It’s one of the most asked questions in recent history. When you google “habits of successful people,” you get 3.6 million results, and it feels like they’re 3.6 million different ones.
I mean look at this:
7 habits here, 9 there, throw these 10 on top, here’s another 50, can’t forget those 12 and oh, here’s another 18, just to be safe.
Bullshit.
Read More
“The days are long, but the years are short.” — Gretchen Rubin
It’s that time of the year again. Tax day’s got you throwing your hands up in frustration, your New Year’s resolutions have long vaporized into thin air and you feel like your hold on 2017 is getting weaker and weaker.
I’m here to tell you: You still have time.
The year’s not even halfway over, and you’re already giving up? No. Not this time. You will make 2017 the best year of your life. Period.
The way you do that is by getting your grip back on some of the things we all need to succeed. For some, it takes longer than for others. That’s okay.
Because you will start today.
“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.”
— Dr. Seuss
It all starts an ends here. This is the alpha and the omega.
Sleep should neither be an annoying necessity, nor a desperate desertion of reality. It’s not a matter of how many hours you sleep, it’s about what you do in those you’re awake.
So figure out how much you need and then build a life you don’t want to escape from.
“Be careful about reading health books. Some fine day you’ll die of a misprint.”
— Markus Herz
We’re obsessed with looking fit and tanned and having all the latest gadgets, yet on most days, we sit more than we sleep. Don’t overcomplicate health.
An ancient Chinese saying goes: “Walk 100 steps after every meal and you’ll live to 99 years old.” Why not start there? It doesn’t always have to be 10,000 steps. Ten more than yesterday will do.
It’s okay to be a slow walker, as long as you don’t walk back.
“I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.”
— Mahatma Gandhi
Only a healthy body can carry a healthy mind. Walking a lot outside keeps you from pacing back and forth between worry and frustration on the inside. Most of the time, we’re the ones clouding our own thinking, by jumping from feelings to conclusions.
Step outside your stream of thought for once. Watch it pass by. Label your thoughts. Call out your emotions. Make two boxes: “useful” and “not useful.” Put them inside.
Organize your thoughts to clear away your inner clouds.
“Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.”
— Rudyard Kipling
Better thoughts lead to better words. What you say shapes who you are. In fact, how you experience the world is in large part defined by how you describe that experience.
Out of 3,000 words to label emotions in the English language, 66% are negative. In Awaken The Giant Within, Tony Robbins suggests playing down bad emotions and reinforcing good ones with unusual words.
Don’t just feel “fine.” Feel content, or blissful, or delighted, or serene, or amazed.
“Let thy food be thy medicine.”
— Hippocrates
What comes out of your mouth can only be as good as what you put in. We are what we eat, so let’s eat less of what we don’t want to be.
Whatever grows naturally where you are, usually comes cheap. Eating locally is the ultimate form of being all there wherever you go.
Drink water, wait minutes before you have seconds, delay the dessert and when you’re 80% full, tune in. Do you really need more?
“If you want to change the fruits, you will first have to change the roots.”
— T. Harv Eker
Imagine all your dollar bills as passengers on a bus. As it drives along, some get off at the rent stop, some at the grocery stop, some at the dry cleaners.
Did you just feel like watching from the back? Because the truth is you’re in the driver’s seat. You have been all along.
Especially if you don’t earn a lot of money, it’s really important to know how to use what you have. No matter how much you make, you can always take 10% of it to save or invest.
“Transferring your passion to your job is far easier than finding a job that happens to match your passion.”
— Seth Godin
In Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, Angela Duckworth shares the story of the three bricklayers:
When asked, “What are you doing?” the first bricklayer replied: “I’m laying bricks.” The second bricklayer answered: “I’m putting up a wall.” The third bricklayer responded, with pride in his voice: “I’m building a cathedral.”
The biggest barriers between a job, a career and a calling are made of perspective. No matter what you do, how you choose to do it is up to you.
Choose to be generous, kind and courageous.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
— Oscar Wilde
Part of doing a great job is giving whatever task at hand your undivided attention. A study by Microsoft found our average attention span to be just 8 seconds in 2013. A goldfish has 9. Technology is an enhancement to human performance, not a replacement.
Detached workers serve detached customers, which become detached parents to detached children.
“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Technology isn’t the only thing tugging at your attention. Do you own your stuff or does your stuff own you? When we’re possessed by our possessions, our brains are filled before we even begin our day.
Every item you own not only takes up physical, but also mental space. Pick up something you haven’t used in a year. Look at it. Be honest. Will you ever need it?
If the answer is no, deal it, donate it or ditch it.
“Half our time is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
— Will Rogers
A smaller garden requires less tending to. Things you don’t own don’t have to be maintained. Tasks you can delegate need no doing.
Spend your time doing things that will make other things easier. Use time to make time for what matters. It’s the only resource you get to spend just once, and we all have 24 hours each day.
If it won’t matter a week, a month or a year from now, is it really worth doing?
