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This rule is the primary rule of gun safety; if it is never pointed at anyone, it can’t hit them, no matter if all other rules are broken. If you’re on a gun range, a safe direction is downrange, and either up, or down, or both, depending on the range’s rules. If you’re carrying a rifle or a pistol around, it’s the same; down or up.
Your odds of success increase if you stop abusing yourself.
So what’s self-abuse? It’s whenever you insult, bully, judge, punish, or even overly-push yourself. Where, if you were to treat someone else the way you treat YOU, most people would think you’re being an asshole – that’s self-abuse.
Life is unfair. We all face challenges, setbacks, and difficulties that are out of our control. While we cannot control everything that happens to us, we can control how we respond. Adopting a victim mentality where we blame others or circumstances for our problems is disempowering and prevents us from taking responsibility for our lives.
The victim mentally leads us to see ourselves as powerless. We view life through a lens of “poor me” thinking. We may justify our challenges as being someone else’s fault and wait for others to swoop in and fix our problems. But this traps us in a cycle of negativity and prevents us from recognizing our own agency.
You’re not just going to wake up as a productive supersoldier.
You have to start implementing seemingly small changes today, and building on them every day or every week.
Our bodies and minds don’t like dramatic change of any kind, so you need to take small steps in the right direction.
Get up 15 minutes earlier than usual, not 3 hours.
The first and most important rule of life, is to have some rules and principles by which you operate from and live by.
Your success, happiness and level of fulfillment will be dictated to you by the rules you have for yourself and the standard you set and accept for yourself.
If you want to thrive, if you want to blossom into the most beautiful and magnificent and powerful version of yourself then you need to develop your very own “modus operandi” – the way in which you operate, conduct yourself and perform.
(photo: @tcrawlers)
Regardless of where you live, how many resources you have access to, or which talents you possess, you have 24 hours in a day–just like everybody else. We lead busy lives and use our limited time as an excuse to procrastinate and avoid getting things done, but often claiming we don’t have time is a lie. It’s a lie we tell others and ourselves. It helps us believe we’ll never get anything done, and this is a problem. Fortunately, the solution might be as simple as changing your language
Wall Street Journal writer Laura Vanderkam explains:
Instead of saying “I don’t have time” try saying “it’s not a priority,” and see how that feels. Often, that’s a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don’t want to. But other things are harder. Try it: “I’m not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it’s not a priority.” “I don’t go to the doctor because my health is not a priority.” If these phrases don’t sit well, that’s the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don’t like how we’re spending an hour, we can choose differently.
It’s a simple idea, and a great one. Our language is often used to provide a polite answer when the truth might be hard to hear. Sometimes we even subject ourselves to more polite language and end up in situations like this one. How you use your time is very important. It’s a limited resource and shouldn’t be wasted. Don’t risk putting it to poor use by failing to be honest with yourself and others about your priorities in life. Alter your language and you may just discover what’s most important.
One of the oldest rules of personal finance is the simple admonition to pay yourself first. All the money books tell you to do it. All the personal finance blogs say it, too. Even your parents have given you the same advice.
But it’s hard. That money could be used someplace else. You could pay the phone bill, could pay down debt, could buy a new DVD player. You’ve tried once or twice in the past, but it’s so easy to forget. You don’t keep a budget, so when payday rolls around, the money just finds its way elsewhere.
And besides: What does “pay yourself first” even mean?
There’s a difference between what we say and what we do. It’s called reality.
We say a lot of things:
(photo: @ohutcherson)
If you’ve ever drank the Kool-Aid of one of those ” How to get ridiculously rich and passively become a millionaire in thirty days with no money down by working 4 hours per week from your kitchen table in your bathrobe” best sellers, or promotions you see every other person on facebook peddling these days…chances are you are in worse financial shape now then when you started.
I see people posting income claims from offers that would fall into this category on social media daily.
If you’re not happy now, there’s no amount of followers, positive social media comments, or Instagram likes that will change that. External validation isn’t happiness – it’s a hamster wheel. Validation is an inside job. The most convincing sign that someone is truly living their “best life”, is their lack of desire to show the world that they’re living their best life. Your “best life” won’t seek external validation, but insecurity continually will.
