LIVE YOUR LIFE FOR YOURSELF

“Everything I ever do blows up in my face.”

He is slumped forward in his chair, avoiding eye contact and fidgeting with his hands.

“Everyone told me to get a car. ‘It will help’ they said. I didn’t need it, I lost everything I had worked for in eight months.”

“People told me to go to school, they said it would help. Now I’ve wasted four years and I’m in debt.”

I didn’t really know what to say to him. Most lessons we encounter in life are only remembered because they leave scars.

That day, he peeled back the scar tissue and showed me the painful lesson he had learned.

Don’t life your life according to someone else’s curriculum.

I recently quit my job. The place I work at was infamous for trapping people and keeping them forever.

I had been there seven years, I was making better money than I would elsewhere but it no longer felt right to me.

It was a toxic environment that was chipping away at my mental stability.

I was due for a raise and I figured that the extra money would make it more bearable. That I would be able to stand it if I just made a little more.

But the raise came and went, and I was still coming home feeling drained and depressed.

So I quit.

People warned me that I would not make as much anywhere else.

They poked and prodded me to find out what my plans were so that they could talk about me behind my back.

“He wants to go to Spain and travel for a year, he won’t be able to afford that.”

“This 2HelpfulGuys thing isn’t going to go anywhere. He should have just stayed here and saved.”

Living to appease those around you will never lead to happiness.

Our whole lives we are told what we should do.

People tell you that you should go to school, get a job, find a spouse, mortgage a house, raise a family.

I didn’t want to go down this path and I can feel how uncomfortable it makes people around me.

As soon as I tell people about my dreams, writing books, public speaking, motivating people, starting businesses, they immediately warn me of the inevitable outcomes.

“You only have a 1% chance to make it. What about retirement? Where is the job security?”

Whenever people tell you what you can or can’t do, remember that it is just a reflection of their own limitations.

These people never chased their dreams.

They left them to die somewhere in the past.

In a classroom where the teacher said they couldn’t make it. Or in their living room where there parents told them that they would amount to nothing without a degree and stable job.

I know too many people with degrees they will never use, material objects that bring them no joy and lives that leave them unfulfilled.

All so that people will say “Oh, that’s good for you.” When asked what they have been up to.

I have no idea where my future will take me.

What I do know is that as long as I am following what I believe is my purpose in life, I’ll be happy.

I know people don’t believe in me when I tell them my goals, but I don’t need their approval.

The only approval I need is from the man in the mirror. When I am home alone, contemplating my life, everyone else in the world may as well not exist.

They will come and go like seasons in my life. The only opinion that matters is the one staring back from the glass.
And right now he is thinking “You’re doing the right thing, you’ve got this.”

Replace your Should with a Could

They say you should be yourself.

I’m not sure who they are but I’m starting to think that they are on to something.

Every time you act like someone you aren’t or do something you don’t want to just to appease someone, you get a little bit further away from who you are.

Fear

Everyone agrees that you should be yourself. There are thousands of quotes and motivational pictures depicting this. No one would ever tell you “Be more like someone else.”

So why is it people still spend so much of their time doing things they don’t want to, and traveling down a path that isn’t right for them?

It’s because of fear. They are afraid that what they want in their heart won’t work out.

Afraid that if they take the leap there won’t be anything there to catch them.

They let fear push them into a corner.

Should

I hate that word. I encourage you to throw it out of your vocabulary.

Whenever you are using this word it’s because you’re thinking about something that you don’t want to do, but for some reason feel like you have to.

I should go to university. I should get a normal job. I should settle down.

This word is a virus that you have because you’ve been surrounded by it your whole life. You parents, teachers, peers and society have all instilled their own “shoulds” into you.

After writing that word so many times it looks alien to me. I hope it looks alien to you as well.

Every time this word appears in your life I want you to think very carefully about how it got there and if you really need it.

Could

I would encourage you instead to replace all of your shoulds with coulds.

Could is a word that I can get behind. It allows you to imagine possibilities.

When you are thinking of a could, you are allowing yourself to believe in something that you want.

I could start that business I’ve been thinking about. I could talk to that cute cashier. I could travel around Europe.

It’s a much more useful word.

Rid yourself of the shoulds and start thinking in coulds.

You’ll explore more of who you are and less of who other people want you to be.

Ten Commandments Of Learning

I’ve tried a few things in my lifetime. Some of them I have been good at, and others have caused me to fall flat on my face like Bambi.

I’ve learned how to play the drums, how to do door to door sales, speak/act on a public stage, create YouTube videos, work out, and the list goes on.

I’ve always enjoyed learning new things and throughout the years I started to realize that any venture you plan on undertaking will have certain universal truths that can help you be successful.
And save you a LOT of time.

I could write an article on each of these, but I want to give you something comprehensive.

Without further ado, here are my “Ten Commandments of Learning.”

1) Be Passionate

No matter what you are going to try, you have to have passion.
It has to invigorate you.

If your venture doesn’t excite you then at some point you are going to lose interest and motivation. You don’t want to get into something that you will eventually drop and forget about.

