says, “the strongest negotiating position is being able to walk away and mean it”.
Apply this to all facets of your life. I’ve always got the most interest from the opposite sex, newfound business prospects in a state of non-attachment. Now there’s evidence suggesting it’s essential to relationship quality and longevity.
·All kinds of growth are built one step at a time.
Remember the old saying, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
The same is true whether we are talking about creating wealth, getting six-pack abs, exercise or learning a new skill. Enjoy the process. Entire books have been written on micro-habits. The most important step is that tiny first one.
In Jim Rohn’s words, “repetition is the mother of all skill.”
A similar parallel can be drawn to personal finance — where low-index funds continuously invested will eventually produce a staggering return (see Ramit Sethi, Tony Robbins and Benjamin Graham for more). Nothing like the magic of compound interest.
The same can be said with anything you put your mind to. If all life is suffering and our passions are just “wise suffering” (Mark Manson), we might as well direct those meticulous, cumulative and compounding habits into areas that we are most passionate about. Which brings me to my next point.
· Use choice architecture to promote good habits and hedge against bad ones.
I know medium is a cultural mecca and hub for self-improvement junkies (myself included). But I’d call you a liar if you can’t name at least one of your bad habits.
Everyone has them. That makes us human. It doesn’t do you any good by pretending they don’t exist.
I challenge you to embrace this aspect of yourself — at least recognizing you have them and to create some roadblocks that prevent them from taking the steering wheel of your life.
There’s a saying in my line of work — that “environment beats willpower every time”.
Use that to your advantage.
Too much social media? Set a blocker on your phone/laptop that disables access during peak productivity hours.
Have too many drinks or bags of chips at home? Put those brews in your fridge one at a time. Stuff those chips in places you can’t see or reach easily.
Ride your bike to that appointment ..oh shucks, look whose riding home!
· Too much resistance, with very little effort might mean that “thing” is not meant for you.
While resistance, set-backs and failure are essential to mastering anything, too much of it can result in sunk costs. Relationship gurus Mark Manson and Corey Wayne swear by the need to only pursue those who have a high level of attraction for you to begin with.
And you can apply this concept vocationally. I used to think I wanted to be a rock star. The problem was I was constantly late for music lessons, dreaded picking up the guitar and could never hold more than a riff or two (let alone while playing with another person).
What’s meant to be “yours” should cross the holy trinity of what you’re good at, what the market needs, and where your passions lie. This is very similar to the Japanese notion of “Ikigai” — resurrected by business gurus and coaches to help others identify their perfect “market niche”.
If you never experience flow in your work, if you dread getting up each morning to do that “thing”, don’t lie to yourself — course correct immediately. Your health, your spirit, your friends will thank you.
· Double down on your strengths.
We live in a hyper-convenient world. We can get pizza and next year’s fashion delivered to our doorstep yesterday. Not that anyone enjoys a day old’s pizza.
Millions of businesses rely on their ability to pick up your slack. If you have friends, colleagues or coworkers who have strengths that you don’t, work out some mutually-beneficial relationship. This is a key principle in Ray Dalio’s book, “Principles.”
Even better, codify it in your team’s respective roles and responsibilities. Personally, I love researching, writing, and synthesizing information. Project management? Not so much.
Relentlessly free up your time to focus on what you love doing, what you’re good at, and what you can get paid for.
This is why entrepreneurs hire maids. And why Tim Ferris wrote a book about delegating, eliminating and automating away the ennui in his life to pursue his true interests. Which leads me to my next point.
· The best investments are in yourself.
Of course, apply every personal finance’s advice and sock away 15–20%+ of your income into low-cost, diversified investments (e.g., Vanguard index funds). (Did you see my point above about staggering returns — which are also known as the 8th wonder of the world?).
While this is integral to reaching financial goals, the best way to command higher incomes is to reinvest into your education and self-development. What that looks like is up to you.
Each month, I spend a couple hundred of dollars on books. While COVID-19 has been hard on us all it has also opened up the floodgates to online education — from MOOC’s, certificates, entire graduate and undergraduate degrees.
Compare these offerings with the requirements of the jobs or promotions you are seeking — or if you’re a budding entrepreneur, to whatever skillsets you need to realize your own Jeff Bezos kind of future.
· Do something that challenges you every day.
Have you read about the travesty that is helicopter parenting? In efforts to bubble wrap one’s kids from hardship, that same kid becomes crushed upon their first brush with failure (see Angela Duckworth’s book for more).
Don’t be that person to crush the resolve of the next generation. On a parallel note, all growth comes through persistent effort and strategic action against friction.
It comes through exposure to uncertainty and risk of failure. Ask any entrepreneur, ultramarathon runner or dating whiz. Without these, you are never pushed to become a stronger, more capable version of yourself.
Voluntarily putting yourself in harm’s way gets you acclimatized and more welcoming of discomfort. With enough exposure, you can “callous your mind” and failure or fear or rejection starts to sting less. This is the entire premise of David Goggins latest book, “Can’t Hurt Me”.
Seeking out discomfort, uncertainty cultivates grit and non-attachment. It allows you to take the expectation, anxiety out of the equation, which makes prospective dates, employers or business partners, breathe a little easier around you.
· Wake up early every day.
There’s something magical about sipping on a fresh cup of coffee while the half the world’s asleep.
Some well-respected veterans and entrepreneurs talk about making your bed first. How doing that hard task immediately puts you in an achievement-fueled high that lasts the rest of the day.
Even if your first 4 hours are twice as productive as the last 8, you’re still making good use of your time. The beauty of waking up early also rests in knowing that you could have a full work day in by early afternoon — with the rest of the day available to do what you please (or double down on your goals).
Which, leaves me again to my next point.
· Periodically check how you’re allocating your energy, resources and time.
Recognizing that our attention and time is the highest form of flattery, too much of that one thing can become unhealthy (remember my first point?).
Some Indigenous ancestors have always known our health rests on many different types of wellness — from financial, spiritual, emotional, social and physical.
While our attention, nurturing of any of these will inevitably ebb and flow with the demands of the week, be sure to periodically check in on and “audit” these.
Imbalances across these can manifest themselves as insomnia, anxiety, burnout, mental health conditions, frustrated or imploding relationships.
I don’t need to tell you the pitfalls of becoming a one-dimensional person — which is where and how workaholics end up with aneurysms, and guys get divorced without a social life to fall back on. After all, they put all their proverbial eggs in the same — albeit, half attended to, and now empty basket.
Don’t be that guy, or girl or person.
· Listen more than you speak.
This is a basic premise of Dale Carnegie — having genuine, heart felt interest in other people is the crux of good relationships — whether personal, romantic or business-related. Everybody wants to feel heard and seen.
There’s hardly a better feeling — most people will feel better understood, appreciated and sometimes more attracted to the listener by the end of the conversation.
Within a romantic setting, some relationship coaches recommend keeping the conversation “other-focused.” Here, it enshrouds you in mystery and puts the spotlight on them.
As you get more confident in yourself, you’ll feel less of a need to babble away your anxiety or prove your self-worth. But with all relationships — whether personal, romantic or professional — you just go there to give.
Listening with the intent to hear and not to reply is the ultimate form of giving. That is the bed and butter of personal wellness, relationships and business. So act accordingly.
And there you have it, 10 rules to live by in 5 minutes. Now go out there and apply them!
