Category: Happiness

The 5 Most Powerful Questions Every 20-Something Should Ask Themselves Cover

The 5 Most Powerful Questions Every 20-Something Should Ask Themselves

Nik

It was a random moment. Not one you’d celebrate. Or even notice, for that matter.

I was walking along the sidewalk, like every day. Morning snack from the bakery in hand, headphones in my ear, Kygo playing on repeat.

Suddenly, I stopped dead in my tracks.

*Ping!*

The insight hit me like a stun grenade. I actually had to step aside, into a little alleyway, so people could pass me by.

“You will never figure out life. There will never be an end to all the questions. You’ll just get better at dealing with them and learn to do it faster.”

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Are Your 20s Really the Best Years of Your Life?

Nik

Here’s a picture of me when I was 16:

That year, I went to England. All by myself, in a foreign country, for the first time ever away from home. I spent two weeks in a language school, parts of which looked like Hogwarts.

It was the year the last Harry Potter book came out. The camp supervisors took a couple of kids into London to get their copies on release day. I missed it. One day later, one of the guides brought me one. I read it in 3 days.

It was the best year of my life.

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What Does Optimistic Mean? Header

Optimism: Definition, Explanation & The Ultimate Guide to Go From Being a Pessimist to Becoming an Optimist

Nik

Right this second, someone is recording a Youtube video, grinning from ear to ear, trying to sell you on the idea that if you’re not happy, there’s something wrong with you. Even worse, there’s probably also someone writing an article claiming they can show you how to fix it in seven easy steps.

First off, there is nothing wrong with you. If you don’t want to run around the streets naked right now or aren’t at the verge of a positivity-induced ecstatic breakdown, that’s just fine. What’s not fine is that there is a massive storm of fake happiness going on out there, and it leads to the kind of bad advice and “just be happy” bullying I just mentioned.

Today, you and I will identify, criticize, and debunk fake happiness. You will learn why people confuse happiness and something else, namely optimism. You will understand the true meaning and definition of optimism.

We will also learn how science defines optimism, which traits make a person optimistic, and how you can develop those traits in yourself, no matter whether you are an optimist or a pessimist right now. Let’s start by looking at 200 million pieces of terrible advice.

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Why You Don't Have the Life You Want Cover

Why You Don’t Have the Life You Want

Nik

Comfort.

In a world of Amazon, McDonalds, Netflix, Spotify, AirBnB, Uber and Tinder, nobody wants to do things the hard way.

Nobody’s willing to give up comfort now for greatness later. Everything in life has to be cheap, fast and easy.

Cheap, fast, easy.

Nothing worth having comes easy.

Nothing worth having comes fast.

Nothing worth having comes cheap.

  • If you’re not willing to walk, you’ll never run a marathon.
  • If you’re not willing to write, you’ll never publish a book.
  • If you’re not willing to sit on the floor, you’ll never have an office.
  • If you’re not willing to cook, you’ll never eat healthily.
  • If you’re not willing to get up, you’ll never make your dreams a reality.
  • If you’re not willing to go to the gym, you’ll never be fit.
  • If you’re not willing to turn off the TV, you’ll never read.
  • If you’re not willing to go on an actual date, you’ll never find love.
  • If you’re not willing to press publish, you’ll never know if you’re any good.
  • If you’re not willing to show yourself on camera, you’ll never become a Youtuber.
  • If you’re not willing to wear old shoes, you’ll never have new ones.
  • If you’re not willing to practice the piano, you’ll never give a concert.
  • If you’re not willing to save money, you’ll never have peace of mind.
  • If you’re not willing to travel, you’ll never go places.
  • If you’re not willing to invest, you’ll never be rich.
  • If you’re not willing to work, you’ll never make money the way you want to.

If you’re not willing to be uncomfortable, you’ll never have the life you want.

How To Make Sure You Never Find Your Passion In Life Cover

How To Make Sure You Never Find Your Passion In Life

Nik

Has anyone ever asked you for directions and you were too embarrassed to admit you don’t know? So much in fact, that you tried to tell them where to go regardless? Just to save your face?

“Uhhh, I think it’s that way.”

That’s what most career advice feels like these days. Nobody has a clue, so everyone goes with their best guess — which is everybody else’s best guess also.

Hence, we live in a world of depressed millennials, which is permeated by two ideas:

  1. Only once you find your passion can you become really good at what you do.
  2. This passion will magically carry you through years of hard work, because suddenly, every day will be fun.

If you’re fine with putting your life into the hands of chance, then you can stop reading right now.

Or, you can flip both of these ideas on their head.

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The No Game Cover

The No Game: How To Figure Out What You Want

Nik

Being 25 is hard. When you look at the big truths that roll around the quarter century mark, it becomes easy to see why ‘quarter-life crisis’ has become a thing: Your happy, careless, worry-free, post-teenage phase is definitely over at this point. You’ve already spent 90% of the time you’ll ever spent with your parents and closest family.