If the thought of sewing doesn’t excite you, pick something else. This should be common sense but you would be surprised how many people do things with a lack of passion.

Maybe they want to impress other people or they think it’s something they should learn.

Don’t do something for any other reason than fulfilling a passion. Otherwise the results will be lack luster and you will waste your time.

2) Learn From The Professionals

We are lucky to live in the internet age. There are thousands of qualified people giving out free information at every turn.

Instead of just jumping in head first without knowing anything, take a little bit of time to research some people that have already succeeded in your venture and allow them to be digital mentors.

If you have a credible professional closer to you then great, learn in person. Unfortunately most people won’t have that luxury.

You can find hundreds of YouTube videos, blogs, magazines and podcasts on any topic.

This will save you a lot of time spent learning things the hard way. These people have already learned things the hard way, use them as a resource.

Get a digital mentor, or ten, and get cracking.

3) Start Small (*ere ere* Break it down now)
My impression of DJ scratching.

I can not stress how important this one is. Learn the absolute basics first, master them, and then move on to the next stages.

When I was teaching people how to do door to door sales I would focus on one thing at a time. Usually I would start with body language or voice projection.

I wouldn’t even worry about the pitch, closing a sale, or any fine details for a while.

Before any of that, they had to learn the basics.

When you learn an instrument you don’t start off playing Mozart. You don’t even learn a song right away.

First, you start by learning how to hold it, how to play scales and how to take care of it.

Learn what the basics are and then master them.

4) Fall Into A Phase

If you want to learn something effectively you have to immerse yourself in it. Willingly accept that this is something you love and for a time it will take up a lot of your attention.

People might become annoyed when they notice that you talk about this venture a lot and you relate everything back to it, but this will help integrate it into your very being.

I learn everything by going into phases. Right now I am in a positive thinking and willpower phase. I watch YouTube videos about it, listen to audio books, meditate, do positive affirmations and a whole list of other things.

When you go into a phase you may partially neglect other parts of your life and that’s fine because right now you are focusing on something important to you.

You also have to realize that this venture won’t be your main focus for your whole life, but after it is over the lessons you learned will be integrated into you and will help you in any other endeavors.

Allow yourself to fall into a phase and you will learn ten times faster.

5) Dedicate An Allotted Daily Time to Practice

So you have allowed yourself to fall down the rabbit hole and you are deep in a phase.

You spend time learning about your venture, and immersing yourself in your venture, but you must ensure you practice it.

All the theory in the world isn’t worth anything if you never practice and you need to set aside a daily time slot to do so.
It has to be everyday, non-negotiable.

It can be an hour, or ten minutes. If you think you don’t have enough time to practice, then make the time.

Wake up a half hour earlier and do it then, before the birds are chirping and the world is breathing down your neck.

This goes hand in hand with being in a phase because you might not be able to do this for your whole life.

But right now, you need to do it. Get it done everyday, no excuses.

6) Connect With Others On The Same Path

I am a firm believer that you can’t do everything on your own.

You will run into other people while you are venturing down your path. Use their help.

Ask them for advice, get them to practice with you, have discussions with them, and allow them to be a part of your immersion process.

You can find these people on forums, in YouTube comments, or in everyday life.

If you surround yourself with people that have the same interest you will always have a second perspective and a motivator.

7) Allow Yourself To Fail

I’ll let you in on a little secret.

Anything you have ever done, you have failed at. From speaking, to walking, to brushing your teeth, and everything in between.

The first thirty times you tried walking you literally fell flat on your ass.

So why do we associate failure with embarrassment when we are older?

I guarantee that if you fail at anything one hundred times, you will be better at it than ninety percent of people.

You will learn a bit about yourself, and your craft, every time you fail.

The difference between the master and the beginner is that the master has failed more times than the beginner has ever tried.

8) Teach Another Person

This is the part of the puzzle that most people never fit in. In order to truly internalize a skill you need to teach it.

This will force you to look at the learning experience from every angle and examine your craft down to the smallest details so that you can answer any question.

When you teach someone else something that you have learned, they will experience obstacles that you may not have experienced. You will learn from their failures just as you learned from yours.

Not to mention that you will be helping someone and making the world better.
Each one teach one.

9) Keep It In Your Thoughts

Before you go to bed and night and when you wake up in the morning make sure your venture is on your mind.

Imagine yourself at the end of your journey, a master of new skills, a more resilient version of yourself.

Remind yourself why you started, and why you will persevere through any obstacles.

I like to do this by having daily affirmations. Before I lay in bed at night and before I get up in the morning I repeat a chosen phrase to myself. I close my eyes and visualize my goal as if I am already there.

The mind is a powerful thing and whatever you focus on the most is what will come to fruition in your life.
Make sure it is your goal.

10) Be Humble

Never assume that you know more than anyone else. Take criticism gracefully.

Take the positive out of everything that you can and leave the negative behind.

You must always view yourself as a student, learning as much as you can from all sources.

It is essential that you remain humble and open, otherwise you will not be in the state required for optimal learning. If you are closed minded and arrogant you won’t grow.

These are my ten commandments for learning.

