We are coming up to the final 20, and some of my favorite lessons are still to come! Hope you’re enjoying these as much as I have enjoyed reflecting on what to include. Here we go…
21 – Decide against fear – Control what you can control and don’t let fear get in the way. It can be as simple as choosing not to be afraid and reminding yourself that so often (maybe always) F.E.A.R. is just False Expectations Appearing Real.
22 – Expand the life of your mind – Being alive and being human is about so much more than financial or professional milestones. Take time to regularly feed your brain thoughts and ideas that you’ve never come across and inspiration from other fields. You don’t have to become a polymath, but we all owe it to ourselves to be interesting and interested in the bigger world.
23 – Watch what you are proud of – Measure what matters to you and don’t worry about “vanity metrics.”
24 – Have a plan, but be flexible – The world likes to take liberties with even the most meticulously detailed plan, so have a Plan B, Plan C, and maybe even a Plan D.
25 – Be “there” now – It’s so important to have goals and aspirations and ideals that we are striving for, but the trick to being happy (most of the time) is to find the right balance between striving for what you want and contentment with what you’ve got.
26 – Use the compound effect to work for you – Even small decisions, accumulated over time can have massive impacts. For example, spending just 15 minutes a day on something adds up to almost 4 days’ worth of time over a year. Be careful with the “small stuff” and the “big stuff” will take care of itself.
27 – Track your stats – Keep track of where specifically your time, energy, and money is going. You need to have an objective measure of what you are and are not doing to see where there might be room for correction or redirection. As Plato said, “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
28 – It’s ALL been done before… but not by YOU – It’s so easy to get disheartened or to succumb to comparison-it is when we are doing something new because it seems everyone has already beaten us to it. And the truth is, they have! But whether you’re writing a novel, opening up a café, or starting the next Google, only YOU can bring your you-ness and your take on things to the world. That is enough.
29 – Saturate your mind – Our brains are computers so Garbage In = Garbage Out. Saturate your mind with high-quality, high-value thoughts, ideas, conversation, and inspiration and see the difference it makes.
30 – Sometimes it’s better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission – Enough said.