However, you still have the majority of your own life ahead of you…but no idea what to do with it.

The land of opportunity has never been this big. If you own a laptop with an internet connection, you have more production power than a 200-person company had in 1970. This power is so great that it paralyzes us.

Petrified by the paradox of choice, we can’t decide whether we want to become a freelance Facebook ad designer, surf novel writer, or start a cupcake business – because we know all of it is possible, we think we want each choice equally as much. Like Buridan’s donkey, we’re just as hungry as we are thirsty, stuck between hay and water.

Or are we?

You Don’t Really Want Everything Equally

In a candy store, everything looks good. Plus, it’s all right in front of you. The licorice is just as easy to grab as the chocolate.

When it comes to our careers, the candy store is an illusion. It’s a picture the media paint for us. All we see are the end results achieved by hard-working people — those who’ve survived and came out on top.

Everything seems easy to grab, but it’s not. We know that in theory, but until our brain computes this on an elementary level, let’s turn to a better indicator of what we want: Fear.

Picking in a candy store is hard. What’s easier? Telling the waiter to take back the pizza because he brought you mushrooms instead of pepperoni. “No!” That’s not what you wanted.

Fear often hinders us because it keeps us from doing things. In the case of choosing a career, however, we can use it to systematically eliminate what we don’t want and then work with the elements that are left.

Instead of running towards something we don’t know, we can run away from what terrifies us.

Introducing: The No Game

As I’m trying to figure out what I want for myself, I’ve recently started playing a game. I call it “The No Game.” The goal of the game is to ask yourself questions about what you want, shooting for a no each time. Start with all the things you’ve done before. Use this template:

Do I want to [insert an activity you’ve done before]?

Here are some examples:

Do I want to be a freelancer? No.
Do I want to be a consultant? Maybe sometimes, but not full-time.
Do I want to work at a big company? No.
Do I want to work at an SME? No.
Do I want to work 1-on-1 with people? Sometimes, but not always.

Answer honestly, and if you have some conditions or exceptions, include them. For example, I like to consult with people, but not all the time, so it’s nothing I’d want to do as my main gig.

After you’ve run through everything you have done, start thinking about the things you could potentially do but haven’t tried. Use this template:

Do I want to [insert an activity you haven’t done]?

Here are some more personal examples:

Do I want to give talks to large groups? No.
Do I want to have a Youtube channel? Not if I have to film it.
Do I want to build a company? No, unless I can hire all my friends.
Do I want people to remember me for just one thing? Not necessarily.
Do I want to be a celebrity? No.

If something doesn’t excite you when you fantasize about it, reality will only be an even bigger disappointment. Think about it: Your imagination knows no limits in designing the experience, yet you still don’t like the thought of, for example, being recognized by everyone on the street — that’s a good signal pursuing celebrity status isn’t for you.

After you’ve played the No Game for a while, you’ll slowly realize only certain criteria and elements are left. Those will be the attributes of a career you can imagine yourself living with for a long time. Then and only then can you switch to playing the Yes Game, where you ask similar questions but now shoot for “Yes” as your desired answer, thus moving in the right direction.

Here are some Yes Game examples from me:

Do I want to create things? Yes.
Do I want to document my journey? Yes.
Do I want to keep switching projects? Yes.
Do I want people to remember me? Yes, but probably only the people I care about.
Do I want to write? Yes.
Do I want to write books? Maybe, I don’t know yet.

How To Figure Out What You Want

I love wrapping up my posts with a conclusion and saying “go do that!”

Unfortunately, in this case, I can’t – because I don’t know where the No Game will ultimately lead to. I only know it helps, and it helps me more the longer I play it.

Looking at my answers, it seems I should try being a writer. But that’s the thing: Unless I put some candy in the bag, wield the power of my laptop, and commit to it, I won’t know. Maybe tomorrow, I’ll be comfortable enough to do that. Until then, I’ll keep playing the No Game.

Right now, all I know is this: For me, being a writer is not a “No.” Therefore, I’ll just keep writing, whatever the format. That feels like it’s worth something. Maybe it’s worth even more than a “Yes.”

Try the No Game. It won’t be the last word, but it can be a useful tool in figuring out what you want.

14 Good Habits You Should Instantly Pick Up From The Minions Cover

14 Good Habits You Should Instantly Pick Up From The Minions (Featuring Animated GIFs)

Nik

Minions is the third installment in the Despicable Me series.

If you haven’t seen or heard about the movie, you should. Because Minions is the 10th highest grossing movie of all time.

Do you know how hard it is for the third movie in a trilogy to outshine its predecessors?

It’s the reason why Avengers 2 is behind Avengers and why the first of the Hobbit movies was the most successful of them all.

So how do you go from not being on that list with the first movie, to spot number 26 with the second, to the top 10?

You double down on what works.

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