I live by them every day. They will give you the foundation to build your dreams on.

Learning something new is always scary, but if you remember that the commandments are always the same you will feel as though you are walking a familiar path.
It’s a beautiful stroll, isn’t it?

Stop Comparing Yourself To Others

I have been writing in a journal before bed at night. I don’t write any deep or emotional thoughts, I just write what I did that day. Plain and simple.

I went back and looked at a couple of my first entries into this journal and I noticed something.

In the first pages of my journal I talk about having difficulty with new habits I am trying to create. How I find it hard waking up early and sometimes I miss the gym.

I had completely forgotten about my progress through this period.

Before I revisited these journal entries I was going through a phase where I felt like I wasn’t making any headway in life. I felt like I was on a treadmill going nowhere.

I was constantly comparing myself to everyone around me, thinking that I wasn’t doing enough.

By taking a journey through my thoughts from months ago, I realized that I had improved in nearly every area of my life.

Comparing myself today against myself a short time ago was like night and day.
It gave me confidence.

Don’t compare yourself to other people.

When you look at someone else your instinct is to pick out every one of their good qualities that you lack, and weigh them against yourself.

The problem is that the things that make you amazing, probably aren’t the same for that person. You might be jealous of their girlfriend, but do they have friends and family as amazing as yours?

The things that make you unique can’t always be measured and compared against another person properly.

Outlines vs. Details.

Another major problem with comparing yourself to other people is that you only see an outline of that person.

When you look at yourself, you know every single painstaking detail backwards and forwards. You know every blemish on your body, every negative personality trait.

Looking at people as they walk past, you might assume that their life is great but you don’t know what they go home to. You don’t know what goes on inside their head.

You are building the image of the people around you up so much higher than yourself, when in reality they have struggles and hardships just the same as you.

Like it or not, you are who you are.

The only thing you can do is be better than the person you were yesterday. If you can do that then you should be proud of yourself.

Comparing yourself to other people will distract you from your own journey.

Horses wear blinders during races so that they can stay focused on the carrot without being distracted by the other horses.

Put up your blinders and go after your own carrot with all your might.

How to be happy

I think I have it figured out.

And by “it” I mean happiness. I find that most of my negative emotions come from two situations.

The first is when I am thinking about mistakes I have made in the past. The second is when I am feeling anxious about a bleak future. I call this time traveling, it is a really bad habit.

I think this could be said for most people. Some people may lean more towards the former, others toward the latter, but I think we all dwell a little too much in each of these mindsets.

So how do you avoid these traps?
First I will start with thinking about the past.

There is absolutely nothing you can do to change the past, period.

Oh, gosh. That sounds horrible right?
Wrong.

You may not be able to change the past, but you can change the way you think about it. The only way to make sure that your past mistakes and bad experiences were not in vain is to learn from them.

You didn’t know the stove was hot until you touched it, right? Even if you parents told you not to touch it you have to learn some lessons yourself. But as long as you didn’t touch the stove after that instance you can say that it was a “good experience”.

Believe me, you can learn from even the most horrible mistakes or experiences.

Look at that. Now all the terrible things that you have experienced in the past are the reason you are stronger, wiser and more complete as a person.

Use them as the launching pad to your future.
Which brings me to my next point.

All of your predictions for the future are WRONG.

When I was seven years old I was diagnosed with a blood disorder called I.T.P. and it was a very scary time in my life.

I was told there were two types of this disorder, acute and chronic. In children it was usually just an acute case and it would go away within six months. If it lasted more than six months, you were considered chronic.

I passed the six month mark with no end in sight.

I thought I was going to die. I honestly remember being eight years old and already having to come to terms with my own possible fate.

When I was diagnosed there wasn’t very much known about the subject.
Maybe I was over-reacting, but I was a kid.

I had this disorder from when I was seven until about the age of fifteen. There were a lot of close calls, a lot of lonely nights in the hospital, and a lot of emotions I still don’t think I have fully dealt with.

I could go so much deeper into this subject, but I will leave it at this for now.

I am still alive and I now consider I.T.P. to be one of the greatest blessings I have ever experienced. I learned so much through it and it greatly shaped who I have become.

No matter where you think you will end up you have to realize that you are completely wrong. No one can predict the future, though I know you are going to do it anyway.

If you are wrong, and you are going to imagine a future anyway, why not imagine a positive one?

Happiness is more about where you are going, and less about where you are.

“Pain pushes until vision pulls”
-Michael Beckwith

Let your vision of the future be as unrealistically amazing as possible.

When you think negatively about the future, it drains you. It takes away from your mental energy. It steals your motivation. This in turn causes you to head towards that negative future which you were worried about in the first place.
It is a self fulfilling prophecy.

The same can be said about thinking positively towards the future. When you imagine a bright future you become happy. When you are happy you are more motivated, you have more energy, and you are more willing to reach for those crazy goals.

The cool thing about this is when you feel this way you start taking little steps in the right direction. With each little step you start to realize “maybe my goals aren’t so crazy after all?”.

Your positivity will start to snowball. Who knows what could happen from there?
Maybe you could be happy.