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
— Eleanor Roosevelt
The best thing you can do for the world and to anger your enemies is to be nothing like them. There might indeed be toxic people in your life, but they don’t come with an obligation to engage with them.
5 friends, 4 friends, 3 friends, 2 friends, they come and go. When you’re your own best friend, it doesn’t matter how much wind is beneath your wings.
Even when you’re all alone, you can still fly.
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
In The Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt determines where happiness comes from: making progress towards a goal, finding love, a lifestyle and location you like, spending time in flow and collecting memories, not things.
We confuse pleasure and happiness when in reality, it’s not about glass half full vs. glass half empty, but about what you choose to see when you look at the glass.
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow.”
— Dalai Lama
All of these are different variations of saying: one small step taken today is better than a large step left to be taken tomorrow.
The world truly is small. We all live in the same place and it’s called the present. All you have is today. The question that remains is:
Will you choose to make it matter?
I hope this makes you get to grips with how much of your grip you can get back. You have a lot more control than you think.
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Alfred Pennyworth is one of the most important supporting characters of all time. You might not even recognize him by his last name, because usually, he’s just referred to as Alfred.
Long-time butler to the Wayne family and surrogate parent to Bruce Wayne aka Batman, his wit and wisdom shine only in brief flashes throughout the comics and movies, but ever so brightly when they do.
One of my favorite moments in the entire franchise is sad, but powerful: Alfred leaves Wayne Manor, as he sees no other way to make Bruce realize he’s on the wrong path.
Read More
I’m doing it again. I can feel it. Like a toothpick, my thumbnail rests in the gap between two teeth. It’s the position it takes right before I bite it. When I catch myself, like right now, I can prevent it. But it’s always a battle.
Often, I’m okay with losing it, as long as it means I’m winning the war with the article I’m writing. After all, what ends up on your screen isn’t a picture of my fingernails, but a (hopefully) helpful blog post.
It wasn’t always a conscious decision though. For over ten years, I bit my fingernails, unaware of the habit. When I started learning about self-improvement in 2012, it was the first habit I made a conscious effort to break. This both required and helped me with one of the most important human capacities: self-awareness.
Today, I’d like to help you cultivate yours, with 27 self-awareness activities, which you can practice on three distinct levels to improve your thinking, mental health and decisions – and thus, your results in the game of life.
If you hate studying, if you feel like you can’t concentrate, if you’re tired of being average, I’d like to tell you one thing:
It’s okay. I used to be like you. You can change.
The one thing I now know that’s brought me from where you were to where I am now is why I study. And it’s made all the difference.
Here’s a timeline of my college history to illustrate.
Read MoreWhen you were 1 year old, you thought trying to touch everything you could get your tiny hands on was a good idea. Whatever would happen next, it sure would be amazing.
When you were 2 years old, you first learned to speak. You used that ability to be brutally honest. When you wanted mom, you said “Maaa!” and when you wanted dad you said “Dada!”
When you were 3 years old, you yelled in the grocery store that you wanted the cereal in the red box. And you didn’t give a damn what anyone walking by thought about it.
When you were 4 years old, you built the best Lego or Barbie house in the world. You were your own biggest fan, and you meant it.
Read More
If we get on the treadmill together, there are two options: You’re getting off first, or I’m going to die.
— Will Smith
But who are you running against? For most of your life, the person on the other treadmill is yourself.
Right now, the field might be crowded. Many people are ahead of you, and you can’t see who leads the pack. But once you start running faster than everyone else, you’ll soon be the only one left in the race.
Very few people have an outstanding work ethic. That’s what makes them outstanding. But it also means it’ll get lonely.
You don’t want what your friends want. You want what you want. So you shouldn’t care about winning against them.
Your true competitor is also your greatest fan.
Look at Will Smith again. He could’ve long stopped running. There’s no one for him to beat any more. As of 2016, his movies have grossed $7.5 billion at the global box office.
Why does a guy like that turn around and go straight to making more films?
When people like Will Smith glance at the other treadmill, they see a different version of themselves. One that’s not as good, as generous, as humble, as disciplined, as honest or as dedicated as they are.
That’s who they’re running against. Running from. Before long, you’ll be running against yourself too. You’ll have to, in order to keep going.
When you get there, I hope you’ll do what Will Smith does: keep running anyway.
In September 2014 I did an exercise that helped me figure out what I could win at in life.
It was one of the steps in Tai Lopez’s 67 Steps program, and is a good exercise in self-awareness, I think. He called it your Eulerian Destiny, because it’s based on a Euler diagram.
Read MoreWhich one is it? Writing. Whoa, hold your horses! Before you say: “That’s not a tiny habit!” hear me out. I’m not talking about pages here. Not even paragraphs.
I’m talking about a 1-sentence journal.
Read MoreIn 430 BC, the second year of the Peloponnesian War, Greek general Pericles led a fleet of over 100 ships towards the enemy island.
As they were charging ahead at full speed, suddenly, a solar eclipse cast the entire fleet into darkness.
Unaware of the scientific nature of this unexpected and shocking event, panic befell the soldiers and sailors. But not Pericles.
Read More